Lighting Decisions CFL OR LED

Discussion in 'Growing Marijuana Indoors' started by Calevra, Oct 27, 2017.

  1. Hi

    I have a choice between

    3x 85w cool white daylight CFL on a diy fixture

    Or

    1x 90w UFO Chinese brand + mars hydro 48 reflector (240w)

    Should i use the CFLS or just put in both LED lights?
     
  2. Can you do both?
    The more light energy of a type the plant can use, the better.
    If not, then I'd just pick the light with the larger true power, bearing in mind that LEDs are about 1.5 times as efficient as CFLs, according to Comparing LED vs CFL vs Incandescent Light Bulbs
    Careful, because LED manufacturers often give power in terms of how many watts of regular light they can replace, not the true power.
     
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  3. I cant use both my tent too small.

    The cfl is 255watts in total

    The led together is like 40 watts + 240 watts
     
  4. They're 85 watt equivalent cfls, not 85 watt bulbs. Equivalent means nothing to a plant. Neither does a watt really though

    Leds the better of the 2
     
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  5. I'm gonna go with my UFO and mars hydro reflector 48. It's summer and the CFLS are too hot anyway.

    It seems like with the led my plants have much better inter nodal growth and grow thicker and stronger.

    At the moment im just testing a bag seed but soon i will have 5 aurora indicindica feminized from nirvana seeds.

    Wish me luck
     
  6. I wish people would stop trying to grow with CFL's. It's no longer worth it at all. They are so inefficient. I've never seen any bud I would want to have grown with them.

    The higher the power you go the lower the output. 200 watt cfl's are like 50 lumens per watt. A 600 watt hps, which is the most efficient size, puts out about 160 lumens per watt. When you realize that a good hps lamp is more then 3 times as efficient at turning a watt of electricity into light the problems with cfl grows ceases to be a mystery.

    The price of cheaper led panels that are probably more then double the output efficiency of cfl's makes them even less worth using.

    They are really not that cheap. People use them because they're at every corner store and they're paranoid about buying actual grow equipment. By the time you buy several higher output cfl's all the splitters, sockets, and associated hardware you've spend the same amount as many of the cheaper led options out there but you end up with a setup that has 1/3rd the output and also runs hotter.
     
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  7. More light is generally better to a point. If adding more light makes it hard for you to keep good temps it's not worth it. Too much blue end spectrum in flower results in smaller buds. Red promotes more leaf, bud, and overall growth. Blue prevents stretch but results in smaller leaf and overall growth development. That's why bloom lights lean red.

    Adding more CFL light IMO is hardly worth it. Most cfl grows end up about .25-.35g/watt. What's the point in adding a watt if it's 1/3rd as good as a watt from any other form of grow light. It's going to have the end result of lowering your overall efficiency in grams/per watt if that's anything you worry about.
     
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  8. Lmao oh man that made me lol just cause it's the facts straight up. Well said man
     
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  9. Get a bloomspect 300w fixture. Covers like a 3x3 area with pretty decent par. Better option than either of those for $66.


    Psikiguy
     
  10. Sorry I meant a couple of them, instead of the ufo+mars hydro. Just better quality.


    Psikiguy
     
  11. Looks okay. What diodes does it use? I hate it when people try to hide that info.

    The qb260 at 285 watts will par at near 700 in the center at 24". I haven't seen the numbers at 3ft. Kinda lame to measure at 3ft. Who grows at that distance? King is only reading like 75 par in the corner of a 4x4 at that height. Not exactly smashing it with light. My 515 watt platinum p900 will do 1,400+ par.
     
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  12. The mars cob has more impressive par numbers per watt. That thing can par almost with a 400 watt hps and it's only like 110 watts. The par numbers on that light look more impressive then the king to me. The video is low on information. Why not do a par test at 18" and 24" like everyone else?
     
  13. Platinum is a solid light
     
  14. Dude CFLs have such a crappy wavelength. My cree cxbs look so much more full
     
  15. But... most ppl aren't strictly using cfl's to grow. They're using them as a cheap option for clones, or seedlings, or (like me) using them to supplement other lights& (hopefully) provide a slightly better spectrum. I use 1,000w hps for flower, 400w mh for the 2nd half of veg, & the 1st quarter of my plant's lives are spent under 3 led's & 3 cfl's
     
  16. Well, there is an awful lot of people who post here with their first grow setup and it's nothing but 6-8 23 watt cfl's.

    My post was really directed at them. CFL's are nice for clones but they outlive their usefulness as soon as that plant has significant roots. At that point not putting it under better lighting is going to slow it down. You have about a 95% probability of a disappointing yield if you choose to complete a grow with cfl's. I'm just trying to help. I don't like seeing people waste their time when less then $100 investment in a real light could do so much better.

    If you size your bloom lights to match the space you won't need to add any CFL's. I don't.

    Sure you can use them like you are vegging with 3led's and 3cfl's. I do guarantee you that you would do better with even just all mars led panels, not to mention quantum boards.

    I'm currently vegging this with 120 watts of top end led in a 4x4. Nobody is ever going to grow a plant that looks like this with CFL's. It would take two years. Those two led fixtures cost me $110 to DIY. The future is here now.
    IMG_0839.JPG IMG_0840.JPG
     
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