Best places to buy cfl's

gsspike

Well-Known Member
Where are the best places to buy CFL lights and fixtures on line?
 
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slamminsalmon

Well-Known Member
are there plug in sockets i can buy anywhere? i dont want to hard wire if i can help it. or butcher some old lamps?

at that website how do you tell which is blue and which is red?
 

SlowGrow.

Active Member
-dude if you go to wal-mart, you can buy sockets alone with wire leads on them. Then you buy a "lamp replacement cord" Attach the two and you have a light rig.
 

sgr42o

Well-Known Member
Home Depot and Target both carry 42watt 2700K CFL's for flowering here. ($8 each here) I can only find 26watt 6500K lights locally but they still seem to get the job done and walmart sells six packs for $13. If you're paranoid like I am about cashiers eyeing you out check out Home Depot. Most of them have self checkouts and you bag your own stuff. Use cash and no one will even see what you're buying. ;)

Walmart carries Y adapters and light bulb screw ins that plug directly in an extension cord for about 75 cents each.
 
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gsspike

Well-Known Member
Home Depot and Target both carry 42watt 2700K CFL's for flowering here. ($8 each here) I can only find 26watt 6500K lights locally but they still seem to get the job done and walmart sells six packs for $13. If you're paranoid like I am about cashiers eyeing you out check out Home Depot. Most of them have self checkouts and you bag your own stuff. Use cash and no one will even see what you're buying. ;)

Walmart carries Y adapters and light bulb screw ins that plug directly in an extension cord for about 75 cents each.
None of those stores near me carry any thing close to 42 watts.

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sgr42o

Well-Known Member
None of those stores near me carry any thing close to 42 watts.

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That sucks man. Just a heads up though, sometimes they can be really hard to find. The Home Depot here sells them but you've got to really search for them. They aren't located by the normal CFL's. Instead they are by the 3-way bulbs. The 3-way CFL's even have an identical package so it was pretty much luck on my part when I spotted them.
 

tokinguybri

Active Member
I went to walmart and bought four parabolic reflectors with 15' cords for like $7 a piece, then went to businesslights.com and bought four TCP 42W 6500K Medium Base T2 SpringLamp, which are rated for 2800 initial lumens and cost just under $12 per bulb, plus the shipping was about $10 for 4 bulbs, just under $60 for 4 bulbs, and under $40 for the relectors at walmart, so just over 10,000 lumens for $100. With these, I also use two 2 bulb T8 2X32w 4ft 6500K Shop lights I bought at walmart. These bulbs are 2700 Lumens a piece, and theres 4 bulbs, so thats another 10,000 Lumen. These were about $55 total for 2 fixtures and 4 bulbs... So, thats around $155 for over 20,000 lumens. I've found that these are supporting my twelve plants nicely in veg in a 4X3 area. I have them about 1-1.5 feet away from the plants and they are not lifting or stretching at all. I have the 2 T-8 fixtures right over the tops of the plants and the 4 CFL's point in on the outer leaves from the sides. I will say this: T8's for price/performance/efficency are pretty damn good. They are half the lumens and half the wattage of t5's but, a quarter of the price, and half the price of good CFL's. They are more efficent than the CFL's; 42w CFL = 2800 lumen / 32w t8 4ft = 2700 lumen. And, the CFL's are much warmer than the t8 tubes. I can touch those t8 tubes all day and never get burned, but the CFL bulbs are too hot to touch, and definitely create more heat in a small space, but still not as much as MH or HPS. The bases on my parabolic reflectors are the cheap plastic type, and they don't even get warm at all. Just the CFL bulb itself gets very hot. But, like I say, the advantage of the CFL's is being able to focus and direct your light where it is needed.


Heres the link for the CFL's: http://www.businesslights.com/tcp-42w-6500k-medium-base-t2-springlamp-p-1579.html

They have them in all spectrum, although I would not use them for budding, gets yourself at least a 400W HPS.
 
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gsspike

Well-Known Member
Wiring it up isn't a problem, finding a high wattage bulb locally is. I don't want 12 lights to do what 6 can do. I'm only going for 2-4 plants.
 

gsspike

Well-Known Member
Well I decided to follow the "MORE BUDS FOR LESS" method and go with CFL's.
I put my first 6 seeds in cubes today.
Got the Reflectors at Walmart. Checked 3 stores and could only find 42 watt CFL's at the low (red) end of the spetrum. I picked up one and ordered the rest from 1000bulbs.com
 

tokinguybri

Active Member
One thing to be sure of too, the reflectors from walmart use the medium base screw in connector, if they are like the $6-$7 ones. Make sure the bulbs you order are medium base and not mogul base.
 

gsspike

Well-Known Member
One thing to be sure of too, the reflectors from walmart use the medium base screw in connector, if they are like the $6-$7 ones. Make sure the bulbs you order are medium base and not mogul base.
I went all out and got the $9.00 one. LOL
 

itsgrowinglikeaweed

Well-Known Member
Wal-mart is very, very bad and should not be supported. I'm just sayin....
Besides, the Question was where to buy lights ONLINE, which makes Wal-mart an even more stupid answer.
 

gsspike

Well-Known Member
That sucks man. Just a heads up though, sometimes they can be really hard to find. The Home Depot here sells them but you've got to really search for them. They aren't located by the normal CFL's. Instead they are by the 3-way bulbs. The 3-way CFL's even have an identical package so it was pretty much luck on my part when I spotted them.
Your right that is where they are but they are only soft white 2700k-3000k. So I only got one and ordered the rest on line, 6500k.
 

tokinguybri

Active Member
Wal-mart is very, very bad and should not be supported. I'm just sayin....
Besides, the Question was where to buy lights ONLINE, which makes Wal-mart an even more stupid answer.

I hate walmart too. For a hundred reasons. I also know probably 50 people that say how much they hate it. But we all shop there. Mainly because it's close and it's cheap, and there are very few small local business' left because they cannot compete... So anyway... like I said in my original post, and like gsspike ended up doing; We bought the reflectors and bases at walmart and ordered the proper bulbs online.

Sorry if that's off topic, but that guy called my answer stupid and got me started on SprawlMart.
 
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