using 125watt cfls

Im looking at getting some 125watt cfls but im not sure what the fixture should be. I mean two are 250watts and thats alot and i wannabe safe. any suggestions?

Should be standard lamp socket.

ok cool thank you very much +rep

actual 250w or equivalent, cause the reason i ask os be cause everyone wants the actual watts not the equivalent, like i run 2 105w cfls yet they are 400w equivalent. also the standard light socket is a medium base.

actual watts. i dont pay attention to equivalents

Its an e40 socket you need to run a 125w(actual) cfl

now that i look at the ad it might be not actual watttsd. its amazon and they just say 125watt cfl

what's the price? Should be a good indicator of whether it's equivalent or actual. The 42W (150W eq.) ones at walmart are like 9 bucks a piece. Where as 23W (beleive that's the 100W Equivalent sell like 4 for 8 bucks or something like that.

And a lot of the high powered CFLs run through a Mogul Base, the same ones used for HPS and MH. I know the 65W one I was looking at at Lowes did anyway.

30 bucks for this bulb so maybe it is actual. it says 120v tho

As far as safety goes... I use a flexible arm fixture I found in my garage, not sure what it's rated at but it's only made for one bulb, probably intended to be used for small incadescents based on the age of it and the size of the shade that was around it. But I've got a Y adapter in it, with two Y adapters on the end of them, with 2X 42W CFL and 2X 23W CFL and have never had a problem. The Y adapters from Lowes say 660W max. Hope that helps.

google it. you should be able to find what kind of base it uses. The one I saw was for outdoor garage lighting. I had a 65W one way back now that I think about it that fit into a standard fixture. Ended up taking it back though because of the ridiculous amount of heat it put off. I'm sure it's managable but at the time that lightbulb was the biggest investment i'd made, lol.

The 42Ws put off a decent amount of heat too, but I just keep a fan on them now and it's not a problem, sure it would have fixed the 65W heat so don't let that deter you. If that bulb is 30 bucks it's definitely 125W. Whats the lumens on it? You might be better off getting six 42W and surrounding it using 2 fixtures with 2 Y adapters each. I'm a big fan of using more lower powered CFLs. The 42W ones seem to be the most efficient when it comes to Lumens per Watt.

i think ill stick with lower watts and a strip light for my veg area until i get my 400w hps/mh no reason to add more heat. the 55watt cfls were hot.i can only imagine the heat off a 125w.

My personal opinion is if you want a big light, get an HPS or MH. If you want to do CFLs, use lots of smaller bulbs. Going with the higher powered CFLs defeats the purpose of using them in the first place, because the Lumens your going to get from 2X125W CFL doesn't come close to a 250 HPS... It's like 50% more light

Your right, i should stick with smaller and cheaper bulbs till the 5th when i order my light. xmas gift to myself.
its a switchable digital ballast 400 hps/MH.

efficiency according to a bit of number crunching.
*18w = 1000 lumens/18w= 55lumens/watt
23w = 1600 lumens/23w= 70lumens/watt
42w = 2700 lumens/42w= 64lumens/watt
105w = ~7000lumen105w=67lumens/watt
200w = 12000lumen/200w=60lumens/watt.
Here is some info courtesy of hiitsbob.

I stand corrected. Still, the 42W for me is where it's at. I can put 4 of those over a plant using a Y to 2Y. To get the same from 23s, I'd have to use 8, which means I'm getting too far from the plant or got a bush, both of which aren't ideal for CFLs.

As soon as I get the money, I'm going with an HPS. Just Paranoid, are you going to be growing a Christmas Tree? lol. Okay I'm done.

Got curious about HPS vs CFL efficiency and came across some info that might be useful further down the line. It definitely just opened my eyes about the smaller HIDs. Found it over at grasscity forums, CFLWiesel...

note: This thread was some of my first research work since I joined GC. There is a sister thread I just started with lots more recent research here: http://forum.grassci...g-question.html

I will try to maintain both threads as best as I can... (01/11/2010)

So I was thinking about getting rid of my ugly array of CFL lights and using ONE small HID light for better penetration. I currently have 188Watts of CFL light, which ammounts to 12000 Lumens. I was going to switch to a 150W HPS... I figured I'd get less lumens but better penetration. I did a BUNCH of research and thinking, and changed my mind... I'm sharing it here now to save others time and confusion so I hope this helps somebody... Also I'm definitely not a genius so if I've calculated way wrong please feel free to call me out on this...

Like I said, I've currently got 188watts of CFL dispensing 12,000 Lumens, which comes out to 61 lumens/watt if you count 10watts worth of pc fans to keep them cool. My area is about 4square feet, so at 3,000Lumens per square foot, this is a good place to be in.

