2 points with CFL REVOLUTION

[geneticengineer]

1. First off, wanted to inform you all of a revolution in growing; Odor eliminating CFLs.

Technical Consumer Products, Inc. (TCP), makers of compact florescent lighting, have created a bulb that they claim will eliminate strong offensive smells such as fish in the kitchen, musty laundry room odors or even pet smells - kitty box, anyone? Do these bulbs live up to the hype?

What sets the Fresh bulbs apart from similar compact fluorescent bulbs is the fact that they are coated with Titanium Dioxide. When the light is turned on, it activates the coating which releases "extremely strong" odor fighting oxidizers. This oxidation process is supposed to "break down odors completely."

I was skeptical, but after the research i bought an odor eating cfl today from home depot. It works and I am scrapping my carbon filter and air freshners. This unique product provides outstanding 2700k spectrum light, and works for thousands of hours as a bullet-proof odor eliminator.

2. Thoughts on lumens per plant....

First off, wanted to clarify a couple of things with everybody. For simplicity this post will skip mean lumens, foliage light depletion, refraction, and reflection.

Lumens do not add up when taking an equal light source and multiplying it. Lumens are a measure of the intensity of the light source. Think of cfls as you would think of computer case fans. The air moved by the fans does not speed up the more you stack, you simply get more fans moving more overall air...

This is important when taking into account foliage penetration, and increasing marginal utility with respect to overall illumination. 30-42 watt cfl bulbs are most efficient with respect to luminosity (68 or so lumens per watt), and provide a luminous intensity of 2000 to 2800 lumens.

Furthermore, a plant can absorb multiple light sources, and these overlap eachother. Packaging on a light bulb measures lumens given out by the bulb in all directions, not with a giant reflector on it, so this single bulb bombards anything with lumens with a clear line of sight to it.

Lets say you have 3 plants positioned around a 42 watt cfl. All 3 plants are exactly 2 inches (same distance) from the cfl bulb in the middle, the cfl bulb is 2800 lumens.

Question: How many lumens are each plant getting?

Answer: 2800!

The trick is to have your plant getting hit by as many cfls as possible at the same time. This does not increase the lumenous intensity your plant is getting, but it does increase the quantity of light your plant is getting from certain directions. If your plant is getting 1650 lumens from one side because it is 4 inches away from a 2050 lumen cfl, and on the other side it is right next to a 2050 lumen cfl getting a full 2050 lumens, then in theory the plant is being exposed to 3700 lumens of light at varying intensities from different angles.

Photosynthesis occurs when light passes through plant matter, specifically leaves and buds. The higher the lumens (intensity of light source, a 42 watt cfl vs a 13 watt cfl), the deeper the penetration, the more light sources, the more effective area of penetration.
It is a balance of both and what you want to picture is light making its way into the flesh of the plant, whether you have more lights, more intensity, or both.

So to be effective while growing with CFL:

Luminous efficiency: 30- 42 watt cfls used only.
Luminous intensity: 30- 42 watt cfls used only.

Place lights so that 2-3 plants are being illuminated by each light with direct
line of sight, as opposed to using reflectors. Use mylar to capture and re-up
the photons for photosynthesis. This sounds easy, but mathematics must be used
to calculate optimal light and plant placement. If done correctly, each plant can have 3 or so light sources of significant distance, thereby stacking the light in reguards to angular penetration and overall photosynthetic stimulation.

Hope this helps.

[geneticengineer]

odor eating cfls really do work! they dont mask the smell either, they simply make it so you smell nothing. dont just buy 1 for some big room, use several in a small space. not to replace huge carbon filters, just smaller ones on smaller grow setups while supplementing light to lower branches.

[giroldo]

how long does the titanum dioxide 'odor eliminator' last on each bulb. The posting says that they have a coating of the compound, but i would be curious how long the coating lasts before it is completely dissolved into the room?

[geneticengineer]

lasts several thousand hours. the bulbs are very cheap about $13 each. so i figure just use it and when u start to smell anything just replace it. like with all cfls make sure not to break the tube in your garbage or anywhere, as it contains mercury and is highly toxic if released indoors.

[giroldo]

13 dollars a peice is fairly pricey.

somebody with interest to keeping odor down could buy normal cfl light bulbs for much cheaper. to fix the odor issue, they could use the money saved (instead of buying the odor eliminating lights) and build or buy a small carbon filter.

that seems mor elogical to me, but others may disagree.

[geneticengineer]

1500 lumens per bulb in 2700k and odor absorbtion. So your pretty much not losing any lighting efficiency except for having to go down to a lower wattage bulb. I saw this thing in home depot awhile ago and just never figured to buy it. I searched the internet and I guess its starting to catch on in grow forums all over the place. The best would be to have like 3 or 4 of these things around the stalks of your plants hitting the undergrowth, adding like 4500 to 6000 lumens and zapping odor.

[geneticengineer]

carbon filter may not be worth it to replace depending on the setup. but I will say that carbon filters in order to work well have to have good airflow and quite a large filter in order to avoid heat buildup. You can always use a homemade or small carbon filter, but sometimes if your running over 150 watts in lights you may need bigger in order for more airflow. I think these cfls work as a kind of a contact agent rather than having to pull the air through a filter. I dont really know enough about it, I just know it works and it seems promising.

[geneticengineer]

dont hear anyone talking about my point on lumens.

[geneticengineer]

by the way i conducted new tests on my 2 cfl odor eliminators. the most impressive and suprising test was my bongrip-in-my-room test. i took a big bongrip, blew it out, turned on my 2 lights, and left the room. i came back 10 minutes later and there was not even a hint of a smoke smell in my room, although i was stoned when i came back in the room i know it worked:P

[SkunkApe]

Originally Posted by geneticengineer

dont hear anyone talking about my point on lumens.

