Advantage V. disadvantage CFL's

Bosejammin

Member
why do people always try saying hps and mh are hot my aircooled 1000w is always at 78 F but that is amazing you claim to get 42oz's with 18 cfl's every 4 months cause i only get about 32 every 2 months but if you only use 420-680 watts you pull about 2.8 grams per watt hats off to you thats the highest i've ever heard of
yeah no shit on the hug and the coolness..costs about 400 up front more to go mh hps switchable including fan and so on...say 6 inch inline...i keep the light off the plant no more than 7 inches most times.
 

KeefNreef

Member
Hey im not sure if this is a monotonous re-iteration but I think it is good information and pertains to cfl's as they are of comparatively low wattage. I was trying to figure total cost of my upcoming auto grow. Im doing a PC stealth grow with 4 cfls starting with (2- 2300k- 23watt) and (2 -6500k-26watt) and switching to 4 of the 2300k after 3rd week. So im averaging the wattage for the grow at 100. Now in my previous grow it was smaller, only 2 plants. This grow is 4 plants. Here it is.

100watts

24 hours a day

7 days a week

8 weeks

First we need the KiloWatt hour usage for it. This is easy, 100 watts at 10 hours is 1Kw/hr.

(2.4 Kwatt/hours per day) times (7 days) = (16.8 Kw/hrs per week) times (8 weeks)

135 Kwatt hours total


Cost of kilowatt/hr average $.11 (Varies greatly depending on where you live)(This is what it is where i live)

Total cost $14.78 not bad. thats why i love cfls. Just use the formula to see how much yours will cost.

P.S. I know since im growing an auto i can just do 12/12 BUT last time i did an auto they grew fast and strong so i will stick to 24/0. Cheers!
 

plaguedog

Active Member
All these math equations are out of this world. I can't comprehend it.
So just answer me this: How do CFLs REEAAALLYYY stand up against HPS?
Nope not at all. Have used both, while CFL's can do the job HiD lighting does it so much better. There is really no comparison, when I ran 300 watts of CFL vs. the 300 atts of HPS I have now, the HPS out yielded by almost 60% with the same exact strain and same grow medium and regimen. Now I am not discounting CFL's for micro grows as they work fine but if you have the space,and money to dial in HiD lighting, there is no question which to use.
 

herballuvmonkey

Well-Known Member
I ran cfl during my first grows. Used the 42 watters that kick out 2800 lumens. They were good. 6 plants 2.5 oz. Now I run a 400 w hps setup 4 plants 6-8 oz. I was running 10 42 watt cfls thats 420 watts and and only 28,000 lumens. With my 400 hps i get 50K lumens and 130 PAR. Hid is just better dude. Take it from the people who tried it. I swore by cfls because they were my first choice until i got a hps and watched the buds swell.
 
wow this is supposed to be a site where stoners can come together and push forward the production and future of cannabis by helping each other and encouraging each other. However for the past 66 pages yall aint done nothing but bash each other and brag over whose got better shit and whose setup is the best....if someone wants to get on here and say there harvest is a little bigger than it actually is so fuckin what...i think were all at least a little guilty of talkin up our harvest a little bit now and then...next time just ignore it and dont drag it on for 66 pointless pages, cause theres actually people on here who want to learn and want to help others learn....its really an insult to all the people who actually are seeking knowledge and those who are giving knowledge, when yall go on with a bullshit post like this....just stop all this mindless posting and lets get these forums back to what there truly here for, and thats the progression of the knowledge of Gods gift to man, the cannabis plant!!!!
word.

Seriously fuck u all, i just wasted a shit load of my time cause i thought rollitup was better than this petty shit.

And i STILL did not find what i need.
Suck a fat one you e-pride ego consumed materlisitic fucks.
 

asaph

Well-Known Member
you see it seem to me that people feel that if you give it the most intense light you can find and the best hydro setup that it equils dank fat buds and that is simpley not true.


