I'm not sure but I believe the light will just not turn on. Though it could possibly be a fire hazard.
alright i llike fire so its all good...but if the light socket thing says 40w and i have a cfl with a 26w in it...with a rating of 100w...which do i go by...
no the 100w equivalent means nothing. go by the 26watt (actual wattage). The equivalent just means the 26 watt cfl puts out the same amount of light as a 100 watt incandescent bulb.
Yeh hes right I thought about this more, I'm sure the actual wattage is the amount of power it draws so as long as that does not go over you should be fine.
even if you put a 100 watt hps in a 50 watt fixture i'm pretty sure that the 100 watt would just only receive 50 watts of power therefore making it dim. I don't think there would be any fire involved. I could test this out i do have a 100 watt and a 70 watt ballast but i don't wanna burn up the ballast in the last few weeks of flowering
This rating is a safety for the wires INSIDE the fixture. The higher above the rating the more likely the wires will overload, melt and shory circuit something. No More than 15W over the rating if you feel like pushing it.