HPS vs CFL - A Flowering Comparison w/pics

Alright so I know you've seen the threads with this title HPS vs CFL. Most will claim HPS is superior for flowering, while a small minority defend the CFLs. I thought I'd share my thoughts and the comparison I made between the two types of lighting, and which is best for flowering. I found that HPS really is better than CFL for flower, b/c you yield much nicer, denser buds. The calyxes stack more compact and the plant doesn't stretch as much. The buds actually seemed to mature faster under HPS and just form better shape, whereas CFL yielded more prickley buds.

This isn't a thread asking for advice or graphs with explanation about lumens trying to educate myself or anyone on which type of lighting to go with. Just plain results from my experience. After playing with both types of light, I started using CFLs for veg only and HPS for flower. This is just the most efficient way I can grow and get the results I need.

So here's the deal, I grew two plants - 1 under CFLs, 1 under HPS

I didn't use the same camera for each plant, so the HPS pics are a little better.

Both plants were plucked a bit early with mostly cloudy-amber trichs.


First we'll start with the HPS results:

These nugs turned out pretty dense for indoor. You squeeze them and they really don't give.



Close up of a nug that flowered under HPS.



The calyxes stacked much nicer with the HPS, there is much more density to the nugs grown under HPS.




Next we have the CFL harvest:


You can tell by looking that the buds are more fluffy/leafy, and they actually ended up a lot more light weight.



They look like massive nugs, but once dry they weigh nothing. They seem to dry much quicker than HPS buds also.



You can tell this popcorn bud was early, but with CFLs they just didn't finish as evenly and it's obvious the density isn't there. Even my tiny popcorn HPS pieces weren't this fluffy.



So there...that's it. I'm all for CFLs for getting things started or supplemental lights, but HPS is the way to go with flowering if you have the ability to use one in your set up.

I'm not sure if it's noticable by those pics, but the buds from HPS yielded more bud matter while the CFL bud yielded more leaf:bud with a lot of smaller calyxes that didn't fatten up.

What is the Wattage used?

Ceebus said:

What is the Wattage used?

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lol

Duh sorry about that.

The HPS was 600w.

CFLs were 4x 42w orange warm spectrum. 4x 36w blue cool spectrum. 2x 28w Full spectrum grow bulbs.

I know the total wattage is not the same, but the 600w was lighting a much bigger area and this was just one of the plants in that area. The 600w will be sufficient for 9 2.5-3.5 ft plants with out any problems. The CFL setup was an arrangement of bulbs that illuminated 1 entire plant. Just 1, so to penetrate 9 plants you'd need much more than 368w of CFLs. I'm not sure exactly how much more wattage you'd need to burn, but running the separate lights to penetrate the different parts of the plant would be much more inneficient with CFL.

Keep in mind I'm working with appx 4ft x 4ft space, so 9 plants is about the maximum load for my flower room. CFLs may be useful for smaller areas but for this size, i think HPS is the way to go.

bustya said:

lol

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Yea you already know I'm high as hell.

nice buds man what was your strain

bubblefunk said:

nice buds man what was your strain

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These were Lemon Skunk.

um yea you so didnt even use the same amount of lumens for both CFL and HPS, thus you got shittier CFL buds, lol i can understand you being confused im sure your high as hell but try doing the same thing and have equal lumens from both lights, that would be alot better comparison, some of the buds ive grown with cfls are so compact they are like rocks, anyways its a good idea, but you should use the same amount of light from both HPS and CFL next time.

slinger36s said:

um yea you so didnt even use the same amount of lumens for both CFL and HPS, thus you got shittier CFL buds, lol i can understand you being confused im sure your high as hell but try doing the same thing and have equal lumens from both lights, that would be alot better comparison, some of the buds ive grown with cfls are so compact they are like rocks, anyways its a good idea, but you should use the same amount of light from both HPS and CFL next time.

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You have a point slinger, but there are also more factors that go into your bud density (e.g. nutes, environment, etc). As I stated in the first post, this isn't me trying to educate you or give you a lumens chart, just my experience from one type of lighting vs the other.

Now that you bring up lumens, let me point something out. Lumens don't add...

Check out this (I'm quoting Al B. Fuct):
"To illustrate the point, I took my lux meter and measured the luminous output from within 50mm from the tube of one and then from within 50mm from the tubes of two identical CFLs.



