HID vs CFL

[Hagbard Celiene]

in a small one plant situation, given light spectrums being ballanced between each situation and all other factors the same, would you see a difference between ~300 watts of CFL, and ~150 watts of CFL supplimented by say a small 50 or 75 watt HID? my main areas of concern are with potency, density, and mass, as well as time till maturation.

[harris7]

isn't everyone’s concern potency, density and mass?

time till maturation is determined by the genetics and photoperiod. not so much light intensity.

there is lots of information on this website about cfl's, HID, light intensity and everything else.

it dosn't matter the source of the light, what matters is the intensity. you will be hard pressed to achieve the same intensity from CFL's

[Hagbard Celiene]

would anyone care to speculate as to numbers? as far as i can figure, a 150 HPS puts out 50,000 or so lumens, where as a 42w CFL puts out about 2600. Mathamatically, if i could have 19 or so of those little, cool suckers nestled right up near all of the photoreceptive areas of the plant in question. This of course doesen't even take into account that the HID will degrade much faster than the CFLs will, or CFL of the 55w-200w range, which should produce more lumen per watt. one thing i have not been able to dig up however, is the PAR values for CFLs, thus i cannot make an accurate comparison mathamatically. i am just wondering if anyone has any practical evidence to support these theorys a little more than the anecdotal "i had a plant under CFLs, it was doing ok, but man what a difference that HID made!!!1!11!1"

[smokinbomb]

check out bobbongs thread cfl disscusion its at the top of this forum

good luck-Bomb

[BlueBear]

Simple CFL grow from seed in MG.
http://boards.cannabis.com/showthread.php?t=48343&highlight=healthy
Adieu

[Hagbard Celiene]

nice, that is the kind of shit i am talking about. 1/2 LB. from three plants under 8 '150w equivalent' CFLs. that thread needs to be a sticky.

[JackdaWack]

your missing the point, a cfl will never be as good as an hps for flowering, 8 cfls equaling 150 watts, you can get a 150wtt hps that will give you so much better results. 150wtts isnt gonna get you a 1/2lb on 3 plants thats over 2 onces a plant. A newbie grower isnt going to achieve high results with minimal supplies. read up, this topic is a repeat over and over. Sticky threads are ones that actually have good important info. cfls or hids is a no brainer, you just work with what you got.

[JackdaWack]

you need lumen output thats all your looking for. efficency isnt a must. a 400wtt hps is about 30,000 lumens maybe more. to achieve that would be about 10cfls. no math is needed u want as many lumens the correct spectrum and that is all. Take into account heat, and bulb life isnt a big deal when u see results.

[Hagbard Celiene]

actually, if you look into his thread, he says he used 8 42w CFLs for 3 plants, which, if my math is right, should be 8*2600=20800 lumen. and considering your prescious 400w HPS will need a new bulb in 6 mos. to not dip below this figure, im guessing you spend a lot more on your pot than he does. my question however is, about the
Photosynthetically Active Radiation, or PAR values that CFLs give out. if your suchan advanced grower when it comes to HPS lights, why don't you stop making assinine assumptions about something just cause it is new, and whip out your PAR meter and prove me wrong.

[JackdaWack]

Your PAR theory has little relevence, if you want to spend the money on 8 cfls and fixtures go for it, 1 400wtt hps is 10,000 more lumens, now when you talk about buying new bulbs, i would rather spend the money on one bulb ever so often then 8 cfl's, dont be fooled many the cfls burn out too. You thinking way to far into this, a new bulb is 80 bucks, thats nothing compared to what you get. Im not making any assumtions, if you read up on any of this, there have been grows under cfl and hps, the hps yeilded more then double. if you took the time to look you would see. Im not ever sure why your looking into par levels, radiation?? what are u worried about and so skeptical on. Find a light that suits you. buy a cfl if you worried about heat, get enough lumens so you have a nice yeild. If heat isnt a problem then a hps will be cost effective and easier to use. Cfls are not new, and have been talked about more then you can imagine, just cause your new dont assume i am assuming, expecially on something im activly part of everyday. You want an honest opinion on the matter, so you get it. Dont be upset cause people dont care about PAR becuase its irrelavent, or of no intreast to others. I mean people who make these bulbs take that into account so we dont worry about it. I dont know what info your looking for on PAR but i assure you its a waste of time looking into it. Im still wondering what your question is cause the thread is hid vs cfls, i will say right now a hps light will do better then any cfl efficiently. not to mention the spectrum is perfect on hps's.

