Considering a CFL grow

Tragically I'm not gonna have the spot where I'm growing for much longer. I'm facing space limitations so I'm considering using CFLs. I have my moms and clones under CFLs now and have been impressed by the moms growth. I think the lower light production will be balanced by the reduced cooling requirements in a small space. I've never done anything this small before.
I want to be able to pull like 3oz every 11 weeks (I'm growing a Jack Herer that a friend has been playing with for a few years). It's a decent yielding plant under HPS so I'm sure it can. Any tips on making the most of these little guys would be sweet.
Thanks

The benefit of using cfls is the fact that you can put the lights super close to the plants. I did a closet grow with about 400w of cfl lighting, had four plants, I LST'd them, ended up with 4oz of dry product. I prob could have gotten a bit more as I harvested 2 weeks early due to the plants becoming root bound. (I had them in pots that just werent big enough).

Anyway its perfectly possible to pull 3 oz from a cfl grow. My main suggestion would be to keep your plants small. CFLs dont have the power to penetrate deep foliage so growing anything over 2.5-3 feet would be ill advised. I flowered mine when they were about a foot, maybe 14" and they ended up being 24-30" tall. Got some great nugs out of the deal.

Also, if you have the space, I would commit some of your cfl's to side lighting. I had about 8 27w cfl bulbs (4 on each side) of my ladies and they seemed to really respond to it well.

Good luck

I'm planning on running at least 400W of CFLs in this. I know I can pull 10oz off 5 plants with a vertical 400W in my current space, if I can't pull 3 with CFLs I'll be quite sad.
How much cooling do I need for 400W worth of CFLs in an area of 30-40cu ft?
I'm also wondering what people have found is the best way to set up lights so you get a good amount of control over there placement as they'll obviously need to get moved a lot. Any tricks people have learned. I want to design the best box I can start with so optimization starts at a higher point for subsequent grows. Build in haste repent at leisure is not what I want in an experimental grow.

hey buddy!! CFL's are fun lil lights to grow in a spare bedroom! It does not affect my Utility Bill AT ALL!!! Easy to hide (if u need to) and just a fun little rewarding thing to do! HPS is amazing No Doubt but these little CFL's can pack a punch if used right! Im currently using a Cabinet, gutted it out, left the top shelf in for storage and it gives me 3x3 growing area! Im currently growing with a 24/7, 12/12 lighting schedule. I place a new plant in every 4 weeks, and remove one at that time too! You can grow however u want! Anyway, I placed a 6in exhaust duct fan and have a few fans placed inside and one 4inx3in intake whole! I went ahead and got bigger than i needed so i never have to worry about heat problems! Im using 2700k lights and 6500k lights, mainly 2700k for the plants that are in flowering stage and 6500k for the Veg plants! Im going to post some pics so u can see how i did it to give u a simple idea!

How many Y-splitters do you have daisy chained together there?
I'm trying to think of a way to be able to control the position of every bulb in the box. Slack wire and hooks sounds like a tangled nightmare with 10-20 bulbs.

ur also asking for a electrical fire if your not carefull with up to 20 odd light fixture cables lol

That's why I'm asking for advice on how to do it simply.

dont go overboard thats my advice...ur obviously going with the y splitters choice so i would imagine some kind of junction box for the wires to go into then add a timer to that junction box thats the only safest way i can think of...unless u go for my set up which is just plugs into a long extension plug board and stick a timer underneath that so it turns everything off when its time too and visa versa

from what ive thought of so far about getting your lights to turn or something ur not goin to be able to do that u should just place a fixture or y splitter where u want it to be and leave it there because the bulbs will do the coveradging of the grow area themselves uve just gottaput them lights in the right places to stay there to do there job like he has..

if it gets to the point where u need to lower and higher ur lights then i would suggest a metal rod then tie them with tie bands to hold onto the rod then attach some daisy chain to the rod to lower and higher them when needed and just put some hooks up to hook that daisy chain too at different levels

ive also reminded myself that if the bulb is too far away then they will stretch so i best put mine closer to the bulb lol im glad u spoke about bulbs now lol

i use a homemade ufo made out of cfl's. 4 x 26w gives a decent top light i can leave the top bud right in the middle off. i use side lighting from a 135LED in middle and a foot lower.

Hey everyone sorry to disappear but combine getting sick with moving and you end up with no time. I think what I'm gonna end up doing is growing 3 or 4 plants around a center column of lights, with 3 or 4 bulbs above each plant, and build walls of light between the plants as they get bigger. So from above it would look like a big peace sign with three plants in it. This way all the plants get 2 walls of lights and the top lighting. It makes good use of each light with very little waste, and I can add them when as they're needed making it even more efficient. I've been growing vertically with HPS for a few crops now so I like the idea of surrounding a plant with lights. With the little LEDs you could make it like Xmas lights. That'd be fucking hysterical.
So I'm wondering if it would be better to do 3 or 4 plants. The eternal question of vert growing. How many plants in my circle?
The light emitting part of the bulbs are 2.5" in each dimension. I'd like to keep the bulbs 3" apart because they're useless once they're more than like 2" away from foliage. I suppose I could up the spacing a bit if I need to. But I'm planning on running up to about 600W and that's like 26-27 bulbs so I should be able to cover a lot of space.
I'm thinking of going with soil because I'm not gonna need much so weight isn't an issue and I want to try the recipe I'm planning on using for my veggies outside this year. And I could add some of my dad for drainage. He'd approve.
Edit: soil for all the staking and tying I'll need to do to train them to grow the way I'm picturing it in my head.

I hang mine from metal eyes and use paper clamps on the cord to adjust the height. Your probably dont want any more than about 75-100 actual watts of light per fixture and I dont mean the y-adapters I mean the main fixture they screw into. I like the idea of being able to move the lights, comes in real handy and its easy to reconfigure your grow room.

Rollinbud, I like that idea for the top lights. For the side lights I'm going to make stands by sticking dowels into wood blocks and attaching the bulbs to them. That way I keep the keep the mobility but don't end up with 30 or 40 odd wires getting tangled into my plants at the end of the grow.
And +rep for the safety warning. I put a key in a socket when I was a kid and have been very careful with electricity ever since. There's no excuse for not wiring to code. No amount of weed is worth burning your home down.