I had heard that Lowes carry HPS bulbs. I decided to stop by and sure enough I found some Sylvania HPS, 400W that would work with my ballast/hood. The best part - the price: $14. So I've seen other places online where HPS bulbs that are much more expensive than that, like $60 or more. Am I missing something about the quality of the bulbs or something else I should be looking out for?
i don't know if anyone's used lowe's bulb ... but i suspect there isn't much difference. i will say that $60 bulbs seem .... a tad bit ... expensive. i've gotten my bulbs for the last couple of years from HIDHut and the pricepoint on bulbs is a lot more affordable. you might want to check the lightening thread to see if others have had problems with the lowes bulb (or do a search for sylvania bulb or lowes bulb).
I like the brand Hortilux. I buy them from greners who sells their products cheaper than MSRP and I pay around $80-$90 for one bulb.
sylvania/ge/philips are good, industry standard bulbs that do everything you would expect out of an hps the $6 bulbs you see on ebay are poor, low quality bulbs that will be more fragile, probably will only give you 85-90% of the light it cclaims, and will burn out faster hortilux/digilux bulbs are a better made bulb, with better quality parts. these are made specifically for growing, not just general purpose. it might pack out a few extra lumens and have a slightly wider spectrum and longer life but all comes at a premium price.
I agree! You are much better off with a well known name such as hortilux/digilux. Don't get me wrong; there are many other good brands that are cheaper but I believe that you can't go wrong with hortilux/digilux.
Yeah, but I can get like 4-5 of the Sylvania for the price of ONE hortilux. Im headed to lowes and buying it
At 4000k, that Lowes bulb doesn't sound like a great spectrum for growing MJ. If you are going to look for a general-purpose HPS at least look at one close to the 2700k range.
The main difference in the bulbs from lowes is they're meant for general lighting, and as toasty says they should be around 4000k color temperature, as opposed to horticulture bulbs which would bring you to the needed spectrum of 2700k. There are some cheap hori bulbs out there, they might cost 2-3 times what that Lowe's bulb costs, but are worth at the end harvest.
Quick research tells me that the Ultrasun is a horticulture bulb and they have a color temperature of 2000k, which will work great for flowering. Great price too, I'd be willing to give it a shot.