Hey geneticengineer! +rep for the great info in this thread! I'm thinking of doing a CFL grow. I know you said the low wattage cfl's are more efficient in terms of lumens, but I don't want a grow set up with 10 or more light fixtures in it, which I would need to get the amount of lumens I am looking for from 30 watt cfl's. Instead, I am thinking of using maybe three of the 125 watt 2700k cfl bulbs sold at the link below...(scroll down the page and you'll see they sell the individual lights and sockets seperately...
http://homeharvest.com/hydrofarmcompactfluorescents.htm

Instead of using a reflector, I would hang the light sockets from the ceiling so the lights will be vertical. From what I've heard about cfl's, this will allow more light/lumens to reach the plants than if I were to use reflectors. Also, using this method, I could move the lights around in the grow closet to get them down in between the bud sights. This should also make the lighting more efficient because if I used reflectors, I would only be able to lower the light to the tops of the tallest colas, which wouldn't be as efficient since cfl's need to be 2" to 4" inches away from the buds for best results. I contacted the website and was told these lights produce a little over 8000 lumens a piece. So three would provide over 2400 lumens. I'd probably also use a couple of the odor remover bulbs for lower bud lighting and of course odor removal. My grow closet will be 6' wide by 2' deep all the way to the ceiling. Walls will be painted flat white. I plan on going 12/12 from seed in a bubbler hydro set up. First grow will be bagseed for experimentation. Once I think I've got the system dialed in, I'll use Northern Lights #5. It stays short, is supposed to be potent, and is known for not producing much odor, so with the odor killer bulbs I'm hoping I won't need to invest in a charcoal scrubber.

My question to you is this...Do you think this would be sufficient lighting to grow 2 to 4 plants and get decent buds? Is this actually overkill on the lighting just to grow 2 to 4 plants? I know the general rule of thumb is the more light/lumens the better. But these big cfl's aren't cheap, so if I could get the same results using two 125 watt 2700k lights with a couple of the low wattage odor killer cfl's on the side, please let me know.

You seem to be one of the most knowledgable folks here at GC in terms of how cfl's work, so your feed back will be much appreciated. Peace.

[dexorated]

Originally Posted by geneticengineer

lasts several thousand hours. the bulbs are very cheap about $13 each. so i figure just use it and when u start to smell anything just replace it. like with all cfls make sure not to break the tube in your garbage or anywhere, as it contains mercury and is highly toxic if released indoors.

"
Even if the worst happens and you break a CFL bulb, the EPA estimates that at most only 6.8% of the 4 mg of mercury will be released, or about 0.27 mg, since most of it is in the glass, electrodes, and in the phosphor coating on the inside of the glass. Incinerating a bulb will potentially release more mercury vapor, if there are no pollution controls on the incinerator.
But even if the CFL released all of it’s mercury–according to Richard Benware, a graduate student at Cornell who researched CFLs last summer for EPA’s Energy Star program–it would still be a better choice than an incandescent, because over its lifetime, the 15W CFL will have prevented the release of 5.67 mg of mercury from an average power plant."

http://www.kqed.org/quest/blog/2007/...-of-cfl-bulbs/

[cork144]

if i were you id only use the odour eating cfls when the plant actually smells, thatway youll use the bulb for longer.

[geneticengineer]

by the way using more than 40 watts for cfl is great. it has more initial lumens, and higher penetration. a 105 watt cfl puts out like 7k lumens and penetrates foliage very well. Also a greater amount of light reaches the leaves as light diminishes inversly by the square of its distance. what i should have said in this post originall was use >30 watts per cfl light.

check out these internodes from 6x32 watt 6500kelvin cfls @ 2inches from foliage.

[geneticengineer]

you have way more than enough light with 24,000 lumens. maybe use 1 5500k and 1 2700k for more spectrum and 16,000 lumens; that would be fine for 2-4 plants. another thing which might be good is to use a single 105 watt 2700k above the 4 plants, and 6x30watt 2700k bulbs with cone reflectors around the undergrowth and spotlighting major bud structures, and that would keep you under 300 watts while distributing the light better. when u concentrate too much cfl light in one spot ie putting 3 105 watt cfls close together, your not utilizing the strength of flourescents which is their dispersion qualities. Ive personally only done 2 cfl grows, but ive done a ton of a research and read every possible cfl grow journal.

im using cfls hanging vertically, as it easy to position between the plants. i only have 3 feet of vertical space, so cfls work really good.

why not grow your plants for a couple months in veg? if it works youll know and you can get a far greater yield than growing 12/12 from seed. growing takes so damn long, it just makes sense to get as much done for the time your doing it... if you can hold off and just let them veg veg veg then when you finally do decide to flower, you may have a totally different setup, you may have started considering hps or outdoor. who knows, the point is to get them started first then do the thinking later, but if they are on 12 and 12 you cannot change your mind if you do want to grow them bigger.

heres a pic of my suspended cfls in a stealth growbox

[geneticengineer]

ive also found that you need at least 2-3 odor killing cfls in leue of a carbon filter for a 4 plant grow box. when i water and feed my plants it produces a lot of odor as i feed them some nasty shit. when i use just 1 odor cfl, it diminishes the smell but does not destroy. 2 destroys most of it. 3 odor cfls and i cannot smell anything in my room, and if i open the box i cant smell anything in the box! no matter how hard i try ; if my put my nose right up to the soil i can smell it.

so if your gonna use these, use a lot of them like 3 or 4. they are great though because you get 1500 lumens @ 21 watts of 2700k, so you lose no efficiency as far as the light goes. when they zap microorganisms, bacteria, or anything else, they release co2 and water as a biproduct. the more you have, the more light, the more co2, the more humidity, the less odor.