[Hagbard Celiene]

directly from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Photosynthetically_active_radiation

PAR measurement is used in agriculture, forestry and oceanography. One of the requirements for productive farmland is adequate PAR, so PAR is used to evaluate agricultural investment potential.

The expression Photosynthetically Active Radiation, often abbreviated PAR, designates the spectral range of solar light (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Light) from 400 to 700 nanometers that is useful to terrestrial plants in the process of photosynthesis (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Photosynthesis).

don't tell me about what is important, you don't even seem to know that light IS radiation.

[JackdaWack]

Well you seem to be the expert enlighten me, lights is not defined by radiation either, uv rays are radation, and our ozone stops i belive 98% of that radiation. so if you can get skin cancer from 2% of the uv light that makes it to earth, im sure that any one who makes and distributes lights knows what leveles to use. Your talking about radiation that in the buisness world is taken very seriously and is of standards on all lights. nanometers in Par calculates for the difrent kinds of light that you can and cannot see, such as infrared. this can be understood in simpler terms as light color. So to answer your question you wold be looking for 550 to 700nm PAR (Red Spectrum).

[JackdaWack]

Your question is just what is light. the PAR level stands for the range of wave. In the 400 to 700 range it is visible light, if it were another it could be a microwave, radio wave, x-ray..etc.

[JackdaWack]

So you would think that every bulb you buy is going to be between 400 to 700nm, becuase anything else will not even be light. So it is irrelavent like i stated. if your question is what color light, then for veg. you want to use an even amount from 400 to 700nm covers all ranges of visible light, and then 550 to 700 for flower. cfl's reffer it as cool light and warm light, hps- red light and mh-blue light

[Hagbard Celiene]

actually, seeing as how floruo's use MV to create UV radiation, which exites phosphorus on the inside of the glass, which in turn creates usable light, i doubt if all of the radiation is given off as visible light. the visible light spectrum is what is used to guage Lumens, where as the light spctrum that a plant 'sees' is different from what a human sees, which is why there is a difference between lumens and PAR.

[JackdaWack]

Par is the specrum level of white/visible light. Lumens is a measure of the perceived power of light. So Fluorecent lights do use UV but it is not emitted. It is absorbed and turned into visible light, which can then be stated to be PAR which is visible light, there the same thing. They dont emit radiation. Obviously lumens and par are different. And yes plants do use the same visible light we see. I can see my light bulb turn on and off. And clearly see it is in the red spectrum(550-700nm) in the PAR range. and 400wtts tells me it has about 30,000 lumens. No radiation is emmited in hps becuase they produce only visible light. the source power refers to the ammount of lumens.

[Hagbard Celiene]

violet (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Violet_%28color%29) 380â??450 nm
blue (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue) 450â??495 nm
green (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Green) 495â??570 nm
yellow (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yellow) 570â??590 nm
orange (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orange_%28colour%29) 590â??620 nm
red (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red) 620â??750 nm

obviously, if PAR is between 400-700, lumens wouls not be an exact representation of the plant useable radiation a plant can use. and PAR is exppressed in a value, its actually PAR lumens...

[4x5]

Use those cfls in your house to offset the cost of growing with hids. wiring up 20 cfls will cost more in power bars and sockets than the 2 hid's I'm using now, cfls require constant adjustment when growing, sometimes they fall over into your plants, also adjusting 20 cfls takes hours per week; lifting my hood takes 12 seconds.
"Anyone who tells you cfls don't work is an idiot, anyone who compares cfls to hid's is a fool"

[JackdaWack]

i dunno man this kid just wont listen to what any one is saying. lumens are a measure of the perceived power of light, that is its god damn deffinition. Stop trying to be technical. PAR is a freakin term some jack ass wanted to invent all it stands for is the visible light. PAr is not expressed in a value. it is a value it exactly whaT U SAID IT WAS. 400-700. What is the problem here. Every thing this kid says contradicts the last.

[JackdaWack]

stop reading shit off google and thinking your going to understand it.

[JackdaWack]

Your asking rediculous questions. what do you want to know? in simple terms. What light spectrum to use or as an ass hole would state, what par levels to use? lumens are given by watt.

[Shallow Hal]

dunno about cfl's but the 600 watt lamps i use produce 95000 lumens each . thats alot of cfl's

[Volker]

your missing the point, a cfl will never be as good as an hps for flowering,You're missing the point as well, I think. There's no argument that MH/HPS is superior to CFT for growing.

The point is that CFTs are excellent in tiny, enclosed spaces where ventilation is an issue. Very stealth. Try putting a 150W HPS in something the size of an office copy paper box. You can easilly put 150W of CFT in there. You won't get the same results you would with a 150W HPS, but you would get results.

