Kamel's CFL Guide

[KamelRedLight]

Good site, and good bulbs. Not from experience though, but I've heard the site recommended and the bulbs sound good, though the 65w daylights that wal mart sells put out more lumens than either, and cost $11. The thing with them is you need to use their fixture and have to wire it up to a plug (30 second job). My thinking is when they size down the ballast to include it in the bulb, it loses power. The Lights of America ones at wal mart have a ballast outside the bulb, and make more light. There are some others sold on ebay as grow lights, and all they really are are relabeled Lights of America lights, so if you want the extra power and can deal with the fixtures, I'd check those out. Not sure if they have a warm color though.

[Reverend107]

Awesome thread dude! Ive been looking for info like this all day. I think i will end up drowning my baby in cfl light after all thanks to this great thread. Maybe after a few harvests ill get a hps lamp for some increased bud size, but knowing that you can successfully grow using cfls is good to know for a newb like me. +rep

[EuphoricNoni]

Originally Posted by KamelRedLight

Good site, and good bulbs. Not from experience though, but I've heard the site recommended and the bulbs sound good, though the 65w daylights that wal mart sells put out more lumens than either, and cost $11. The thing with them is you need to use their fixture and have to wire it up to a plug (30 second job). My thinking is when they size down the ballast to include it in the bulb, it loses power. The Lights of America ones at wal mart have a ballast outside the bulb, and make more light. There are some others sold on ebay as grow lights, and all they really are are relabeled Lights of America lights, so if you want the extra power and can deal with the fixtures, I'd check those out. Not sure if they have a warm color though.

Are those 3000kelvin lights ok? Will it matter if its 300 kelvin off from whats its suppose to be considering that its 2700k for flowering right?

Or will it work better if I get say three or four 55 watt 2700kelving bulbs?

[KamelRedLight]

Thanks Reverend, good luck on your grow.
Yeah 3000k is good. Any higher and the PAR starts dropping off. I still haven't answered the question of 1 big light vs many smaller lights yet though.

[djdew23]

hope you dont mind a pic Kamel this was my last grow 8 23w cfls over 1 plant

[Cyric99]

Awesome thread man, very nice.

[Cyric99]

So using around 150w of Fluros for one plant... can I expect my electric bill to go up a good bit? Or will I not notice much at all?

[KamelRedLight]

Nice djdew, nothin like a footlong stick of buds.

Hey Cyric 150w won't cause much of an increase, maybe a few dollars but not much. The great thing about using low watts is you can offset it on the bill easily by conserving energy elsewere in the house.

I'm gonna go get 2 more small pots and do a couple clones, and make one of em a test subject. I'm thinking CFL vs LED, UVB vs none, or maybe flowering in 2700k vs flowering under 6500k. I have no proof yet of a difference, yet I always say 2700 for flower. I think that'll be my experiment. Hell I might even be able to do the LED test at the same time. The hard part about lighting comparison is keeping them seperate. During this time my seed plants will become monsters which I'll then flower. I'll add my findings to the front of this thread with the guide.

[birdman13]

man at my hydro shop it is 40 bucks for a "blue" or 6500k 105 watt cfl, and 75 bucks

for the "red" 105 watt cfl, now i have seen alot of people flower under normal walmart

cfls witht the ame spectrem the whole time? i would love to know if the yield will

decrease? i guess this could also go into Metal halide vs. High Pressure sodium. i know

for a fact that just a HPS or red spectrum alone will make plants stretch and look more

like bean polls. What i wana know is do i need to go blow another 75 to flower or

screw it, ill test it man i'll go all the way with 105 watt blue cfl! making moves as i say.

My two cents!

[KamelRedLight]

What a scam, I bet it costs less to make the red spec bulb too. Supposedly you will lose yield, but we'll see. Still gotta get those pots...

[mrtwomuchskill]

Originally Posted by birdman13

man at my hydro shop it is 40 bucks for a "blue" or 6500k 105 watt cfl, and 75 bucks

for the "red" 105 watt cfl,

sweet site http://www.1000bulbs.com/products.ph...ct-Fluorescent the top two bulbs are for vegging the bottom two for flowering

[Cyric99]

Kamel - Where did you get those light fixtures? I went to Walmart, Lowes, and Home Depot, and I couldn't find anything like what you have in those pictures. I found something similar, but they were like $30-40 each, ridiculous.

[Hosbitalized]

Originally Posted by Cyric99

Kamel - Where did you get those light fixtures? I went to Walmart, Lowes, and Home Depot, and I couldn't find anything like what you have in those pictures. I found something similar, but they were like $30-40 each, ridiculous.

not meant for me to answer but if i can help why not. I found great clamp light fixtures with big metal reflectors at home depot by all the extension cords. like $6.95 too

[KamelRedLight]

I got most of my stuff at Wal Mart. The bendy clamp lamps and the big metal ones. I think they're the same at home depot. I'm surprised you missed them. The metal ones are near the hardware and the flexible lamps are in the furniture section. They're both cheap and both have benefits when it comes to placing the lights. Hope everybody's holiday was nice!

[sharkman081490]

so this wouldnt be very cost efficient if your going to hydro 12 plants because i was thinking of getting a 400watt hps which would have 45k lumens for 100$ and for cfls it would be like 30$ per plant for just the bulb