cfl grow- reflectors or none?

i never see people use reflectors with their cfl's only bulb and socket whats wrong with buying the shop light fixture with the aluminum or tin reflector on it?

bump

the round reflectors take up alot of room if your using 4-8 lights, you could fit 3 lights in the place of a single reflector plus i belive the point with CFL's is to get the light as close as possible which would be hard for a reflector plus the heat transimtting down.

sounds good ..they do take up a lot of room it almost seems brighter with the upper bulbs naked and the side lights with reflector to project light on the sides

Hey Yeag, for early veg, like up to 6 nodes, I'm a big fan of 4-foot tube fixtures w/cool white bulbs...line up the girlies under them and watch them grow! IMO cfls are kind of a pain in the rear and I've tried them but jsut said the Hell with it and I only use them in the clone closet now... later veg there's a little dinky MH250 that works fine, by the time the plants are under it they are almost ready to flower anyway.
Now somewhere on the boards there's a cool reflector made of a street sign.... seems simple enough to take a piece of white-painted metal, fold it into a batwing shape, drill some holes to accept the CFL sockets, and go nuts.

i looked at both ways there is way more light with the reflectors on. i think it just limits the amount of cfl's you can fit in the space. the 6 inch work best for me.

You can fit more into a smaller space with CFLs and if you have a small cab, I would recommend using bare CFLs and lining the whole box (incl. ceiling) with mylar. That will help. BUT, if your cab is larger, like the one in my thread JOURNAL OF A MADMAN, you might want to use the reflectors to prevent light loss upwards. That is a link to the last page. You can see how 'I' use the reflectors.

Good luck

:rasta:

TGF

Check out my homemade CFL reflectors.. The only problem is that you need a spacer between the bulb and the reflectors.

http://boards.cannabis.com/showthrea...t=85215&page=2

I use standard work lights that clip for additional lighting... Just clip them to my main ballast so I dont have to drill anymore holes or take the thing down. Also, with the reflectors on its easier to focus the light to where you want it...

The reason I went without the reflectors is that if you have the cfl as close as you need it to the plant, 2-3 inches, then you are only casting light directly on that part of the plant. Without a reflector, the light is able to partially illuminate other plants too, and when you get a bunch together partially illuminating each plant, each plant is pretty bright. It was actually brighter over-all. I tried it both ways.