CFL vs HPS penetration

psg1 said:

To the OP: be wary of statements by those using phrases like, "the only way to" or "if you want any kind of decent" etc etc. There are more than a few ways of doing things, and they are not mutually exclusive by any means.

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Yeah, I know, that's why I'm trying so hard to get the answer empirically. If I could grow 2 plants as good or better while using less power and being cheaper, I would do it.

Also, I'm not attracted to the necessity for huge fans for HPS, what size fan would be large enough for an HPS in a ~7 cubic foot cab? Would a large case fan do the job?

Also, I'm growing 2 plants in a ScrOG DWC from indica dominant female clones. Medical patient here, and paying street prices at dispensaries that are 20 miles away is getting to be a real drain on my income. 2 clones would run me around $30. Once I get my own place, I plan on making a fully connisieur closet of favorite strains vegging and flowering, but for now, I want to get a small start and get experience under my belt.

I like to look at lights/wattage/results like I look at guitar amplifiers and bands. CFLs are little 1x10 combos, and 1000hps are big bad Marshall stacks.
A group like The Fray uses 1x10s... they make cute little songs.
TOOL uses the Marshall stacks....TOOL eats The Fray for breakfast and shits them out by lunch.
Whats the difference between The Fray and TOOL in this example?(aside from the Fray being weak little bitches and TOOL being top of the chain) POWER. If you have power you can rock..... if you don't have power you'll be cute.

CFL grows are great for folks interested in supplying only themselves and no one else.... Properly cared for, the buds are smaller, fluffier. And it takes a little longer to finish. Stuff that is not of concern to the personal grower.... he's not selling it anyways.

If you are cash cropping its a waste of time to even consider anything other than HPS lighting.... it is what it is.

if you want to run cfls as your means of providing for yourself bravo!
check out thunderkul & drudgreengene's threads on ic....

they are a little typical of low wattage growers in their attitudes towards cash croppers who call them out on their ridiculous GPW claims, but they are providing for themsleves using cfl technology... maybe you should check out some of their work.

Whats the difference between The Fray and TOOL in this example?(aside from the Fray being weak little bitches and TOOL being top of the chain) POWER. If you have power you can rock..... if you don't have power you'll be cute.

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Holy fuck...I'm so high right now and that made me lol sooooo hard. But you draw an important point, and that is that you must consider where the bud is going. However, for me, a denser, more compact bud and shorter grow periods are nice. Fluffy bud is great, and I love it too, but it dries too easily and doesn't store well from my experience.

seriously though, what kind of ventilation system would I need to keep a 150W HPS like 4" from the canopy? CFM anyone would be helpful.

heat from 150w, even HPS, is gonna be minute. If you are concerned about exhausting/cooling the light, hook up a cheap little 4" computer fan to blow air on the bulb since your cab is tight on space. I say this becasue I have 400mh 12" over my vegging plants and I don't even run the exhaust fan on the reflector.

If you can have your hand under the light, and it doesn't feel uncomfortable, then the plants won't feel uncomfortable, either. Seriously you could even have just an oscillating fan in the cab blowing the air around along with the CPU fan on the light and I doubt doubt doubt you will have major heat issues. All that said.... 4" is really close!!!!

good luck in your endeavor. and thank you for understanding my posts and not thinking I am trolling you.

Greyskull said:

if you want to run cfls as your means of providing for yourself bravo!
check out thunderkul & drudgreengene's threads on ic....

they are a little typical of low wattage growers in their attitudes towards cash croppers who call them out on their ridiculous GPW claims, but they are providing for themsleves using cfl technology... maybe you should check out some of their work.

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Thank you and I am a fan of both of those grows. I know I could do it with CFL, and that was never the question. I have seen all the CFL grows with great buds, and I admire them, but the HID is so much more efficient and hassle-free compared with CFL. CFL are amazing lights, and I plan on using them at least as supplemental lights if I do choose HPS. My current design is for CFL so a light change would require an entire redraw of the plans.

I need to find a good place to put the ballast for HPS (how big are we talking, anyways?), and I need to be sure of the heat/canopy distance issue if this is going to happen.

$150 bucks.... ballast built into the reflector. Available in MH or HPS. 150w HID.
http://www.gchydro.com/sunsystem/SIVMICRO.asp

have them set it up for you so you can test the heat with your own hands... then have them set up the 250 & 400, so you can test those too.... MAKE THE SHOP DUDES WORK!!!

