Cfl vs hps?

MaoZebong said:
[derail]
I'm not arguing here, just getting something straight.
Heat is always radiant, whether it comes from the internal ballast on CFL's, or if it comes from pushing electrons through a filament. It's not the light in HPS's which create the heat, it's the glowing metal bar inside the glass bulb. They are both above the plants. They're exactly the same kind of heat (i.e. heat), it's just generated in different places. And since the HPS does get hotter (I can touch the ballast on my cfl while it's on), it wastes more energy to heat than a cfl. That's what the whole environmental argument for CFL's over tungsten filament bulbs boils down to.
[/derail]
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I know what you are saying... but you might be missing my point.

Have you ever seen the two types of plug in heaters you can buy? One is small and has a fan - and uses a heating coil to heat the air - this is like the internal ballast giving off heat to the air in a CFL.

The second type has big rods which glow red and a metal reflector to focus the radiant heat out into the room - this is like an HPS bulb which heats your plants directly with radiant heat.

If you put your hand near an HPS bulb, you will feel the radiant heat - it's coming from the high pressure sodium chamber (there is no "filiment", just a chamber of sodium which radiates light when current is passed through) just like the light. Radiant heat is simply radiation with a longer wavelength than visible light, and it's part of the spectrum an HPS emits.

If you put your hand near a CFL bulb, you will feel very little radiant heat - the emission spectrum of a CFL does not include the lower frequencies that you would feel as heat, so while it heats the air, it does not project heat on to the plants.

My point is, 200 watts of energy consumption will heat up your closet equally, whether it's HPS or CFL. However, you need more ventilation with 200 watts of HPS since it's heating up your plants more directly with the radiant heat focused right on them.
 
The benefits of hid is light penetration, (You will get denser buds on more parts of a taller plant with it), and more watts per bulb

The benefit of CFL is low heat, low maintenance, cheap,(though arguably a larger grow would spend more on cfl's than on an hps and a larger grow would spend less on hps than they would for CFL's)

The Cons of hps is high heat output

The cons of CFL is low light penetration(need bulbs closer to plant and you will get loose low quality buds on sites to far away from the light)

So really it depends on your style. but keep in mind you can grow like 9 lst'd plants under a single 1000watt hps. get bigger yields per harvest and some would argue high quality bud. On the other hand you can scrog plants with 2 42 watt cfl's per plant(or 1 100 watt) get some would argue the exact same quality of bud, Harvest more often due to you kicking the clones early to save space.

So really HID or CFL is all depends on how you want to grow you're plants and what kind of space you can devote to them.
 
i use t5's all the way with amazing results , i use a sun blaze 8 4ft. with two extra lights mounted on each side of it for a total of 10 8 blue 2 red in veg and 6 red and 4 blue in flower , i grow scrog in a 2ft. x 4 ft. closet , it really produces , i just harvested 19 oz;s out of six plants ,,,,,,,,,,,,,,, im happy ..................... smokr1:peace:
 
CFLs are great for low heat. I switched to T5s for vegging purposes recently and am much happier with the rate of growth and energy consumption.
 
MaoZebong said:
I would go for the actual growing CFL's. They are 150w and above. Actual watts, not the equivalent stuff they put on the smaller ones. Just do a google search for "250w cfl growlight." You'll find the ones I'm talking about. They come in many sizes, but other search strings give other hits as well.
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I look up 250 watt bulb your talking about and found one for 70$. It put out 12000 lumens. I divide 12000 by 1600 [1600 is what most 23watt bulbs put out] it come to 7.5 bulbs. I pay 8 bucks for 3 bulbs so you can see its better to buy the 23watt instead of the 250.
 
I recently used 2 double ballasted 4-tube t8 fixtures in a space 2 feet by 4 feet & yielded 617 grams. Density was closer to what you'd expect from hid than cfl's. together both fixtures use 512 watts & cost $130 at home depot including the extra ballasts. I also have an 8 tube t5 fixture & the double ballasted t8's did better than the t5's that cost twice as much. FYI cfl are the least efficient fluorescents you can get. They produce less light per watt & the bulbs cost allot more. I used cfl's for my first couple grow's & i'll never go back. overdrive t8's & t5's all the way. All that being said if you can deal with the heat of an hps it will flower better.How To Build A Super Charged Fluorescent Grow Light By Overdriving - YouTube
 
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