cfl vs hps war ?

There is no debate, argument, or "war". Both CFLs and HPSs can be used to grow, they are just used in different applications. When space, cost and heat are limiting factors, then CFLs are more suited to the task, but for optimum growth and bud production with no other limits, HPSs are hands down, better.

It's funny, but I bet if you asked the people who are rallying behind CFLs if they have ever grown with HIDs, there answer would probably be no. Unfortunately, some people tend to defend what they have as being the best, even if it's not the best. I've grown using both, and I can tell you from personal experience that all else being equal, high intesity lights absolutely crush fluorescents no matter how you slice it. And I would venture to guess that you'd get the same answer from most other people who've grown using both. Saying CFLs are as good or better than HPS is like saying that a Toyota prius is as good or better than a Porsche 911 turbo. Sure a Prius is cheaper and better on fuel, but the porsche will out perform it in every other conceivable way.

So, point being, if you're on a tight budget and/or growing in a very confined space then CFLs are probably more suited for you. However, if cost and space aren't an issue (within limits of course) and you want maximum yield per watt, then HPS is the obvious choice.

OK.
i am going to get a HPS. right now..because of space and only 2 days into flowering, i do not know whom stays and whom goes. i may only have 2-6 females out of 12 plants.
can someone here give me a guide..it doesn't have to be written in stone.., but basically and primarily how much wattage, how many lights, for how many plants. my floor space is 48"X24" (8 square feet) and i dont have a clue how many i will be keeping. i am tho am projecting 8 five gallon buckets in my 48"X24" floor space.

but i am not getting rid of my CFLs. could they be like a booster to go along with the HPS?

"no ma, no war here."

400watt or 600watt i would get hps that is

I'm not HID Hater I have 5 of them, 1000 watt MH, 70 watt HPS, 50 watt HPS, 2 175 MH, but I also have 700 watts of CFL light, I mix the frequency because aint none of this light technology matching the sun. This aint the year 2100, so these lights all suck compared to the sun.

Everybody is complaining about heat, I live in a cold ass city, I'm talking fucking cold, heat is welcome, very welcome. HIDs are a life savor in my house, so I'm talking frequency even more than heat. of course, I would never flower a plant with out HPS, but I must have my CFL's to add that extra kick, and that fluffiness that is added pays the rent.

i'll smack the hell out of any one downing cfl's

newguy09 said:

i'll smack the hell out of any one downing cfl's

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Okay....newguy09.

It all depends on several factors what people use. Money being the number one for most people then room being a close second. If one looks around you can find an industrial t-5 six tube 30k lumen fixture for about a buck and a quarter. I started with t-12 fluros, the fat ones, then went to cfl's, then to t-5's, now I have two six hundred watt hid lights. There is no comparison, period. That is not to say one is better than the other, good bud can be grown with both. Remember the lumens from any kind of fluro is spread out over the length of the tube or goes in all directions if using cfl's, not true if using a reflector with an hid, all those lumens are directed downward and coming from one light source. My partner ran a six tube and a four tube t-5 his last grow, he had an extremely difficult time keeping his temps from hitting ninety every day. When I told him I ordered a six hundred watt light he said he'll grow better bud with his t-5's than I will with my 600w. To make a long story short after week three of growing under my new light, we are now in the process of building him a grow room for his two six hundred watt lights. At three feet away my girls are still getting almost ten thousand lumens, at two feet, twenty two thousand five hundred and at a foot away, ninety five thousand lumens.

See my thread a room without a view.

mowgly said:

alright im kinda new to the growing scene back then for me it was only hps didnt know nothing about envirolite cfl and stuff but 3-4 years ago i start hearing about these envirolites seem intersting to me because of the electricity like everybody else i think
now here is my question
why the war between cfl and hps
people on forums seems to hate
you got the cfl lovers and hps lovers
so i think its pretty confusing for growers wannabe no ?
so here it is can people give theyre yeld per gram under 250 watt cfl and same for hps
then 400 etc etc ...
even small settings
like 70 watt hps vs 70 cfl
without hate please
and if a similar kind of post been done b4 please gimme the link coz i can find any good 1 most of them r like "hps is better thats it"vice versa
not very productive
so thanks for ur interest and for everybody thats gonna participate
peace

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all i gotta say is there is no war.

cfls cannot compare to that of an hps.

and if u say it can, ur wrong, the only way cfls could meet the spectrum quality and strength of an hps is if u have twice the wattage in cfls, which would cost twice as much in electricity.

once again a silly thread draws my attention...

Okay i'm gonna throw a wrench into what everone thinks about cfl's and HPS. Have any of you thought of testing to see what actual power draw on these lights are? It's very simple, take a amp draw reading on the light while it running.
I measured the current draw of a 250 watt (actual watt) 8U cfl and a 400 watt HPS. What i found is gonna really make this debate heat up. A so called 250 watt cfl draws 0.9 amps@ 115 vac a 400 watt HPS draws 3 amps @ 115 VAC. Using ohms law (voltage x amps = watts) a 250 watt cfl actually only draws 103.5 watts and a 400 watt HPS draws 345 watts. What this means is these CFL's are actually more efficient than we thought. All the side by side test grows have been using too less cfl's to actually do a fair test. A fair test would use 3 250 watt cfl's vs. 1 400 watt HPS and the cfl's will still be drawing 34 watts less power. Having said that there is no way the advertised lumins of a 250 watt cfl is anywhere near correct. If it where it would mean these cfl's are getting 145lm/w! I think they are more in the lines of what a T5 lamp would put out. These 8U lights are using T5 tubes, an 8U has about 15 feet of T5 tubes per bulb. A 4 ft. T5 tube is rated at 28 watts and 2300 lumins. 4 T5 tubes would draw about the same wattage as 1 8U bulb. so i think the real lumins is around 9200. but thats still 88l/watt.
this was a simple test and results are undisputable... 250 watt cfl's only draw 103.5 watts.

