Lighting & Lumens

OK, I will chime in here a little, as I am am mid way through a test using CFLs.

Veging with CFLs has rocked for me. I had very dense short tight growth. (see avatar) However, the amount of light I needed for flowering (to obtain the same results as during veg) was more than I could get out of my CFL config. However, the bigger challenge was the limited space in which I tried to grow. Just too much veg in a small space. Light (or air) could not find its way below the first couple of inches of growth.

I have just upgraded to 3 150w HPS on the top and 2 70w HPS on the sides. In a couple of days I will add back in 5 of the CFLs (42w 2700k) for the sides. I built a much larger box and lined it with insulated mylar. The closet grow is over. I had to move it all to larger quarters.

I learned it is not all about the amount of light, but also about light placement. I also learned how important it is to have enough room for light and airflow to make its way around the plants.

I am sure these are lesson I could have learned here by reading more, but to be honest, I think we all produce some mixed messages. This thread is a good example.

There is no doubt one can take a grow from seed to harvest with CFLs. In fact, I love them even with the troubles I just had. If I have not found my HPS lights for a total of $50, I would still be using only CFLs in the new setup. They rock, they are easy to find, and they can be had in exactly the light spectrum you want for flowering and veg.

Baby gro, I understand your frustration. Physics do not change. It would be interesting to know how often this same thread has been worked and argued and subsequently put to rest. Still, there are new people all the time, and those who have gone before have the pleasure of being patient with those who insist and rehashing the known.

....but this is just my opinion...

-ngtybear

Difficult to tell really, I think 1 enviro would veg them perfectly throughout as long as you hang the light vertically without a reflector and place your plants around it. Do this but ensure you just turn the plants every morning so the light hits the whole plant...

For flowering I would advise more than one light for more yield in a shorter space of time... I think I may have to harvest some of my plant but leave other buds growing as they are not nearly mature enough.

hope this helps.

babygro said:

A 200w Envirolite uses 123w of electricity.

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Babygro, Do you know if this is true for all speciality high wattage cfl's?

splifman said:

Babygro, Do you know if this is true for all speciality high wattage cfl's?

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I think it depends on each manaufacturer, what tubes they use and the efficiency of the electronic ballast. I think nlites are around 160w for 200w, so it does vary.

ps thanks for your answer on the ventilation question, I never did thank you for that

babygro said:

I think it depends on each manaufacturer, what tubes they use and the efficiency of the electronic ballast. I think nlites are around 160w for 200w, so it does vary.

ps thanks for your answer on the ventilation question, I never did thank you for that

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I'm thinking about getting the 200W cfl put out by hydrofarm, and I called them to ask. They said it uses 200 W. But a lot of the time when you call these companies you talk to some one who either doesn't understand the question or doesn't know what they are talking about, so you can't be sure. They don't post the info on their website, so I have no idea how to find out.

your very welcome, about the vent question.

Hey babygro, I have to admit some of what you say sounds like a decent argument and may make some sense. However some of what you said seemed a little near-sighted to me, and I felt unable to make a compelling argument to make my point. I feel you are misleading in some ways, especially when you said this:

The Hortilux bulb only outputs about 50% of it's lumens in the PAR spectrum plants can use that means you're paying for 50% operating costs you're not using. Factor in how far the bulb has to be used from the plant tops and you lose even more lumens, at 2 feet away a Hortilux bulb outputting 100,000 lumens at 1 foot of which only 50,000 are in the PAR spectrum reduces to 12,500 lumens at the plant tops.
So you're paying for a 100,000 lumen HPS system and only actually using 12,500 of those lumens, that's 87,500 lumens you're paying for you're not actually using!

So last night as we sat around enjoying ourselves, I got into contact with some folks more knowledgeable than myself, and posed that very same statement of yours to them, the following is the reply I got:

Mixing terms like Lumens and PAR is not really accurate. It is true that a large amount(maybe not quite 50% though) of HPS light is in spectrums not used for photosynthesis. This however does not really mean that one can just deduct that percentage of lumens from the total. Lumens are a human measurement of light based on the wavelengths visible to our eye. PAR measures the photosynthetically active spectrum for plants, this means that it measures the light energy available for the plant to photosynthesize. Even if the spectrums of HPS light are not all usable they still provide an amount of light energy for photosynthesis equal to several times the energy available from the sun at plant growing ranges and equal to the sun up to several feet away. HPS still outproduces any other light available for PAR indoors except for MPS and possibly LED though these are much much more expensive.