If I did it it would be a chop job HPS from home depot. I don't have $150 to drop on a light (the reason I went for CFLs originally). If I get my new $27/hour tutor job, I will consider it, but right now, I am on a budget.

Greyskull said:

I like to look at lights/wattage/results like I look at guitar amplifiers and bands. CFLs are little 1x10 combos, and 1000hps are big bad Marshall stacks.
A group like The Fray uses 1x10s... they make cute little songs.
TOOL uses the Marshall stacks....TOOL eats The Fray for breakfast and shits them out by lunch.
Whats the difference between The Fray and TOOL in this example?(aside from the Fray being weak little bitches and TOOL being top of the chain) POWER. If you have power you can rock..... if you don't have power you'll be cute.

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+1

I hear you man.... good luck on the job.

Greyskull said:

I hear you man.... good luck on the job.

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Thanks.

Well, I can only think of one way to prove it here. Math.

I = P / A

Intensity = power / area

Where intensity and power are both lumens, and area is r ^ 2(the steradian, or solid angle).

So, intensity(penetration) = initial lumens / r^2.

All based without reflector:

1,600 lumen CFL emits 5000 lm @ 7".

10,000 lm becomes 5000 lumens @ 1'5".

40,000 lm @ 2 ft is 10,000 lumens. 5,000 lm @ 2'10" away.

140,000 lumens source: @5'4" is about 5000 lumens.

Attached is a chart, showing these. Enjoy.

EDIT: Made another chart, maybe you'll get a better idea of the whole concept. Ranges from 100,000 to 25 million lumens black to red. Steps of 300,000 lumens. Also, lumens are now in units of 10,000. The distance is the same between the charts.

^The basics I learned a long time ago was that for every foot away from the original light source, the intensity dropped off by roughly 50%. Therefore at two feet away from a 1000W HPS, only 250W was actually being delivered. Your chart seems to confirm it, although it's awfully hard to read without your cliff notes. Good job taking the time to do that for sure though.

im supprised so many people use cfls. when i worked at a hydro shop i would tell people to not even waste time with those things and just save for a real light, its like day and night. no comparison.

all this talk about fan size and if i use CFL i will not need to use a fan ect.. air exchange is just as important as the light you use so using a bigger fan will help no matter what light you use! the fan shoud exchange the air in the room at least 30 x per every hour for a good growing environment no matter where what you grow under you should use a fan the more air that is is exchanged the better your plants will do.

did you know that using watt for watt CFL is hotter than HPS? lets say we have a room each room as 150w of power being used 1 room is CFL the other HPS that with out the air being exchanged the CFL room would run hotter than the HPS although you can get the CFL closer to the plants does not mean they dont give off less heat the differance is the heat comes from more points rather that a single point, if you had a closed room the 150w of CFL would be hotter than the 150w HPS.

The HPS has a ballast that can be placed outside the room cutting down on heat being made. the CFL's have built in ballast even though they are small they still get hot so you dont just get the heat from the light being made you get the heat from the small ballast that all CFL light use to ignite the bulbs adding extra heat in the grow room.

by cutting down or not using an extractor fan that does not exchange the air at least 30x per hour to save power is false economy! think of it as adding Co2 to your grow room the more times the air is exchanged the more Co2 the plants get without Co2 in the air plants can not grow you may get away with out using a fan, but you are lossing out on more bud if you dont use one! no matter what light you use + 150w of HPS is a lot easyer to cool than 150w of CFL you try filtting a cool tube over 7 x 23 CFL lights and if you stick the HPS in the cool tube you can get the light just as close as a 23w CFL. work it out if you are stuck to a very small space the 150W HPs will run cooler if you used a cool tube in fact you could let the plant grow round the cool tube they will not burn if a leaf would touch a CFL it would burn.

A fan is mostly suggested for plant health. Ventilation(air exchange) is for heat and plant health.

CFLs don't all have built-in ballasts. You can get remote ballasts for CFLs.

The CFLs are cooler. You have many small sources versus one intense source. The ballast makes most of the heat for a CFL. So, having a fair comparison. Both with remote ballasts. Fluorescents are much cooler.

You don't need a cool tube for CFLs.

Multiple heat sources equalize at a lower heat. A single source can equalize to that source. It's like comparing a bunch of Bic lighters to a propane heater.

TeaTreeOil said:

A fan is mostly suggested for plant health. Ventilation(air exchange) is for heat and plant health.

