Sign in IF you have successfully budded with cfls only

Al B. Fuct said:

If you're going to veg or flower with CFLs, check these out:

self ballasted - up to 300W
(that's actual CFL power- not
incandescent replacement watts
value - a 300W CFL would replace
a 1500W incandescent)

Serious CFLs with outboard
ballasts reduce replacement costs.

These guys at nlites are not screwing around.

Click to expand...

Great loking bulbs Al B fuct. I've been thinking of buying a envirolite 200W, but now, looking at these babies...

But whats the cost, and where can I buy them online? nlites don't mention any prices etc.

MisoHi said:

Week 3 of flower. 12 CFLs over 4 plants. 3 blue 9 red. ~388w 26k (ish) lumen

Moving to 400w MH when and IF I ever get my bloom bulb...

Click to expand...

You need to get some Reflectors over those bulbs, cheap enough at Lowes and Home Depot.

I have a grow now that I started with 6 plants in one bucket, and two lights. 2 85 Watt Spiral CFLs, 4200 lumens each, one red spectrum, and one blue spectrum, or one high and one low kelvins.
After I let them get TWO MONTHS OLD, I moved two females to a new tank, and put 5 85 Watts over them, two blues and three reds, and over the one remaining female I have 2 red and two blue 85 Watt CFLS. At 7 weeks flowering, I added 4 42 watt bulbs, all red spectrum for Flowering.
I love the CFLS, I paid $29 each for the 85 watts and Reflectors, or $19 each for just the bulbs. I paid $10.68 for the 42 watts from Lowes.
Here are some recent pics at 7 and half weeks of flowering. Sunday was 8 weeks exactly of 12/12, but I did not take them yet, two of the big buds started growing wierd looking white side buds off of them and appear to be doubling in size. I am at about a third clear, 1/3 cloudy and 1/3 amber trichs today but I hate to harvst a bud increasing is size so fast, I have it surrounded by 3 bulbs at 3 inches distance. it's freaky looking.
With all my bulbs I do not get much heat at all, and the power bill did not increase any noticable amount.
Look:
https://www.rollitup.org/indoor-growing/12679-almost-7-weeks-flowering-54-a.html

skip said:

Great loking bulbs Al B fuct. I've been thinking of buying a envirolite 200W, but now, looking at these babies...

But whats the cost, and where can I buy them online? nlites don't mention any prices etc.

Click to expand...

I don't know, skip- you might see if there's a contact email address for nlites where they can perhaps tell you what outfits distribute their products in your area.

I have a suspicion that Envirolite gets their lighting stuff from nlites or some similar operation.

Al B. Fuct said:

I don't know, skip- you might see if there's a contact email address for nlites where they can perhaps tell you what outfits distribute their products in your area.

I have a suspicion that Envirolite gets their lighting stuff from nlites or some similar operation.

Click to expand...

I'll keep on the lookout. Just to make things a bit more complicated, I'm based in Europe. We don't have the range or price competitiveness of the US.

here's nlites' contact email:

[email protected]

skip said:

I'll keep on the lookout. Just to make things a bit more complicated, I'm based in Europe. We don't have the range or price competitiveness of the US.

Click to expand...

You're in luck- nlites is located in the UK.

Al B. Fuct said:

here's nlites' contact email:

[email protected]

Click to expand...

Many thanks Al. I'm on the case...

Roseman said:

You need to get some Reflectors over those bulbs, cheap enough at Lowes and Home Depot.

Click to expand...

I do actually. Its a solid piece of cardboard with mylar on it. It was taken off for my watering and picture taking. It rests on the bar the lights plug into and extends the entire closet almost

Finally got my MH grow bulb today ... wewt.

https://www.rollitup.org/harvesting-curing/12843-frosted-harvest.html

Check out the link for a CFL success story, Now doubt in my mind now that CFLS can and will work. But if u can afford an HPS, I would go for it, dealing with cfl bulbs moving them, positioning them, having them fall and break (im clumsy) can be a hastle, but its all in the love u give your plants i believe.

