CFL Light Tutorial

origamijoint said:
Roseman....should have found your post sooner on brown algae.

Everyone new to growing.....please go and find any post by roseman on Brown Algae.

It is no joke. Not even a little. Not even the thought. Should have found and followed his post exactly. If I had I would not have been pulling wet nasty threads of brown angel hair pasta roots from the bottom of my plants.

And half way into the flowing....nothing I could do but buy bleach, h202, save the little ones....and spend, no lie almost a week, cleaning and scrubbing, and not staring at the uv light I rigged up for $40.00 will tell that later. every piece of pipe, every air line...etc. and a little prevention could have saved it all.

Scrubbing your rocks and balls is no way to enjoy a grow. More later....gotta clean
Click to expand...

Where is this post that you speak of??? I am all about troubleshooting and preventing mistakes so If you dont mind letting a brother know Would greatly appreciate it. :peace:
 
Out of curiosity, I just checked the draw on several new spiral CFL bulbs.

The 42w I checked first draws 24w.

Then checked a 65w, and it draws 32w.

Next came a huge 200w monster that only draws 50w.

To verify that my watt meter is working, I finished by checking my T5 light, that is rated at 110w, and it draws 108w.

All bulbs were stabilized for at least 30min before taking readings.

So, what's up with that?
 
Hmmmm, that is interesting. Then the whole theory of more lower watt clf's = more lumens for less watts isn't necessarily holding water?!?

Can anyone else verify this? You should post up the lumens on those bulbs so we can double check the math.
 
Uh ohh. How much did you pay for this watt meter? Does it measure the lights watt output or the power it comsumes when plugging it in? Sounds like it is the second because u said draw, can u link the meter your using Settingsun if you dont mind?
 
This is the meter and it's accurate. I've used it to check the energy usage of *lots* of different lights, including HID, T5, LED, and lots of other gear, and it reports the numbers just fine.

Digital Electricity Usage Tester

This is the first time I've used it to test spiral CFL's. The 200w bulb I tested isn't a spiral bulb; it has several tubes. Hard to believe the thing only draws 50w when it's rated at 200, but it's a brand new bulb and that's how it runs. I also notice that it isn't nearly as bright as my 110w T5. It's subjectively about half as bright, which makes sense.

I have a light meter, so I'll do some watts/intensity tests when I get the time, but this is a trip.

from another grow forum:

"Don't take the manufacturers specs. Take a measurement yourself. You will find the amp draw is far less than the rated wattage. I measure a 250 watt cfl and found it actually only draws 0.9 amps @ 115 volts that means these are actually 103.5 watts! same goes for a 125 watter it only drew 0.44 amps @ 115 v. These were actual wattage bulbs. I would't be surprised if your 42 watters are drawing less than 0.2 amps! bottom line is to get yourself an clamp on inductive amp meter and check the current draw yourself"
 
Cool so the linked meter will test the current on a given circuit? Meaning if I get one I will need a empty circuit to use for testing each piece of hardware individually on a circuit that does not have anything connected to it?
 
So what you are saying setting sun is that manufacturers are lying to us. What a surprise. So if we think we have X number of lumens we most likely have less then half, is that correct?
 
Well, previously we thought running lower watt CFL's was actually more lumens per watt, but this could possibly show that that is not true. You might actually be able to get more lumens per watt with larger bulbs. Should be interesting to see how the experiment turns out.
 
I wouldn't feel like I'm getting ripped off. As long as you still are getting the total lumens the plants need your good. But to do that and have the lowest power consumption, now that's worth looking into. ;)
 
If your getting the correct amount of lumens and the amp/watt numbers are off a bit that actually pays off better for us. Means we can add more light or use the higher W bulbs because they do produce more lumens but the price is not worth it. I bought a 105W CFL says it outputs 5K lumens, The 42W bulbs put out 2800 lumens. I did the math and buying more 42W was worth it than the 105W in the price area. If the high W bulbs put out more lumens i think it is best to do a combo mix of them. This is just my hypothesis after doing about a day or so of reading on just Cfl bulbs and their specs from diff sites. Them HID Car lights do look interesting but the lifespan for using them in a grow environment I wonder if they are worth it?
 
The question is, are the lumen ratings that far off as well? If the bulbs put out close to the rated lumens and use less watts its a benefit. Less watts equals less energy used. When looking at the lumen ratings it can be confusing because some are rated for the amount of lumens visible to the human eye.
 
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