so for now i got 8, 23watt CFL's each CFL has about 1200 lumens... so with my set up i have a total of 184 watts and roughly 9,600 lumens.... it gets pretty warm in my set up... with everything closed up it gets to 83F. . my question is would be be better if I use 1 100 watt high pressure sodium?? with that set up i would have 100 watts and 24,000 lumens.. would it be cooler in there too?
Not 100% sure, but probably not (if reflector is not air cooled). CFls are known to produce less heat than HID lights.....
yea that is true, but i have 8 CFL's i just figured maybe one 100watt high pressure sodium will not be as hot because they wont be as close. and its 8 bulbs vs 1 bulb.
Lets say that each CFl is getting 80F hot so even if you put 100 of them your grow area temperature will not get higher than 80f (lets assume that your grow area is 3'x3'x6'). Now lets say that one HPS is getting up to 120F hot then that one bulb(which is actually bigger than average CFL bulb 2-3 times) can possibly heat up your room temperature up to 120F.... The bottom line is you need to have some sort of ventilation to cool down your grow area ,especially when using HID light(s).... P.S.Just my thoughts, I can be wrong...
A 150 watt HPS will produce similar heat overall to 184 watts of CFL. With heat being roughly equal I would still go for the HPS since PAR output will be much greater than with the CFLs.
lol okay thanks! ill look into the hps then, im flowering now as we speak, the bud is just starting to grow... will it hinder/hurt/sting/shock the plant if i cant the light source?
Those CFLs would be more efficient (i.e. run cooler) than the HPS, so my guess is heat will be an issue both ways. Get better venting is my $.02. Lower wattage HPS is pretty inefficient whereas low wattage CFLs are highly efficient. The trade-off would be almost the same amount of heat.