FirstTimeGrow: Can you give any more details about you lighting setup? What did you start with and whats the Kelvin Ranges?

MisoHi - What did you use for vegging?

6 and then 7 CFLs. Ranged from 30-42 watts each. Mostly 6500k ones.

Thanks man. I took some of your advice and added another 27W 6500K to my 42W 2700K for 4500L total, and the plant is really digging it. It's shown huge new leaf growth. Did you notice a big difference using 6500K and 2700K?

Lumens are a measure of perceived brightness, not the volume of photons emitted.

Even you have fifty CFLs, they are no brighter. If you have fifty CFLs that make 1300 lumens each- you have fifty light sources which are 1300 lumens, not 50x 1300 lumens.

Lumens thus don't 'add up' to give you a measure of the number of photons landing on your leaves.

Al B. Fuct said:

Lumens are a measure of perceived brightness, not the volume of photons emitted.

Even you have fifty CFLs, they are no brighter. If you have fifty CFLs that make 1300 lumens each- you have fifty light sources which are 1300 lumens, not 50x 1300 lumens.

Lumens thus don't 'add up' to give you a measure of the number of photons landing on your leaves.

Click to expand...

Al is 100% right + rep, its a common misconception that if i get 20w cfls cus theyre cheap and get 100 of them it will be better than hps, cus 20w cfls produce 800 lumens so if i get 100 then i will produce 80,000 lumens, this is completely wrong, you only get better light coverage and you will still be lacking in the amount of lumens required to sufficiently flower a plant and probably still suffer from stretching.

If you want to use cfl's to flower with, do as babygro did or some of the others that have mentioned 200w or 250w cfl/enviro's/nlites with a colour temp of 2700k.

thanks, ngt.

It's really hard to come up with a good alternative example to demonstrate lumens...

I suppose it's a bit like having 4 speakers next to one another, each playing a tone at 100 decibels (dB) @ 1 metre. The apparent sound loudness to the listener at 1metre away is still 100dB, not 400dB- but the speakers can be pointed to spread the sound around more evenly.

or if you use 3 yellow spray cans to spray an item, would it be any more yellow, or would it just be better coverage?

ah, much better.

I used (4) 42 watters for first grow (bag seed) 6500K then 2700K, just harvested my first bud on the 5/10 got 1/4oz wet from 8 inch lolipop, kinda airy but man does the head high rock...going to add some T5s for next round.....started Feb. 5 from seed, still have a sativa in bloom added side CFL lighting and tighting buds.

Al B. Fuct said:

Lumens are a measure of perceived brightness, not the volume of photons emitted.

Click to expand...

Al B, I know what you're trying to say here, but I think this is a little confused.

Lumens is a measurement system for the 'luminous intensity' of a light source at a given distance and falling on a given area - as 'luminous intensity' is measured in photons - lumens has to be a measurement for the number of photons being emitted.

What you're trying to say is that lumens isn't a particularly good measurement system for the quantity and quality of light plants actually use, which is perfectly true. Lumens is a measurement system designed for the human eye and therefore includes all of the wavelengths of light a light source will produce, not just the wavelengths of light a plant uses for photosynsthesis which is measured in PAR watts.

So Lumens is a measurement system for the number of photons being emitted - they just include all of the wavelengths of light the bulb produces - not just the ones a plant uses.

Al B. Fuct said:

Even you have fifty CFLs, they are no brighter. If you have fifty CFLs that make 1300 lumens each- you have fifty light sources which are 1300 lumens, not 50x 1300 lumens.

Click to expand...

Again I know what you're saying here, but again it's a little confused. You can add 50 x 1,300 lumen bulbs together to make 65,000 lumens but only for light 'spread' and 'distribution' over an area. What you can't do is add them together for the calculation of a single point light source diminishing to the square root of the distance because they're not single point light sources.

Al B. Fuct said:

Lumens thus don't 'add up' to give you a measure of the number of photons landing on your leaves.

Click to expand...

Lumens do add up for calculating area and distance coverage of more than one bulb, but they don't if you're trying to calculate the depth penetration of light intensity because you're not dealing with single point light sources.