Is This Light?

Im only growing one plant. Is this light good enough for a grow like that?
1 Pack High Pressure Sodium Bulb thanks

70W would be a waste... at the very least get the 150W HPS exterior light they sell. Also, to be clear, you realize you can't plug that into a standard light bulb socket??? That needs a special ballast just like any HID lighting.

O thank you i didnt know. I was looking at the 150w one but i have no clue how to install or whatelse i need for it. Can you show me what i need and how to do it? thanks. here is the link to it Bronze High Pressure Sodium Mini Flood Light

Yeah you would need to wire that to a normal three-prong cord. If you check around your home improvement store they sell a replacement cord for power equipment. This is a good choice because all you need to do is wire hot to hot, neutral to neutral and ground to ground. Use wire nuts and some electrical tape and you are all set. You may also want to consider a 400W MH/HPS off ebay or other site. They will run about $150 but give you way more light for your $$$. Also, most of those come with a plug and nice digital timer.

THANKS man quick reply . Ill be good with this one because i would only be growing 1 at a time in a closet and i dont want the electric bill to go up. thanks again this helped me alot

Do metal halide bulbs fit into regualr sockets?

NO!


HID bulbs generally need specific ballasts, and any given ballast can usually safely and effectively operate only one type or a few types of HID bulbs.

The bulb wattage must be matched to the ballast. A smaller bulb will usually be fed a wattage close to what the proper bulb takes, and will generally overheat and may catastrophically fail. Any catastrophic failures may not necessarily happen quickly. A larger bulb will be underpowered, and will operate at reduced efficiency and may have a shortened lifetime. The ballast may also overheat from prolonged operation with an oversized bulb that fails to warm.

Even if the ballast and bulb wattages match, substitutions can be limited by various factors including but not limited to different operating voltages for different bulbs. Examples are:

Pulse-start sodium lamps often have a slightly lower operating voltage than metal halide and mercury lamps of the same wattage, and ballasts for these sodium bulbs provide slightly more current than mercury and metal halide ballasts for the same wattage would. The higher current provided by the pulse-start sodium ballast can overheat mercury and metal halide lamps. Mercury and metal halide lamps may also "cycle" on and off in lower voltage sodium ballasts, such as many 50 to 100 watt ones.

Metal halide lamps have an operating voltage close to that of mercury lamps in many wattages, but have stricter tolerances for wattage and current waveform. Metal halides also usually need a higher starting voltage. Most metal halide lamps 100 watts or smaller require a high voltage starting pulse around or even over 1,000 volts.
175 to 400 watt metal halide lamp ballasts can power mercury lamps of the same wattage, but the reverse is not recommended.

Mercury lamps 50 to 100 watts will work on metal halide ballasts, but hot re-striking of mercury lamps 100 watts or smaller on metal halide lamps may be hard on the mercury lamp since the starting pulse can force current through cold electrodes and the starting resistor inside the mercury lamp.

1,000 watt mercury lamps come in two operating voltages, one of which is OK for 1,000 watt metal halide ballasts. A few wattages of pulse-start sodium (150 watts?) come in two voltages.
A low voltage lamp in a high voltage ballast will be underpowered, resulting in reduced efficiency, possible reduced lamp life, and possible ballast overheating. A high voltage lamp in a low voltage ballast will usually cycle on and off, operate erratically, or possibly overheat. This will usually result in greatly reduced lamp life in any case.

One class of sodium lamps is made to work in mercury fixtures, but these only work properly with some mercury ballasts, namely:
'Reactor' (plain inductor) ballasts on 230 to 277 volt lines.
'High leakage reactance autotransformer' ballasts, preferably with an open circuit voltage around 230 to 277 volts. NOT 'lead', 'lead-peak' nor any metal halide ballast!

These sodium lamps may suffer poor power regulation and accelerated aging in the wrong mercury ballasts, especially after some normal aging changes their electrical characteristics. Also, these lamps may overheat and will probably have shortened life with pulse-start sodium ballasts.

Many sodium lamps require a high voltage starting pulse provided only by ballasts made to power such lamps.

To prevent dangerous accidents please keep remote ballasts away from tap points and on an elevated position (approx 5 inches off the floor) using a block or shelf.

ok thanks ill just get the 88$ lowes one.

So would the this MH light fit in a regular socket 400 Watt Halide Bulb Mogul Base

You need a ballast to run a HID lamp, even if it did fit in a regular socket it would not work

so i'm a little confused. When a bulb says that it's a 70 w replacement for 300 w, doesn't that mean that it only uses 70 w of electricity, but with the bulb&balast it transfers the output to 300 w. so does the plant get the 300w?

warmboe said:

so i'm a little confused. When a bulb says that it's a 70 w replacement for 300 w, doesn't that mean that it only uses 70 w of electricity, but with the bulb&balast it transfers the output to 300 w. so does the plant get the 300w?

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Grow Marijuana FAQ, Cannabis cultivation - marijuana growing tips & photos

Does this help you?

When shopping for a bulb and it says what was said above such as 60w replacement for 300W and you want like a sum of 600w, which # would you go by? Buy like 2 bulbs or 10?

Thanx for the link Major Toke. But it unfortunately told me everything but what I wanted to know. It thouroghly explained what wattage pull, or the electricity input that was being pulled by the bulb, or ballast (how much the electric bill is). That I realy don't care about. It will be what it is. What my question was is about how much light power a cfl that says '26w input/100w output', will actualy be put out for the plant. What do I go by? the 26w or the 100w. I am talking about the welfare of my plants, not my electric bill.

warmboe said:

What my question was is about how much light power a cfl that says '26w input/100w output', will actualy be put out for the plant. What do I go by? the 26w or the 100w. I am talking about the welfare of my plants, not my electric bill.

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Hi there warmboe

What you're asking is the manufacturers way of describing how a compact fluorescent bulb compares in its light output to that of an incandescent bulb. A 26w compact fluorescent will output approximately the same amount of light as a 100w incandescent bulb, so the 26w is the wattage it uses and the 100w is the amount of comparable light to what a 100w incandescent outputs.

As you're probably aware, incandescents are extremely ineffective in terms of watts per lumen (not to mention that they output in the wrong light spectrum for plants) and a 100w incandescent outputs approximately 17.5 lumens per watt, whereas a standard 40w fluorescent bulb will output about 22.3 lumens per watt and a VHO fluorescent about 39 lumens per watt.

So to answer your question a 26w CFL will output the same amount of lumens as a 100w incandescent bulb, but only use 26w of electricity.

Hope this helps.

smokeydablunt said:

Im only growing one plant. Is this light good enough for a grow like that?
1 Pack High Pressure Sodium Bulb thanks

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I would suggest you spend a little cash on a 400w hps or mh lighting with a good reflector. The investment will be well worth it in the end!