Hotspot clarification

When talking about "hotspots" in conversations about mylar, aluminum foil, emergency blankets, white paint, etc, are people referring to accumulation of light at single points such as a magnifying glass does, or as in the foil would retain heat and show up as a thermal anomaly?

the first one.

Yea just like a magnifying glass, it will burn holes in your girls ):

I've yet to see any real evidence that it can happen. I spose if you were using high-powered lighting, and had some REALLY strange configuration of reflective material, it might be possible, but hearing stuff like "make sure you get all the wrinkles out" makes me laugh. It'd be extremely difficult to burn your plants, even if you tried to do it intentionally, IMO.

ive seen tinfoil do it to me once, but yeah the lighting was probably a bit too intense the way i had it set up.the real reason to smooth out wrinkles and not use tinfoil is because tin foil sucks overall compared to the alternatives that are cheaper. like mylar or flat white paint. smoothing out wrinkles helps reflectivity.

wow, i havent seen you in a while jawbrodt. how long have you been back? its good to see you and a few other people i havent seen in a while. welcome back.

^Hey man, good to see ya too. I've been back for a couple days, took a break from growing, and went back to work, which kept me off the forum for awhile. Just started some Ice fems, and 3 freebie strains(I'm kinda excited to see what Northern Lights blue will do), checked 'em a couple hours ago, and seen they've all germed, so the new grow will start tomorrow, when they first touch soil. Also, I finally got my 1000 watt HPS, which is kinda exciting too. The 600 was nice, but if you're only running one light, might as well go with a 1000, right?lol I'm gonna start a journal, so that'll keep me around for awhile, even though i won't be able to spend much time here during the week, while working.

Yeah, tinfoil isn't very good for use in growing, it's reflectivity is pretty low, like 70%, compared to mylar or white paint, which are both 90+%. It's better than nothing, but I'm a mylar fan now.