Again, I must stress that HPS is the "tried & true" light of choice. Superior for growing in a grow room in every way. But it just ain't gonna work in a "shoebox" without major hassles.

[la marea]

I agree, this seems like a circular argument. I've grown one plant in a 1x1x3 foot space with 5 CFL's and honestly yileded fined. Take into account it was 5 motherfucking lights for a tiny little ass space, so I better have yielded something descent. However, if you're thinking of growing anything more than that, in a larger space, I'm agreeing with these fellas, HID is the way to go. I understand they may be initially expensive, or depending where you are, hard to come by, but if you're seriously interested in cannabis propogation, than you should invest. Again, personal choices, you definitely can grow fine with CFL's its more like the difference between making 9 bucks an hour or 20. You probably are gonnna have to work a bit harder but they pay off is obviosuly better (i realize this is a subjective analogy). Anyways, HID's the way to go if you wanna grow pro. and as for PAR, seems irrelevent to me.

[JackdaWack]

Volker i stated that aswell in another post in here. I dunno what answers this kid is looking for. I mean he went from hid vs cfl to par levels(light spectrum). I stated above that if your space is small and no great ventilation then a cfl will work and will give you results, however an hps is far superior if you have the environment controls.

[JackdaWack]

i mean this kid comes in here copy pasting shit off wikpedia, making abselutly no sense, and i dont want kids coming in here getting false information on lumans and light spectrum colors. its so stupid i told him to drop the whole matter because it was irrelavant and hes gone on to wikpedia thinking i know nothing. Any one whos taken a chemisty class knows this stuff with out a complicated explination. Lumens = power of light. Par = range of light plants use(visible light), which differs from veg and flower. But no one talks about PAR they reffer to it as the light spectrum. To answer your question in the beggining hagbard, if you want potency density and better maturation time, get a hid system. 20 cfls will not run cooler, maybe 5 of them will, but i have herd of people with cfls having problems with proper ventilation. plus instead of worring about one light burning your plant, you get worry about 10+. And to answer his question on par levels for cfls i belive cool white contains all levels of light, PAR. Warm white, contains more red spectrum, The higher par levels.

[Volker]

Volker i stated that as well...a cfl will work and will give you results, however an hps is far superior if you have the environment controls.Bleh! Soory, missed that. Guess we on the same page, then!

hehehe... When I salvaged and mounted the squirrel cage fan out of a trashed microwave, my closet temps shot down from high 80s to upper 60's. I only run the fan if I notice the temp in mid to upper 80's. I think I may have enough ventilation to put a small HPS in there. There's a few 75W to 150W HPS "security lights" I can "snag" down the alleys...

Only problem is, it vents into the kitchen. Right now, with CFTs, I can defo smell it when I walk out of the entry foyer into my apt. If/when I go HPS, I imagine that smell will only get worse. I still have to find another chunk of pipe & elbow to vent it to the kitchen exhaust, which vents to the roof.

[canuck grower]

Oh man, I never even thought about the kitchen exhaust! I'm in an apt too and if I can figure out a way to live without a stove for 2 months I'm going to consider moving the stove and setting up a flowering box there. I would have to get a microwave...

well if i can manage to contain the smell in my bedroom this time that might not be necessary, so I guess I'll find out in the next 2 months sometime.

[bejay]

a standard 400 watt hps bulb will put out 50000 lumens initially it will drop some with use wich is why it is changed out well before the end of its life span, you have the same problem with flouros they lose lumens with use also so dont think you have any advantage by using flouros instead of buying one bulb to change out in your hps, you will be buying however many flouros you may have to change out to as maintence, well before they burn out just to keep the lumens up.

[Hagbard Celiene]

a standard 400 watt hps bulb will put out 50000 lumens initially it will drop some with use wich is why it is changed out well before the end of its life span, you have the same problem with flouros they lose lumens with use also so dont think you have any advantage by using flouros instead of buying one bulb to change out in your hps, you will be buying however many flouros you may have to change out to as maintence, well before they burn out just to keep the lumens up.

thats basically the conclusion i finally came to. cept i found a nice 600w digital HPS-MH combo with bulbs, reflector, and 15' cords... problem is its 300 miles away, it'll have to wait for a road trip i guess.