CFL's do not have the danger or heat problems that HPS and MH have also it cost more all around to dissapate the heat and the smell with it also CFL's are self ballest in most cases and there are so many that if one goes out you dont have to shell up 150.00 or 250.00 or what if the ballast goes out what if either of them fail while you are out of town and you loose the crop if one or two fail then i loose a few lumens and keep on rockin again consider the fire danger while you are gone a fan can fail of trip the braker also they use less wattage and you are able to spread the light as you see fit in most cases instead of coming from a central location high above i will say in defence of the production grower large intense lights are a good and usefull thing because it cuts down on the doliers per OZ of production that in my opinion is the onley time you would need the extra lumens i my self will never grow more then 14 plants at a time i get around 3-5 OZ per plant with that light at 14 plants only geting 3 OZ per is still 42 OZ every 4 months what the hell will i do with all that and i am only using about 420-680 watts when you have MH and HPS you are stuck with on or two kelvin ratings and that is it with CFL's i can swap the kelvin rating as i see fit mabey i want to flower at 2100 kelvin mabey i like 6500 kelvin for veg or mabey i want to try 4500 kelvin for veg and see if i get a better sun leaf with CFL's there is room for discovery and creativity we know that all strands are not the same and come from diffrent parts of the world mabey you would like to plant all dark purple indiga and the next crop you want to plant a virgin sativa they have diffrent requirments for light and with CFL's you can provide that with half the cost just remember people that the higher you go in watts when buyin a single CFL bulb the lower you go in lumens per watt stay at 26-55 watts and that is the best spot to stay...................... here are the periods that belong up there disperse them as you please
dude, absolutely no offense or disrespect, but if you want people to be able to read that or anything else, you gotta start using punctuation. it's like, important.
 

JimmyT

Well-Known Member
I've been growing with HPS and T5s for a while now. At this point, I'm just interested in doing an entire CFL grow with a couple of plants from seed to harvest just for the fcuk of it:leaf:
 

skiweeds

Active Member
CFLs if space is limited, but if you have the extra space, money to spend, and know what you're doing, HID is by far the way to go. sure you could use a shit load of CFLs but wtf would you do that?
 

MaryWanna420

Active Member
wow sush hate i was getting more per plant using the bubble bucket method hay man please have a hard time beliving me because it going to make me loose some sleep please hold while i take this CHRONIC brake ------------------------------------------------well then wasent that plesent haaaaahaaaahaaaahaaahaaahaa
lmfao he must be talkin wet weight
 

BobBanana

Member
What I see here is a bit of a clash of egos. Sticky wants to call bullshit on everyone and everything he doesnt agree with and then wants to threaten his way to the top of an argument.

Frontier may have his math off but he may not. I dont know every detail of his setup nor does anyone else but him.

The funny thing is, I came here because I feel the best knowledge is represented here. It only took me about 2 weeks from knowing jack shit to understand what the average parameters should be and who is blowing smoke up peoples asses.

When you get to CFL it gets a bit hazy because so many people are NOT using it on a larger scale and its primarily used for those rubbermaid grows. Until we get a LOT more people at least experimenting with it, we are not going to have solid information. There is much to be learned still.

Remember kiddies.............non-existance of evidence does not equal evidence of non-existance.


Couldn't have said it better if I were high...uh...hmm....nevermind!
 

lastfrontier

Well-Known Member
so i have finaly perfected my computerized grow set up the comp controls the lights, water, fans, filters, ph, organic tea machine and the clone machine all off of a small tiny thin client computer it record data like the PH, water temp, light amps, ballast temp etc for the entire grow cycle this helps to improve efficiency and save cost the system can run up to 50 five gallon bubble buckets the system also controles the ambient room temp by controling a fresh air damper this helps keep the temp with in + or - 2.5 degrees.
 

lastfrontier

Well-Known Member
wow i have forgotten i had that lamp as my avatar i have come so far since then and it's all do to the help of this site and this sticky thanks. you know i dont know if i have said this about HID versus CFL but with HID alot of people tend to over light plants just like you can over water them you can over light them and what ever the plants dont need/use they will kick out in the form of heat and in that alone for the small grower CFLS are great. not that HIDs dont have there place. i use pretty much all know sources of light CFL,HID,LED,plasma,and afew others.
 

d l

Member
I Got a 85watt 55k cfl 55watt 27k cfl and one 35 watt automotive hid 3k for two plants thinks it's enough?
 

zovoel

Active Member
last frontier - how many CFLs are you working with and what are their wattages? That's an impressive avatar.. I tried to copy it in my actual grow set-up
 

henery

Active Member
Ok his actual yield claims are 1.25gpw a month witch is amazing still I hardly think that it is achievable with clf's, I have achieved 1gpw a month with a 1000 watt hps and a areoponic hybrid setup with no co2! In my opinion it is near impossible to get 1.5gpw a month without co2 growing organic and using clfs I call bullshit!

There is some very good information in this thread about lighting not bashing any type but just clearing the air on these bogus claims for people who are trying to learn!
 

fraiserblaze

Active Member
props to every one who posted somethin usefull to the forum ! Personally have seen large yeilds on cfl grows but there is no guaranteed magic formula . cfls do work you just gotta keep em close
 

zovoel

Active Member
I've had some great success with CFLs in my grow so far. Sprouted and now vegetating 7 sexy lookin ladies using a dozen bulbs equaling 504 watts. Keep up the helpful tips everyone!
 
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