All I do know for sure is this, I have used every light as I said before. This grow, my first using hid lighting is blowing away any of my other grows. We can talk lumens, watts, kelvin temps, whatever, my eyes are not lying to me and either are my girls. I kind of like the saying, you can tell me anything, show me. Well my girls are showing me, I'm convinced hid lighting is the way to go if you can afford it.

I perfer cfls cause of the cost, they put out very little heat, and you don't need alot of room to grow with them.

Stoney384 said:

I perfer cfls cause of the cost, they put out very little heat, and you don't need alot of room to grow with them.

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Uhmmm...CFL's put out plenty of heat, you need lots of them and they end up costing plenty. If you're looking to spend the next 3 months of your life growin' a spliff then you're right, very low heat and you wouldn't need many. But if you are looking to get a good quantity of ganja you gotta use a real light (at least for flowering).

bubblegoogles said:

Okay i'm gonna throw a wrench into what everone thinks about cfl's and HPS. Have any of you thought of testing to see what actual power draw on these lights are? It's very simple, take a amp draw reading on the light while it running.
I measured the current draw of a 250 watt (actual watt) 8U cfl and a 400 watt HPS. What i found is gonna really make this debate heat up. A so called 250 watt cfl draws 0.9 amps@ 115 vac a 400 watt HPS draws 3 amps @ 115 VAC. Using ohms law (voltage x amps = watts) a 250 watt cfl actually only draws 103.5 watts and a 400 watt HPS draws 345 watts. What this means is these CFL's are actually more efficient than we thought. All the side by side test grows have been using too less cfl's to actually do a fair test. A fair test would use 3 250 watt cfl's vs. 1 400 watt HPS and the cfl's will still be drawing 34 watts less power. Having said that there is no way the advertised lumins of a 250 watt cfl is anywhere near correct. If it where it would mean these cfl's are getting 145lm/w! I think they are more in the lines of what a T5 lamp would put out. These 8U lights are using T5 tubes, an 8U has about 15 feet of T5 tubes per bulb. A 4 ft. T5 tube is rated at 28 watts and 2300 lumins. 4 T5 tubes would draw about the same wattage as 1 8U bulb. so i think the real lumins is around 9200. but thats still 88l/watt.
this was a simple test and results are undisputable... 250 watt cfl's only draw 103.5 watts.

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How many amps drawn for induction lights? How do they compare ~watts,amps,lumens,?

laserbrn said:

Uhmmm...CFL's put out plenty of heat, you need lots of them and they end up costing plenty. If you're looking to spend the next 3 months of your life growin' a spliff then you're right, very low heat and you wouldn't need many. But if you are looking to get a good quantity of ganja you gotta use a real light (at least for flowering).

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You seem outspoken to the point of elitism on this matter. You seem to not realize that not everyone else is you or growing for your goals in your space. My question to you is, why do you care so much how other people decide to grow their weed? You made your point a long time ago. Time to drop the passive aggressive insults and move on.

MrBlanco said:

You seem outspoken to the point of elitism on this matter. You seem to not realize that not everyone else is you or growing for your goals in your space. My question to you is, why do you care so much how other people decide to grow their weed? You made your point a long time ago. Time to drop the passive aggressive insults and move on.

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That wasn't passive aggressive, the statement made was false, that you don't need alot of room, they don't put out heat and you don't need many of them.

There's nothing passive aggressive about saying that they do generate heat, you do need lots of them and I didn't make any comment about space, they do work where head room is a problem, but overall the plants require the same space regardless of what you use for lighting.

The reason I am for HPS in the CFL vs. HPS debate is because if I were just starting out and I wanted information on which is the better method, I would hope that someone would explain it to me so I don't waste my life growing with CFL's and just do it right from the start.

Certainly there will be people to present the CFL argument (not with false statements such as the previous) and they can state their side of it. That's what makes it VERSUS, jackass.

bump bump bump

i think the topic is still relevant no ?

2 years after ive started that topic is the war cfl vs hps still on ????

Lol, no one here uses MH in the flowering stage? That's awkward since MH vs HPS is still debated, let alone HPS vs CFL. Finish one debate before moving onto another. To be brutally honest, anyone who is paying for CFL's and going for a decent grow op should invest in an LED. LED's use less energy, produce less heat, and are good for both vegetative growth AND flowering. No need to move your lights around every day either, since they can be set 6-12 inch's over your canopy, and moved once a week. The downside to LED's is price, and even that is coming down. LED's pay for themselves in a couple months of growing. While none of this is from personal experience yet, I am going to be setting up my LED with my MH.
People neglect the blue spectrum in flowering, hps does a ton at promoting flowering but more blue would increase growth. Increased growth + Flowering Promotion = CMH. People who are worried about their plants height are slowing down the growth of the plant by using an HPS, for more buds in a smaller area. While MH produces bigger plants, and done properly would yield more in the same time period with a notably more resinous appearance. All of this comes from reading, flame all you want. I did my research, flaming me is not going to make me feel bad. I know from Expert growers what works best, and what does not. Not to down anyone here, I'm sure a handful of people here have that level of experience. Most of them wouldn't bring themselves down to the level of debating CFL vs HPS. If you are so set in your ways that all you can do is rely on the way of growing, no matter what anyone tells you. Then you are going to grow that way no matter what, so why bother debating the subject?