600 Watts HPS OR 600 Watts of CFL's ?!?!?!

I haven't done my grow yet but many people I have asked said over 200W of CFL's and you should just go HPS. So.... I assume the HPS. ONCE AGAIN, I HAVE NOT GROWN YET,
Wait for more replies from reliable people.

 

HPS, more lumens and more light penetration.

150W CFL can range from 7900 - 11,000 lumens
even if you take the highest lumen output for 4x150 cfl's thats 44,000 lumens.

my 600w duel spec hps runs at 92000 lumens, over double the output.

Depends on how many plants & the amount of space your working with i guess.

 

MH and HPS are in my opinion superior to CFL but if you have a heat issue it is a whole different thing.

 

if for arguments sake if you had a box of 6'L x 1'D x 4'H then the CFLS would be better suited. however if your box was 4'L x 4'D x 8'H then the hps would be more suited .

also, a 600w hps uses closer to 700watts of electricity whereas the cfls would use not much more than 400watts
strange but true

 

yeah the bulb will use the full 600watts and the ballast uses electric too, most is wasted as heat. digital ballasts use less electric and produces a lot less heat.

cfls do use less than their rated amount. I don't understand why. my 125w cfls use 90watts each, I have tested them with a power meter

LED often uses just half of their rated watts. this also I do not understand


edit...
to be more exact the CFLs would probably use about 440watts

 

If you try to flower with anything other than HPS then you are going to yield lots of sticky masses - but they will all be feathery, leafy, hairy, weightless flowers - I won't even call them buds. I tried and utterly failed with LEDs. CFLs, flouros, LEDs all work great for vegetative growth, but they just cannot produce the power needed to produce rock hard buds which I so much desire. Save yourself future headaches and get a HPS setup for flowering. IMO, Metal Halide is not needed as I get excellent vegetative growth from flouros and LEDs.

 

I would definitely go 600w. That should give you a nice square of light for 4 plants. The dimmable ballast are usually only $10 or so more than the standard versions and would let you dial down the wattage if you feel it is too hot. You are going to pay about the same amount for 400 vs 600w. Check out the Virtual Sun VS600WDBD ballast and the Virtual Sun VSGC6000 grow hood. If you get that hood make sure to buy a 6" inline fan to attach to the hood to cool the bulb. You can't go wrong with that setup and it doesn't cost that much on Amazon.

 

HPS vs CFL no contest hands down go HPS if you can. You cant match the light intensity of a HPS with CFLs. The other crappy thing about CFLs is there grow spectrum is limited from 4-6 inches away from the bulb. After that its next to nothing. That requires you to readjust them quite often.

That lack of light intensity results in much smaller less yields vice same wattage a HID (HPS/MH) put out.

 

Powermeters do not read CFLs well...a number of reasons why Google it for a full explanation. It deals with the power factor of the ballast which is not 100% so essentially you can have something that is rated X but put out Z and its not illegal but do to the power factor of the components. A power factor of 1 is basically a traditional bulb. Meaning that if its 20 watts it most likely uses 20 watts. With CFLs, or anything other sophisticated electronic device theres alot more to it. Components to get you to a power factor of 1 are pricey and never find there way into CFLs which is why there wattage varies.


LEDs use half of there rated watts because running LEDs at maximum rated wattage would cause them to burn out. The deception on some of the LED makers is only publishing Total Wattage rather then actual wattage. Alot do though publish both. (LED user here was a HID user though for many years). LEDs actually do generate tons of heat but only at a certain point on a LED does heat build up which is why they have large heat sinks. If you were to run say a 3 watt LED Diode at max wattage you would have to have a considerable heat sink to suck heat off the board. My LED panel uses 5 watt LEDs that run a little over 4 watts and it weighs in at 38lbs mostly do to a 2 inch slap of metal for a heat sink to deal with the heat.

Also on CFLs they quite often use tiny amount of amps...nearly all off the shelf power meters are not designed to test small ampere or amps that fluctuate. CFLs fluctuate. Powermeters such as Kill-a-watt are designed to test for a constant stream of energy.

 

A good rule of thumb is if its to hot for your hand its to hot for your plant. Your temps should be measured at the top of the plants not at ground level.

As for how far. Well at first like first couple days of your seedlings light requirements are just about zero untill the first set of leaves pop out which is pretty fast usually. You can jack with raising and lowering your lights all the time but if your just doing a couple plants at a time which is what I normally grow..no more then 4-5 I usually keep my light up higher and use things to elevate my plants to the proper height. Then lower them as the plants get bigger. Easier to do at least for myself.

A good way to start off seedlings is to use CFls then migrate them to HID but you can just HID it from start to finish.

Usually a kit with all the components is cheaper and easier since its all shipped in one package. Theres different kinds of hoods as well. Cool Tubes are a good way to go since you can attach the carbon filter to the front easily and fan on the other side to suck out the heat and run it across the bulb. To each his own on that though. All a matter of preference.

 

your doing it wrong.... watt for watt used (and if used properly) there won't be much of a difference in final weight. bigger hps make grows a lot more convenient, less work. cfls require more training to get their full potential. if you don't put the work in you won't get good results

I grow with cfls and hps and when both are utilised properly there isn't much between them

if you have the right shaped grow box and can handle the heat I would recommend hps as its less work and generally easier. but if done correctly CFLs will keep up

 

not my meter, it reads everything that gets sent up the cable. it does fluctuate, but no more than hps. I have never tested used power on LEDs, but I agree with what your saying about them