According to specs, the 150Watt HPS bulb delivers 15,000 Lumens of light. At face value you'd think that means it's efficiency is about 100Lumens/Watt, but us stoners are smarter than that right? What they won't tell you is that the 150Watts is the power being drawn by the bulb. There is an electrical loss (as you'd expect) inside the ballast which is reflected in the form of additional current drop. (inductors and capacitors present "reactance" [ac resistance], blah blah blah, been too long since I went to school for some of this...)

Anyway, if you read the spec sheet for the 150 watt ballast (based on info from 1000bulbs.com) it will tell you that the operating current of the ballast (NOT the open or starting current) is 1.65 amps at 120V AC... If you plug this into a units converter, it will tell you that the actual power being used by the lamp is 199Watts while it is on. This brings you down from the 100lumens/watt efficiency you thought you had to an actual efficiency figure of 76 Lumens per watt ACTUAL efficiency.

Although 76 Lumens per watt is better than the 61Lumens I'm seeing now, that's only 15lumens per watt more than I'm getting now. Let's make the comparison for the sake of example in terms of real power usage veses output:

199 Watts of power used (on a 150w HPS) yields 15,000 Lumens
208 Watts of CFL used (26W bulbs times 8 Is the closest you'll get) Yields 13,600 Lumens (1,700 Lumens per bulb)

Do the subtraction and for the same ammount of power used, the 150W HPS Lamp is only ahead by 1,400 Lumens. That's LESS THAN ONE EXTRA CFL BULB!

So how much bigger do you have to make the HPS lamp before it starts kicking CFL's ass in terms of power efficiency? Below you will find I have done the math for the popular sizes of High Pressure Sodium bulbs:

70w(90Watts actual)- 6000Lumen 67Lumen/Watt
100w(124Watts actual)- 9500Lumen 76Lumen/Watt
150w(199Watts actual)- 15000Lumen 76Lumen/Watt
250w(300Watts actual)- 29000Lumen 97Lumen/Watt
400w(468Watts actual)- 50000Lumen 107Lumen/Watt
600w(660Watts actual)- 90000Lumen 136Lumen/Watt
1000w(1140Watts actual)- 140000Lumen 140Lumen/Watt

As you can see, the efficiency doesn't start to get worthwhile until you get up into the 250W-400W+ range. So I guess you could argue that CFL is the obvious choice for someone who wants to stay under 250 watts...

So, are you bummed out because you think $60-$100 bucks for one of those huge 150watt cfl lights is unfair? So do I. The GOOD news is that in terms of light output per watt, the smaller CFL bulbs are more efficient than their larger counterparts. See the enclosed data below

CFL Chart
26W- 1700Lumen 65Lumen/Watt
42W- 2600Lumen 62Lumen/Watt
65W- 3400Lumen 52Lumen/Watt
85W- 4200Lumen 49Lumen/Watt
105W- 6900Lumen 66Lumen/Watt
150W- 8200Lumen 55Lumen/Watt
200W- 10000Lumen 50Lumen/Watt

Although it's not a huge difference, you can see that CFL bulbs show a general trend of decreased efficiency as they grow larger in size. What this means to us CFL nuts out there is that for about 25 bucks you can get a couple 3-packs of 26 watt CFLs (2700k of course). You'll use 156Watts and pump out 10,200 Lumens. That's 2,000 Lumens more than you get with that expensive big 150W bulb. Not to mention you can replace the bulbs individually if they burn out (for cheap), and did I mention that they run pretty cool? The 150W monster CFL runs WARM-hot...

Now granted you'll have to rig up your own reflector hood or whatever, but stop and think about this for a second- the grow sights want an extra $65-$100 bucks for the reflector/wing thing for those huge 150Watt cfl bulbs anyway. For half that or less you can rig up your own with a bathroom vanity fixture and some Y-splitters, or some of those jobsite clamp lamp things with the aluminum reflector dome built in.

So that's it... If you've made it to the end of this post then I thank you for your time. Basically the moral here is don't bother with small HID lights... If you're going to stay under 250Watts then just do CFL, and don't you dare waste your money on one of those huge 150Watt CFLs- get a bunch of smaller bulbs for cheaper, with better heat control, more lumens/watt, and more versatility for distributing your light.

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So considering that the HPS efficiency based on Watts and Lumens listed on the package is misleading/not really complete, maybe it's not as efficient as I thought. Don't forget about a cooling system added into this... Just thought it might be helpful for anyone stumbling across this thread.