Hi i'm on my first grow and i'm making a lighting rig with 40 23w cfl bulbs to reach 45000 lm for a 1mx1m area but i'm a little worried about the heat output of the cfls especially considering they have to be closer to the plants than HID lamps. Do you guys think i'll need a heat shield glass panel or i'm gonna be fine without one? thx
Cfl lighting and heat
- Thread starter squired
- Start date
ak47caretaker
Active Member
where do you get the 45000?
Blaze Master
Well-Known Member
with the amount of cfls your using and the $ involved why not just buy a hps instead?
) is cheaper this way...the cost for the cfl system is about half than that of a hps system. Plus i can get a lot of cfl bulbs for free 
Blaze Master
Well-Known Member
as long as you have good ventilation you will be fine
Blaze Master
Well-Known Member
just run the whole setup before you put plants in and see how the temps are
SlimJim503
Well-Known Member
Blow enough air over your CFLS and they stay cool to the touch rig some 120mm pc fans to blow on the CFLS a box fan angled slighty up to blow in the grow and blow heat up and not on your plants. Give us your specs and a pic would help.
pistolpanda
Active Member
Squired, CFLs put out 60-70 lumens per watt. Forty 23w putting out an average of 65 lumens per watt comes out to 59,800 lumens. You should be fine with one exhaust fan, but for cooling on the lights, you may want more than two oscillating fans. With forty CFLs, the heat will be pretty high. I would suggest using T5 Fluorescents instead. I don't know if they're financially applicable in your country, but they may be more-so than HID variant lights. How do you plan to power all of these CFLs?
pistolpanda
Active Member
I did, I'm half asleep, it's been a long day working on my little stealth grow and I'm a bit derpy lol.