Meter indicates 66,300 lux. Reading was wandering +/- 100 lux.



Meter indicates 66,400lux. Same amount of wandering in the reading, essentially the same reading and wandering as with one CFL. The meter is measuring the peak light intensity- not the number of photons. If I could get more CFLs within 50mm of the sensor, you'd still see exactly the same reading on the lux meter- or whatever the reading was from the brightest of the CFLs.

I still get CFL evangelists arguing the point with me... but while they're waging the losing battle, I'm pulling poundage out from under my HPS lighting.

It's this simple- if you wanna grow some dope, buy the right stuff- once... instead of going through the same learning curve everyone else has encountered many times before you."


It wouldn't matter how many CFLs I try to stack on my plant, the lumens simply don't add up that way. With that said, I don't even remember the exact lumens for each CFL bulb, but with CFLs I have a much broader color spectrum using Warm (orange, cool (blue), and full spectrum bulbs simultaneously. So what I'm saying is that I had more than enough coverage on the one plant under CFLs, adding more wouldn't have helped any.

I found this little calculation in another thread (geez I said I wasn't gonna drag out the lumens, charts, etc). Oh well.

CFL Lumens/Watt

105w - 65.714
85w - 58.823 (49.412)
65w - 52.308
55w - 65.454
42w - 66.667
40w - 66.25
32w - 65.625
30w - 66.667
27w - 64.815

This is calculated lumens/watt, so if you look at the 42w the bulb puts out 2800.014 lumens in a full radius (not to mention lumens lost by the plant only facing one side of the bulb).

More 42 watters aren't going to add lumens, so exactly which CFL are you talking about that is going to give me the same lumens (around 95,000, would be more if I had 1k watts) as my HPS?

Or am I just totally confused like you said? Please tell me if I don't make sense or if I'm not grasping the concept correctly.

WoldofWeedcraft said:

I found this little calculation in another thread (geez I said I wasn't gonna drag out the lumens, charts, etc). Oh well.

CFL Lumens/Watt

105w - 65.714
85w - 58.823 (49.412)
65w - 52.308
55w - 65.454
42w - 66.667
40w - 66.25
32w - 65.625
30w - 66.667
27w - 64.815

This is calculated lumens/watt, so if you look at the 42w the bulb puts out 2800.014 lumens in a full radius (not to mention lumens lost by the plant only facing one side of the bulb).

More 42 watters aren't going to add lumens, so exactly which CFL are you talking about that is going to give me the same lumens (around 95,000, would be more if I had 1k watts) as my HPS?

Or am I just totally confused like you said? Please tell me if I don't make sense or if I'm not grasping the concept correctly.

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Lots of CFLS bro, surrounding the plant, right now i have about 30,000 lumens surrounding my plant, granted im wasting more energy than a hps, but that wasnt the original point, that you can grow tight beautiful buds with cfls, in amount of product i would have to go with you on the HID though, but my room stays at 70 degrees without the need for ventilation or fans, just leave the closet door open, wasnt tryin to be rude, i should have been more spacific but i usually get on here after smokin a bag or two off the volcano hahah, +rep for getting high and writing journals on here of growin the most beautiful plant in the world!

lol thanks for the rep man. My CFL plant had bulbs all around it even covering the lower branches. It was totally lit up, but what I'm saying is if you have two bulbs and say they each put out X amount of lumens, the two together won't put out 2X amount of lumens. It will still just be X amount of lumens. The HPS bulb I use says it's 95,000 lumens, I just don't think CFLs can put that off.

I have been watching the cfl journals and comparisons. Being as im kinda old school, there was no way I would give my HPS up, I needed to be sure though....Like LED lighting? I don't know...they just don't seam intense enough. Does the soil stay wet for along time under CFL or are waterings the same? I have a paitent that is a CFL grower....I have been trying to tell him....save some money and get better bud. He is going to spend more on CFL then I did on HPS and MH combined. Plus I don't know if its to safe to have like 20 lghts plugged in in one room?

slipperyP said:

I have been watching the cfl journals and comparisons. Being as im kinda old school, there was no way I would give my HPS up, I needed to be sure though....Like LED lighting? I don't know...they just don't seam intense enough. Does the soil stay wet for along time under CFL or are waterings the same? I have a paitent that is a CFL grower....I have been trying to tell him....save some money and get better bud. He is going to spend more on CFL then I did on HPS and MH combined. Plus I don't know if its to safe to have like 20 lghts plugged in in one room?