Also you’re using the term lumens in place of illuminance or irradiance. Illuminance is the intensity of light at a give distance from the source in regards to lumens. Irradiance is the same thing in regards to a given spectrum. PAR intensity at plant level is measured as irradiance and lumen intensity at plant level is measured as illuminance. You can make the statement, as you did, that there are a certain number of lumens in the PAR spectrum being emitted by the bulb, but that doesn’t mean you’re getting that number of lumens one foot from the bulb. It seems for some reason people feel Foot-Candles has something to do with what’s going on 1 foot from the bulb. It does not. A Foot-Candle is defined by a number of lumens being cast in an area measured in square feet. If a bulb putting out 100,000 lumens is lighting one square foot, then you’d have 100,000 Foot-Candles, but one foot from a bulb, using a typical 120° reflector, would light an area of 3.14 square feet. Of course two feet away you’d get four times less than that. So, two feet away from a bulb putting out 50,000 lumens would give you 3,979 Foot-Candles, which is of course the same thing as 3,979 lumens/ft.².

If you wanted to find the amount of PAR received 2 feet from an HPS bulb that puts out 100,000 lumens, you’d take the value in Foot-Candles received from that distance (795 and multiply by 0.131 to find the number of micromoles/m²/sec² of irradiance in the PAR spectrum.

7958 × 0.131 = 1042.5 umol/m²/sec²

The tropical sun gives up 1990 umol/m²/sec².

So, 2 feet from an HPS bulb, putting out 100,000 lumens, using a 120° reflector, would give you 52% of the amount of PAR you’d get from the sun. No HPS puts out 100,000 lumens, but the 600 watt puts out 92,000 lumens.

Peace.

videoman40 said:

Hey babygro, I have to admit some of what you say sounds like a decent argument and may make some sense. However some of what you said seemed a little near-sighted to me, and I felt unable to make a compelling argument to make my point. I feel you are misleading in some ways, especially when you said this:

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I'm not interested in discussing anything else with you videoman. That's not because I can't answer the points you've raised in your post - it's because I have no interest to, nor any motivation to. Take that anyway you like, the fact remains, I have zero interest in engaging with you in any kind of discussion.

You're simply not knowledgeable enough on your own, to engage in a discussion on this subject matter. You'll notice I haven't responded to your point in the other thread either. End of, now go away and bug someone else.

I'm pretty sure that a 1000w hps delivers over 100,000 lumens but anyway.

I got my new cfls today, giving them a try out on the veg stage see how they fair, im expecting good results from these for the veg stage.

Ive put one side by side with a 18w cfl to show the difference in size

Wow!!! That is one big CFL!! I still lovemy CFL setup for veg, though I have switched to a mix of CFL and HPS for flowering.

babygro said:

You'll never get the ultimate perfection you get with HPS with fluorescents, because they simply do not output a sufficient volume of lumens or the small amounts of UVB radiation you get with HPS systems that produce those hard dense nugs, but for people on a budget, working in small enclosed spaces, growing a couple of plants - fluorescents in all their guises offer a very real and a very viable alternative.

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Do you want flower halfass light airy buds or do you want the ultimate perfection you get with HPS?
It's your choice guys..

MajoR_TokE said:

Do you want flower halfass light airy buds or do you want the ultimate perfection you get with HPS?
It's your choice guys..

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You also stand a much greater chance of getting caught using HID systems due to the much higher heat signatures they emit. Law enforcement with hand held FLIR cameras can see the heat signatures given off by HID systems, and use that as a basis for finding further evidence to support a search warrant, whereas they can't with compact fluorescents.

It's your choice guys...

Want to raise me on that one Toke?

Babygro is it the uvb radiation that hps's produces that make them produce harder denser nugs than cfl's? if so could you add some sunbed tubes to make up the difference as these emit uvb (I think)

Or is that ridiculous due to heat/other considerations?

