automotive HID lights vs. cfl's

Hi,
I'm starting this thread to compare a variety of lights for small closet grows. First i'm posting only light outputs of 250 watt 6400K vs. 250 watt 25000K vs. automotive HID lamps. I built three indenticle boxes 24' X 22" x 36". I'm measuring output at the bottom of the box. in the first photo the box on the bottom left is the 6400K 250 watt cfl, bottom right is the car HID and the top is the 250 watt 25000K. Average light output are as follows. 250/6400K 5000lux peak was 5410 lux, 250/25000K 1500 lux and peak was 1750 lux the car hid average was 19000lux and peak was 31000 Lux!!! I believe the peak for the car hid was so high because of the reflector design, never the less output was 4 times that of the 250/6400K and best of all this system only draws 70 watts! These car HID's are basically mini metal helide bulbs that run off of 12 volts DC. They also come in a wide range of colors from 3000K to 25000K but beware there are cheap halogens that claim to be HID's. you can tell the difference by the addition of a ballast for the true hid's. The only fault with these is they are only rated for 3000hrs. but that's in a car with high under hood temps and road vibration. I used a fog light housing and removed the glass and directed a fan at the bulbs. this made a huge difference, the housings were as cold as ambient air. I also directed the fan of the power supply to cool the ballast which again worked awesome bringing the ballast temp down to bairly warm. With these adjustments, i believe the life will be greatly improved.
I think these will work awesome for small closet grows using 8000K for veg and 3000K for bud. you wouldn't have an issue with poor light penatration. i'll be testing this theory in the comming weeks.
These pictures do no justice on how much brighter the mini hid is. I tried to post pictures of my lux readings but maxed out on allowable pictures on the post. Also it is possible to run these off a battery and a solar panel. if these work the way i think they will, i'll be putting packages together for internet sales. Stay tuned.

Ive never seen the purple CFL's, let us knopw if they work better for veg/flower/both.

That's awesome, I was wondering about the car HID's-I'm always blinded by them on the road so you know they're bright but do they have a better chance? I guess we'll see...props!

Hey
They are not only bright they use only 35 watts each! and they come in the correct color....well almost the lowest color i can find is 3000K but this 3000K is very yellow like what you would see in a fog light so i think it will rock. I don't know why no ones ever tried this.
As for the purple cfl, it's been around for a few years primarily in the UK. Haven't seen any one try them but they are suppse to have higher blue and red spectrums but i think they are not bright enough only a third of 6400K so i think light penatration will be a problem. I got them for free from a chinese supplier to try and test them. Just had to pay for shipping and he sent me 6 of them!.

The reason I haven't tried em is price...They're like $600+ around here for a new kit unless you got a hookup...?

No man, they are under 100 bucks now, market has been flooded over the last two years and price has come way down. I been selling them for a while but price has come down so low it's not worth it anymore but if these work, i may have found a new market! I'm thinking of puting a kit together with reflectors, both spectrum bulbs, power supply and ballast

Well you caught my curiosity.

This may be a stupid question. However I've understood Color temp (K rating), I read all about Lumens (peoples visible light), and I've read all about PAR (plants usable light). What I can't seem to figure out is Luxx. I assume it's a reading given by a light meter. However how well or how does that convert to PAR or Lumens? :wtf:

I'm thinking these could also be used for dark spots in a larger room or early Veg before moving under the "power house" HIDs.

Keep us posted, I'd like to see some plants in those boxes, preferably all clones of the same plant? :D

Hi Vancefish,
Luxx is a measurment of light intensity simular to foot candles. I don't know what the formula to convert lux to lumins. Unfortunatly my quantum PAR meter crapped out on me so i had to snd it back and was unable to make a uMol measurment.

Well I went and looked it up, here is what I found:

The lux (symbol: lx) is the SI unit of illuminance and luminous emittance. It is used in photometry as a measure of the intensity, as perceived by the human eye, of light that hits or passes through a surface. It is analogous to the radiometric unit watts per square metre, but with the power at each wavelength weighted according to the luminosity function, a standardized model of human visual (but not circadian) brightness perception. In English, "lux" is used in both singular and plural.[1]

Explanation:

Lux is a derived unit based on lumen, and lumen is a derived unit based on candela.

One lux is equal to one lumen per square metre, where 4π lumens is the total luminous flux of a light source of one candela of luminous intensity:

1 lx = 1 lm·m-2 = 1 cd·sr·mâ??2.
As with other SI units, SI prefixes can be used, for example a kilolux (klx) is 1,000 lux.

Illuminance Example
10−5 lux Light from Sirius, the brightest star in the night sky[2]
10−4 lux Total starlight, overcast sky[2]
0.002 lux Moonless clear night sky with airglow[2]
0.01 lux Quarter moon
0.27 lux Full moon on a clear night[2][3]
1 lux Full moon overhead at tropical latitudes[4]
3.4 lux Dark limit of civil twilight under a clear sky[5]
50 lux Family living room[6]
80 lux Hallway/toilet[7]
100 lux Very dark overcast day[2]
320â??500 lux Office lighting[8][9][10]
400 lux Sunrise or sunset on a clear day.
1,000 lux Overcast day[2]; typical TV studio lighting
10,000â??25,000 lux Full daylight (not direct sun)[2]
32,000â??130,000 lux Direct sunlight

Basically what this says is Luxx is Lumens over a specified area of 1 sq meter. And that Luxx is a measurment of Lumens not PAR.