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Honestly i water every 2.5 to 3 days, as far as all the lights being in the same room, seems to be safe enough as long as you wire right, I get what your saying about the bulbs only putting off a certain amount of lumens per watt, i would definately go HPS but im in a rental house and i cant go cutting into the wall/ceiling for ventilation, so im stuck in the CFL world for now and im making the best of it

slipperyP said:

I have been watching the cfl journals and comparisons. Being as im kinda old school, there was no way I would give my HPS up, I needed to be sure though....Like LED lighting? I don't know...they just don't seam intense enough. Does the soil stay wet for along time under CFL or are waterings the same? I have a paitent that is a CFL grower....I have been trying to tell him....save some money and get better bud. He is going to spend more on CFL then I did on HPS and MH combined. Plus I don't know if its to safe to have like 20 lghts plugged in in one room?

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From my experience the watering seems about the same with each type of lighting. The heat is harder to control with HPS, but I use a cool tube to suck the hot air out. Definately less fire risk with the simple single HPS bulb vs multiple CFLs. Also, my HPS is a bug zapper. I've seen bees fly into my room and they go straight for that light until it burns their wings off. lol

slinger36s said:

Honestly i water every 2.5 to 3 days, as far as all the lights being in the same room, seems to be safe enough as long as you wire right, I get what your saying about the bulbs only putting off a certain amount of lumens per watt, i would definately go HPS but im in a rental house and i cant go cutting into the wall/ceiling for ventilation, so im stuck in the CFL world for now and im making the best of it

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I hear ya man, like I said in one of the first posts, HPS isn't for every application. You have to have the place to use one, and not everyone has the space or ways to vent the heat.

I hear ya man, like I said in one of the first posts, HPS isn't for every application. You have to have the place to use one, and not everyone has the space or ways to vent the heat. [/quote]


ok so after this grow im switching over to HPS buying a

Grow Tent- 93.00

400w HPS w/ Balast/bulb/reflect/ - 119$

Cool Tube Reflector 60$

should set me about right, i like cfls, but i need bigger yield, cant smoke enough

Nice comparison. Hopefully its saves some people from investing in all those CFLs. They do have a purpose, but not for flowering. HPS can be found cheap, its just a matter of spending the extra buck to vent it properly.

Im cheap, so i cant do experiments like this lol... however im growing a clone under 2 300 Watt CFLs and its been flowering for 1 week already ahead of the curve too, its pretty dank already lmao so i think it depends on a lot of factors and individual use, and i have a LOT of mylar but either way those buds are sure to be delicious

slinger36s said:

ok so after this grow im switching over to HPS buying a

Grow Tent- 93.00

400w HPS w/ Balast/bulb/reflect/ - 119$

Cool Tube Reflector 60$

should set me about right, i like cfls, but i need bigger yield, cant smoke enough

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Yea I think that sounds like a good plan. I actually built my own grow tents with panda film and saved some cash. Those prices sound good though. When you go with HPS, do yourself a favor and buy a good quality, high CFM fan for exhaust as you will need it.

desert fox said:

Nice comparison. Hopefully its saves some people from investing in all those CFLs. They do have a purpose, but not for flowering. HPS can be found cheap, its just a matter of spending the extra buck to vent it properly.

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Thanks for the kind words. I hope someone can benefit from looking at this. But yea ventillation is the big must when deciding on going with HPS, and it's even important with CFL grows just not as hard to accomplish.

vampyroswrath said:

Im cheap, so i cant do experiments like this lol... however im growing a clone under 2 300 Watt CFLs and its been flowering for 1 week already ahead of the curve too, its pretty dank already lmao so i think it depends on a lot of factors and individual use, and i have a LOT of mylar but either way those buds are sure to be delicious

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You got 2x 300 Watt CFLs? Are those 300 real watts or equivalent? Or is that just a typo...lol that's a lot of CFL wattage for single bulbs. Either way good luck with the dank nugs.