Just a thought

Good thread a enjoyable read.
People keep talking about 42 wat cfl's and I am wondering why? I have seen bigger cfl's. I have seen 150 wats cfl's at home depot in the warm spectrum and 100 wats in blue. I know there is a conversion down in wats but I was wondering if anyone was using bigger cfls?

lookout said:

Good thread a enjoyable read.
People keep talking about 42 wat cfl's and I am wondering why? I have seen bigger cfl's. I have seen 150 wats cfl's at home depot in the warm spectrum and 100 wats in blue. I know there is a conversion down in wats but I was wondering if anyone was using bigger cfls?

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Those 150w cfl's that you seen at HD are 42w = 150w output. The 100w blue one you seen are probably 23w or 27w = 100w output. Newbies always get confused here.

My bad I thought the 150 wat lights converted to 73 or 78 wats. I am a newbie.............

MajoR_TokE said:

https://www.rollitup.org/toke-n-talk/3750-busted-not.html

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Yes and?

You think because it's in a basement they can't see it? Don't kid yourself mate.

Read the attached newspaper clipping.

Over to you.

babygro said:

Yes and?

You think because it's in a basement they can't see it? Don't kid yourself mate.

Read the attached newspaper clipping.

Over to you.

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So then how come all these people growing weed with HPS lights arnt in jail? Sometimes police will say stuff that arnt really true, this is called "scare tactics" or something like that. More then likely someone ratted and thats how they got busted.

GreenGro said:

Babygro is it the uvb radiation that hps's produces that make them produce harder denser nugs than cfl's? if so could you add some sunbed tubes to make up the difference as these emit uvb (I think)

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Green

It's certainly one half of the equation yes. The other half being the sheer volume of lumens that HPS systems produce.

The affects of UVB radiation on the 'glandular stalked trichome' that contains the majority of THC produced by the plant is still largely unknown but even HPS 'apparently' doesn't emit sufficient UVB radiation to fully develop the THC content in the trichomes on indoor cultivated plants -

5) "Pate (1983) indicated that in areas of high ultraviolet radiation exposure, the UVB (280-320 nm) absorption properties of THC may have conferred an evolutionary advantage to Cannabis capable of greater production of this compound from biogenetic precursor CBD. The extent to which this production is also influenced by environmental UVB has also been experimentally determined by Lydon et al. (1987)."

The writer's own experience allow for a more specific conclusion: If the UVB photon is missing from the light stream(a), or the intensity as expressed in µW/cm2 falls below a certain level(b), the phytochemical process will not be completely energized with only UVA photons which are more penetrating but less energetic, and the harvested resin spheres will have mostly precursor compounds and not fully realized THC(c).

(a)Examples of an environment where the UVB photon would be missing from the light stream include all indoor cultivation illuminated by HID bulbs and in glass or corrugated fiberglass covered greenhouses.


Theoretically, the exposure to UVB radiation should be able to be replicated by fluorescent UVB bulbs similar to those used in reptile aquariums, but not enough study has been made of this to confirm or deny it.

The full article is here -

Marijuana THC

MajoR_TokE said:

So then how come all these people with growing weed with HPS lights arnt in jail? Sometimes police will say stuff that arnt really true, this is called "scare tactics" or something like that. More then likely someone ratted and thats how they got busted.

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Because they're not generally interested in solo home growers growing for their own consumption, they're mainly after the 'factories' and larger scale operatives. Its not worth their time going after home growers. That does NOT mean they can't see the heat signatures being given off by HPS and HID lighting though, however small it might be.

Plus, a Supreme High court Judge in the US ruled infra-red evidence as inadmissable as evidence or as a basis for a search warrant, as being unconstitutional and an unfair invasion of a persons right to privacy. That's why it can only be used as a basis for the collation of other evidence to support a search warrant.

However, none of that changes the fact that the heat signatures given out by HID systems CAN be seen by hand held infra-red cameras and FLIR cameras from the air.

They cannot from fluorescents - my point, that puts HID users at a much greater risk of detection than CFL users. Your choice...