Here's the deal.. I'm doin a small stealth grow: mini cabinet, soil, 5 gallon pot, LST. I'm not gonna go over 400w all together and I already have 48w taken up by daylight t5 CFL and 90w taken up by a UFO.. 2 - 55w in 2700k CFL the next step is some more supplemental warm light for flowering. Need some advice from the pros... Gonna try and get 1 powerful bulb instead of minis, but if someone can recommend good smaller sizes I may just go with it so I'm open to all suggestions for 150w of power to spend on lighting.. 150w HPS (that fits in a standard e26 socket and produces 16K lumen) or should I go 2700k CFL route with 150w CFL?
You'll get better results with the 150w HPS provided you have the air flow to cool your cab. You probably already know that you need a ballast, it doesnt plug into a normal socket like a CFL does.
I was looking at: 150 Watt - High Pressure Sodium - 15,800 Lumens - Medium Base - ANSI S55 - Plusrite 2004 Light Bulb E26 socket is a regular one if I'm not mistaken.. Won't work tho huh? :-( Oh well I wish I could afford to use my 600w MH/HPS cooltube. Just can't stand the heat.
I've read a bit that up to 400w, cfl are hands down more efficient.. at 600, they are surpassed by mh and hps
CFLs are not more efficient at any level. I have a 150W HPS thats 16,000 lumens and a 200W Mogul socket CFL rated at 9500 lumens. The HPS has a ~60% higher lumen output at 25% less power used. 400W HPS is 50,000 lumens, the CFL is 19,000 for 2x200W. How is that even close? There is nothing wrong with using CFLs but to say they are more efficient is nowhere near true. As to the base config, it may be medium based but you will still need a ballast to fire it. You will just have a smaller socket plugged into a ballast. They do not operate on plain 120vAC.
actually, u are a bit mistaken- it depends on the size of the cfl too, they are the most efficient in a 55 watt bulb, I have 30 23watt bulbs, rated at 2000+ lumens each, which is 60,000 lumens for less than 700 watts.. pretty good for a $50 investment id say. im only using it till im back on my feet again.. then its plasma lamps and leds for me!!
Ok, by your count its 60,000 lumens for 690W, thats 87 lumens/Watt. 400W HPS is 50,000 lumens, thats 125 lumens/Watt. The T5 54W 4 foot bulbs put out 5000 lumens so 3 of them would be 162W at 15,000 lumens, close to my 150W HPS at 16,000 lumens but still not MORE efficient. The bulbs are also longer so the light is "stretched" out and not as concentrated and you lose lumens per square foot. Then there is the heat factor. 30 CFLs may put off more heat that a 400W HPS lamp, or cooling may be more difficult. The CFLs will be spread out and you can use a AC hood or cool tube on the HPS. Lastly, CFL and T5 do not have the penetration power that HPS and MH do. You may get good lighting up top, but a lot less on the lower brances and need to supplement more on the sides. If you want to say that you get more lumens or watts per dollar, sure the fluoro is a better "value" in that respect but still not the best overall value for efficiency. Growers use both with good results all the time, I am not picking one over the other. I am just trying to lay out the facts that fluoros are not more efficient.
A 150w HPS will be your best bet. Highest lumens, deepest penatration, cheap, and a remote ballast so you dont heat your cab up. Best by far.
actually, a bit off here too for the fact that lumens dont add up that way, you would just have 2000 or so lumens times not X THE NUMBER OF BULBS, 2000+2000+2000 ect. so the wattage, LPW, amperage and all that needs to be taken into account for efficiency.