[Zcomp]

My :twocents:
I've been using CFL's the whole way until now.
I added a 70 HPS after finding this chart showing a plant sensitivity relative to spectrum.
I'm a layman here but this is what I gather. My CFL's are 2700K while my HPS is 2100K(a more usable spectrum). I'll start flower on CFL but finish under both. Heat in a small space is an issue for me too, but when I look at my "warm" CFL's next to the HPS its obvious.

[dnlfacundo]

go and buy a 50w hps flood light at home depot for 35$ that would do much better.You would have to wire it up with some wire nuts,120 v plug and some eletric tape,thatll do much better.

[Roughrider]

PAR is not accepted by all growers as being accurate (many think it's something that bulb manufacturers came up with). At any rate, in calculations I've made, the difference between PAR and lumen output is small, and PAR values are rarely given. And lumens are not given by watt; watts have nothing to do with light/ Watts are measures of energy; they say how much energy your light source uses. You can determine efficiency in terms of lumens per watt.

Which gets to the next point...One difference between CFL and HID lighting is that HID lighting is much more efficient. HPS usually produce a minimum of 100 lumens per watt; that's 40% better than CFLs, which are around 70 lumens per watt, regardless of size. But if you've got a small are, as others have noted, HID lights can cause as many problems as they create. If you're in an area of 3 sq. ft. or under, you may be better off with CFLs. You don't get as many heat or stress issues. But, yeah, once you go beyond that, HPS is always going to be more efficient...what people might call â??better.â?�

As long as you're getting 5,000 lumens per sq. ft. and are pretty good about conserving the light you have (reflectors, reflective walls, etc.), you're going to get good results. And, sure, a small HPS and some CFLs will do very well.

[Opie Yutts]

Lumens (luminous flux) is the amount of light that humans see. If you want to measure what a plant sees, you need to measure radiant flux.

You can veg with anything. The best wavelength for veg is, well look at the chart. You cannot bud with anything. It must be the proper wavelength or you do little better than vegging. You can have thousands of LED's, several CFL's, or one HPS give you the same yield. Use whatever is the best for your situation. Just choose the proper color for the stage of development your plants are in.

[Opie Yutts]

From here: http://boards.cannabis.com/indoor-growing/144364-new-cfl-growing-2.html


Any light will grow weed, but how much do you want for your efforts? Most all the CFL lights you will find in stores are 2700K. These are reddish, and the second best wavelength for budding, and about half the price of bluish bulbs for vegging.

Ultimately you want a mix ratio of about 85/15% in both veg and bud, but that's just tweaking it a little and not necessary.

Vegging (blue):
first choice: 5700K
second choice: 6100K

Budding (red/orange):
first choice: 2500K
second choice: 2800K

These numbers give your plants a chance at peak chlorophyll activity. Until someone shows me a better way, this is how I will determine what K of light to buy. Also notice from the graph that numbers in between the first and second choices drastically cut down on chlorophyll activity.

I would not look for the bluish bulbs in your stores, unless you happen to have a light bulb store or a hydro shop close by. The best way to find the proper numbers for both veg and bud bulbs is by searching the internet. You can get some really powerful ones this way too, much bigger than in the stores.

Look on the manufacturers web site for their spec sheet and compare it to the model on the bulb, or call them. If it doesn't say anything on the package about daylight, or cool, or K, then it almost certainly is 2700K, the cheapest and most common.

[Roughrider]

Great info about the â??rightâ?� color of light to use. About lumens/radiant flux...remember that humans can â??seeâ?� light in the wavelengths that plants use. So, realistically, luminous flux is adequate for determining light plants can use too. Light wavelengths between 380 and 760nm are, in general, visible to the human eye. Plant chlorophyll mainly absorbs light in the 400 to 700nm range (400 to 450 is red wavelength; 625 to 700 is blue). So, while radiant flux is technically correct, luminous flux does the trick awfully well for determining if you've got enough light.

This kind of gets back to the PAR thing...PAR is a measure of radiant flux (active photons) over a specific area. You need about 135 PAR watts per square meter for a really good grow. A typical 400w HPS gives off about 125 PAR watts, which means it should do a good job on .926 of a square meter. If you look at lumens...a typical 400s HPS gives off about 50,000 lumens. You need about 5,000 lumens a square foot to get a very good grow, and a square meter is 10.76 square feet. Using lumens, you get a figure of .929 of a square meter. Very, very close. I always tell people to keep it simple, and since lumen output is given for a lot of bulbs, it's the easiest way to figure if you've got enough light. Just my .02 on that.

And, like you said, you just want the right type of light with enough output. Factors like closet size, ventilation, etc. may make one type of light better or worse for someone.

[Opie Yutts]

True. True.