CFL Question

I am currently working on my next grow. Going indoors for the winter. It will be a cfl project. I'm going to get at least 10 of 42w for flowering, and was just wondering what are the best cfl's to use for vegging? Any and all comments and opinions welcome.

CFL blue for vegging and CFL reds for flowering.

Which ones are which though, is what I don't fully understand

How do I tell the diff?

Check the color temp...

"Warm white" or "Soft white" (2700 K - 3000 K)
"White", "Bright White", or "Medium White" (3500 K)
"Cool white" (4100 K)
"Daylight" (5000 K - 6500 K)

"Daylight" for vegging and "Warm White"/"Soft White" for flowering.

Wow at least 10 42 watters. I'm sure you know a small hid would be more powerful for the same watts. Anyways you may want to mix the color spectrum up. Something like 4 blues for veg then add 6 reds as the plants get larger.

you can get 105watt, 5000k pretty cheap and would work better, a lot better, same for 2700k or 85watt and down, check out "buylighting.com" kick ass site for cfl's

Why not just spend the $150 and get the 400watt mh/hps combo on ebay?

You're going to spend way more than that doing a 10 bulb CFL setup.

Mr. Bud said:

Why not just spend the $150 and get the 400watt mh/hps combo on ebay?

You're going to spend way more than that doing a 10 bulb CFL setup.

Click to expand...

$150/10 = $15

CFLs are not $15 a piece.

I've found CFLs are more like $2.50 a piece.

As for mounting, you can get a bathroom vanity lighting strip setup for < $10

You can also place CFLs around the sides of the plant, instead of just the one light hanging above.

That's why I went with CFLs anyways. I'm having trouble finding cool whites myself though. I got some GE 3packs at walmart, but I guess they are warm white, according to a PDF I found on GE's website. 1750 lumens for ~$2.50 is fine by me though. I need to find their cool white version, my walmart was out of stock of the 26watters. (The cool white versions are in a blue packaging and say Cool White on the front. Green packing = warm white)..

Here is the PDF from GE's website that shows color temperature and lumens. [SIZE=-1]genet.gelighting.com/LightProducts/images/t04/0000000/r00016v-1.pdf
(match up the product number on the packaging with the grid in the pdf)

Remember, lower color temperature = more red.


edit: This lighting chart makes me see why people suggest HPS for flowering
[/SIZE]

Actually i couldnt find any other spectrum so i went with cool whites for all stages my plants look good.

blue envirolites for veg & red envirolites for flowering. all the hydro shops sell them just ask.

fooman said:

$150/10 = $15

CFLs are not $15 a piece.

I've found CFLs are more like $2.50 a piece.

As for mounting, you can get a bathroom vanity lighting strip setup for < $10

You can also place CFLs around the sides of the plant, instead of just the one light hanging above.

That's why I went with CFLs anyways. I'm having trouble finding cool whites myself though. I got some GE 3packs at walmart, but I guess they are warm white, according to a PDF I found on GE's website. 1750 lumens for ~$2.50 is fine by me though. I need to find their cool white version, my walmart was out of stock of the 26watters. (The cool white versions are in a blue packaging and say Cool White on the front. Green packing = warm white)..

Click to expand...

I based it on 42 watt CFLs.

They are roughly $6-8 bucks. (They just got 65watt CFLs in at the local home depot for like $16 bucks each)


Figure 6 bucks a bulb =

10 x 6 = 60 for cool/veg
10 x 6 = 60 for warm/flower

= 120 + roughly lets say 20 bucks for all the mounting....


$140 bucks roughly

42w CFLs put down something like 2700 lumens

Grand total of 27k lumens

vs.

HPS 400watt @ 55k lumens



Throw another 20-40 bucks onto the total price of the CFL's and booya MH/HPS light.

a dub of schwag costs $20 bucks. quarter is $40.

It's an investment that will make up for itself from the first harvest.

You don't need to go huge or crazy. but atleast do it right for the level you're going to grow. You'll probably end up picking up a HPS down the road anyways.

Mr. Bud said:

I based it on 42 watt CFLs.

They are roughly $6-8 bucks. (They just got 65watt CFLs in at the local home depot for like $16 bucks each)


Figure 6 bucks a bulb =

10 x 6 = 60 for cool/veg
10 x 6 = 60 for warm/flower

= 120 + roughly lets say 20 bucks for all the mounting....


$140 bucks roughly

42w CFLs put down something like 2700 lumens

Grand total of 27k lumens

vs.

HPS 400watt @ 55k lumens



Throw another 20-40 bucks onto the total price of the CFL's and booya MH/HPS light.

a dub of schwag costs $20 bucks. quarter is $40.

It's an investment that will make up for itself from the first harvest.

You don't need to go huge or crazy. but atleast do it right for the level you're going to grow. You'll probably end up picking up a HPS down the road anyways.

Click to expand...

This guy right here knows whats up, I vote for just getting a 400w MH/HPS setup

I do plan on supplementing with HPS during flowering. Thanx for all the comments guys and girls.

The cheapest I have ever seen 42 watt CFL (150 incandescent equivekant) is 4.97 at home depot... this was a special last year when PG&E was subsidizing the bulbs...

NOw the cheapest is about 8-10 dollars... I have never seen a 2.50 - 42 watt cfl..

here, you can see and learn how to use 8 - 42 watt cfls that grow 8 ounces of chronic...
How to grow marijuana - See More Buds - video DVD reviews

iloveyou

Garden Knowm said:

The cheapest I have ever seen 42 watt CFL (150 incandescent equivekant) is 4.97 at home depot... this was a special last year when PG&E was subsidizing the bulbs...

NOw the cheapest is about 8-10 dollars... I have never seen a 2.50 - 42 watt cfl..

here, you can see and learn how to use 8 - 42 watt cfls that grow 8 ounces of chronic...
How to grow marijuana - See More Buds - video DVD reviews

iloveyou

Click to expand...

So that'd still be $100+ for bulbs if they were 5 bucks each.

There are other costs require to do such a CFL setup that I didn't include such as mounting/sockets/wire/etc that would also add up to roughly an additional $50 bucks.


That link is just an order form for a book that claims 8 oz on 8 - 42 watt CFLs...

yeah, okay.

I'll just stick with HPS.

Mr. Bud said:

So that'd still be $100+ for bulbs if they were 5 bucks each.

There are other costs require to do such a CFL setup that I didn't include such as mounting/sockets/wire/etc that would also add up to roughly an additional $50 bucks.


That link is just an order form for a book that claims 8 oz on 8 - 42 watt CFLs...

yeah, okay.

I'll just stick with HPS.

Click to expand...

all right cool

iloveyou