CFLs don't all have built-in ballasts. You can get remote ballasts for CFLs.

The CFLs are cooler. You have many small sources versus one intense source. The ballast makes most of the heat for a CFL. So, having a fair comparison. Both with remote ballasts. Fluorescents are much cooler.

You don't need a cool tube for CFLs.

Multiple heat sources equalize at a lower heat. A single source can equalize to that source. It's like comparing a bunch of Bic lighters to a propane heater.

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no air exchange is to bring/ keep the Co2 at the maximum in the room if you grow as some do in closed tight boxes the Co2 is used up and the plants will die the air is exhanged to keep the enviroment perfect for growing. if you do not extract air from the room the humidity would rise the heat would rise and Co2 would be used up in very short time. i cant think now off the top of my head how much carbon (co2) is needed to produce a tone of vegetable matter i think its a tone it sounds about right. i will have a look in my book on getting the most out of Co2. just by blowing air around the room does nothing other than move still air around the leaf so new Co2 enriched air takes its place it also helps the plant transpire water off the leaf all you are doing if you do not exchange the air with fresh air is blowing stale air around the room.

again you go against what profesinal growers have been saying and doing for years!

they say dont use mirror's because they can make hot spots
you say no they dont they are the best i use them because i can see my plants the other side.

they say to exchange the air every 30x for optimum environment and to help keep mildew and pest at bay
you say no you dont all you need to do is point a fan at it.

Multiple heat sources equalize at a lower heat. A single source can equalize to that source. It's like comparing a bunch of Bic lighters to a propane heater.

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yes but they must both be burning the same amout of gas! i.e 150w CFL run hotter than HPS its well known its been looked at and looked at again and again watt for watt they are not cooler than HPS

read page 11 and 12 an acre of fast growing plants must use 30,000 tons of carbon to get 3 tone of growth. if the co2 in the room drops to less than 200pm the plants will not grow. thats why the minimum air exchange is 30x every hour not just because to remove heat. a plant can grow well over 100F they can not grow with out enough Co2 http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=OuJs-rK4kgEC&dq=gardening+with+co2+by+Tom+LaSpina&printsec=frontcover&source=bl&ots=62PB8iV1U0&sig=M-x5Un54diHneiAPveS2BHrok-E&hl=en&ei=tlK-SbGkEpmzjAeN87WgCA&sa=X&oi=book_result&resnum=9&ct=result#PPA12,M1

smoothopyro said:

https://www.gardenscure.com/420/lighting/79048-cfl-penetration-trimming-theory.html

https://www.rollitup.org/indoor-growing/83378-16k-lumens-hps-vs-cfl.html

The big question: assuming no energy limit, if I have 10000 lumens of CFL, WILL IT PENETRATE LESS THAN 10000 lumens of HPS? In other words, lumen for lumen, does HPS actually penetrate deeper than CFL, or is HID more just more efficient at generating this penetration (more penetration per watt)?

it doesn't seem like it would, especially if the CFL light was coming from a uniform source (like several CFLs spaced very close).

Prove this, please. I don't want any "well, I grw under HPS and then CFL and xxxx happenned". THat's all well and good, and I'm aware of the differences between the two in terms of efficiency, spectrum, heat, etc. I want a conclusive answer, backed with empircal data or sound logic, to this often-asked question.

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i didnt read the whole post so forgive me but i must tell you that cfl lumens do not add up just for an i de say a bulb is 1600 lumens if you add another 1600 lumen bulb next to it you just have 2 1600 lumen bulbs not 3200 just like if you have a radio on and turn another one on at the same volume it doesnt magicly make it louder just more sound from 2 diffrnt points... i would say hid more penetration cfl you can put the light where its needed ive never flowered with cfl only veg and mothers...


oh yea and if you put 400w of actual cfl in a room it will be just as hot as a 400w hid. alone or just a few cfls are cool but get big ones and a lot of em it equals out

Light does add up. It'd unlikely double(theoretically it is under the right conditions), but it gets very close(reality). Red spot light + blue spotlight + green spotlight makes a white spotlight.

Two speakers are louder than one. Waves add to each other. It's called resonance.

If two lights are the same distance from a plane. Calculate the intensity based on I = lm(total) / feet(distance) ^ 2.

Here, look, two spotlights overlap. Brighter. Take a mirror. Reflect some light off it onto the wall. It gets brighter!