Like I stated, to test the plant response, two IDENTICAL setups are required otherwise it is very easy to jump to a false conclusion.
I think the we are discussing 2 different aspects. There is no doubt that when you have a bulb you have a certain amount of light, brightness (and lumens). And if you add another identical bulb, all of those will be increased. The room will be brighter, plants will have more light. We all agree on that I think. What I'm wondering about is basically if the fading of the light with distance is different for 1 big bulb of X watts, compared to many smaller bulbs equaling X watts.
True of course. But without having the ability to do that, and only wishing to have approximate knowledge, I'm looking for other ways to determine it. Past experience, grow journals, other examples, etc.
If you want to go brighter, you might consider an HID instead of a cfl/t8 tubes. At some point, youll be using the same electricity with a cfl/t8 as an hid, with few comparable results. I say this after spending a year of my life, full time, experimenting with the two. I found that I was using the same amount of electricity with cfls as I would with my hps and the results were horrible in comparison. Doing everything the exact same on my second grow, with HID lights instead of cfls/t8's, I was able to grow plants that yielded 2.5 times as much per plant, again, with everything the same. I can think of no other reason why the second grow, from the same strain would yield better results except for the simple fact that when plugging in the HID it is literally blinding in comparison. The lights are visible different and noticeable. My 600w hps with digital ballast only increased my bill 20 dollars per month from what it is when Im not growing at all, the same 20 the t8's were also drawing. Im not trying to discourage you or debate with anyone whatsoever. Dont really have the energy for that anymore. Just providing first hand experience and my results friend. Good luck with your grow, whatever you decide. Peace.
lol, nice sig. He's got a lot of great lines. Since you spent a lot of time experimenting, did you happen to compare what's being investigated here... for CFLs, 1 big bulb of X lumens vs multiple smaller bulbs equally X lumens?
I ended up comparing15 26watt cfls (1750 lumens) in a grow box to a 400w hps. The difference in wattage was 10watts give or take, not including the amount lost due to heat from an hps. Not sure how you'd work that out. I bought something called a "kill a watt" meter to measure the amount of electricity being used. To be uniform and fair, I took a mother and cut clones from her, to ensure the same dna was being tested. Each clone was cloned the same way for the same amount of time. I used the same soil, same schedules, everything. It was a burden to stay scientific, day after day, but it was important to me to know the best results I could get for the least amount of money. Eventually, after discovering that the cfls were inferior at the same wattage, I decided to investigate using car hids to compare to cfls. Every site I found online said it was impossible, until I found someone who had actually done it with semi-successful results. The reason his experiment failed is because he went on vacation, anticipating abysmal results and came back to his plants dead, because they had grown into the hid car lights. I found the yellow hid car lights online with a ballast included. They were around 20 dollars and supposedly work better than cfls. In the end, I personally chose a 600w hps setup after comparing them IRL to a 1000 watt system and seeing again, IRL that the 600w makes heavier buds, puts out less heat, and the buds look identical to a 1000w imo. Two 600w is even better. The only downside imo, unless you have a MH bulb, is that there is a ridiculous amount of stretching if you go hps only. Until I can justify the price of a mh bulb or they come down in price, I prefer to grow under cfls/t8s during vegetative then hps exclusively during flowering. Ive been told that the last two weeks a MH helps with thc/resin production and its best to switch back but I personally cannot comment as Ive never used one.
Okay, I think I can see how the intensity doesn't change no matter how many bulbs create the lumens. I think the issue I was having was imaging combining lights, based on experience. And all my experience was of bulbs in room-sized environments without reflective walls. Assuming that photons don't degrade with distance or time (and only disperse and spread out with distance), then this should explain why lumens are cumulative.. first is the lumens instantly after turning on the bulbs. second is how the lumens would fill a 100% reflective walled space. So to be more extreme in example.. 10x 7w cfl bulbs would provide the same intensity light as 1 68w bulb. (10x 420 lumens, and 1x 4200 lumens). So the best way to increase the light contact with a plant is to contain or confine the light using a container like a PC case, cabinet or bucket lamp. The smaller the container is, the greater the density of the photons/lumens within it. And to use a highly reflective surface on as much of the inside surface as possible (to minimize the amount of photons absorbed by materials and transformed into heat).