Unfortunately I will need to see how effective these are in either a PAR measurement or in a fully grown (from clone to crop). To decide if these are in my future.

Just because I think(and know) it's bright. I DON'T know it's right.

I have no reason to believe these CAN'T work! As was said early on, these are just a tiny HID. Thus the tech exists, question is are the bulbs that are available now capable of the intensity in those frequencies we so desire?

Maybe some of us should email EYE and get them to make Hortilux versions of these.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by bubbas

No man, they are under 100 bucks now, market has been flooded over the last two years and price has come way down. I been selling them for a while but price has come down so low it's not worth it anymore but if these work, i may have found a new market! I'm thinking of puting a kit together with reflectors, both spectrum bulbs, power supply and ballast

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If you do that, definitely let me know! Also, how hot do these run generally compared to the 250w CFL(I have these currently, 6400 & 2700K)?

I'm planning to try this next week, temperatures are cooler than cfl. I run a small computer fan blowing across the bulbs and i removed the glass on the reflector. result is the housing of the reflector is not even warm. Without the fan the reflector is quit warm to the touch about as warm as a cfl. I think there is some real possiblities here. See pictures

I've been following this thread and eagerly awaiting an update. I've been toying with the idea of a 12v system, and I must say, this is brilliant! Simplisity is always best.
I would recommend that you get an advance disclosure agreement. Its a document filled with the patent office for a temporary time frame. It allows you to approach manufactures with the design with out the fear that they might steal the idea.
Good luck buddy.... please keep me informed!

how are the hid from cars working? i have a solar panel system on my house would be easy to hook it up to run off it since they are 12 volt. or would leds be a better choice

Hi Libraman,
I have started my HID grow and so far they are working incredible. They are outperforming our 250 watt cfl grow! They are in about a week in bud and there are noticably more buds forming than the cfl's and the plants are much more bushy. The one thing i need to figure out is the reflectors. Right now the reflector i'm using concentrates most of the light to a sq ft. so i'm limited to how many plants i can grow in my cabinet. I'll be trying diferent reflectors to try to spead the light out a bit. As for running these on a solar panel you would need a pretty big one and a bank of batteries but it can be done. These draw 70 watts for the pair. Depends on how much sun you get a day.
the pictures are of my 3000K xenons and the other is a 250 watt cfl 2700K with a 100 watt biotropic 25000K cfl

nice im really liking this idea. i have 50 watt xenon hids on my car and they are bright so thats a 100 watts which i think together is 10000 lumens which would take 15 kits to equal 1 1000watt hid lumens.and running at 12 volts is better than running a 120v hid but it would be more cost effective to go with a 1000w hid ballast (but cost isnt an issue) to get the same amount of lumens. but the heat produced by it is what im not liking and i dont know how well it would work on a dc/ac inverter since my house is ran on solar power only. i have a big enough battery bank with 2 2000 watt wind turbines for 24/7 charging not to mention 50 60watt panels. the room i built is 8x8 divided by mylar to have 4x4 for flowering and veging.

is the reflector needed why not have the bulb sitting in the middle and one on top? i think with these you could have a better light penetration since you can place the bulbs in different spots as long as they dont get to hot right?

Hi everyone,
here is some update pics on our test with HID's. These are working awesome as we thought they would. These are out performing a 250 watt 2700K cfl with a 105 watt 25000K cfl. We are using two 3000K hid with a total of 70 watts!! Check out the pictures. This is my first ever grow no c02. Let me know what you think. We are 4 weeks in bud in these pics. The pictures on the left and center are the HID and the one on the right is the cfl's. Plants are healthierand bushier than the cfl' grow.

Looks great man! I might have to check into these for the future! What brand HID's did you find the 3000K in?

Hey Redtails,
These were just a generic brand off of ebay. These were 3000K bulbs tinted with yellow coating. I'm trying to find 3000K bulbs that are not tinted to do a comparison. The key to these is a good reflector to concentrate the light.

Awesome idea. I would have thought that the cfl would win with ease. So 70wMH=/>flower power than 355w CFL. Wow.:thumbsup:

This here is some seriously advanced futuristic far out stuff man. Dude, can this be patented? You are sitting on dynamite here as this could make grow boxes smaller and quieter while growing MORE using less power! :eek:

Also the power supply would have to bring the amperage to the party. We ain't talkin' no PC supply, I don't think. Don't just assume "It's only 12V", Did you every short a car battery? Those sparks shoot all over the place and leave a burn through body panels. It's the amperage that's a big deal. :jumphappy:

Can this be patented? If you're not already, somebody else probably is! :woohoo:

Garage sale car/boat battery charger for power supply.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Ocotillo

This here is some seriously advanced futuristic far out stuff man. Dude, can this be patented? You are sitting on dynamite here as this could make grow boxes smaller and quieter while growing MORE using less power! :eek:

Also the power supply would have to bring the amperage to the party. We ain't talkin' no PC supply, I don't think. Don't just assume "It's only 12V", Did you every short a car battery? Those sparks shoot all over the place and leave a burn through body panels. It's the amperage that's a big deal. :jumphappy:

Can this be patented? If you're not already, somebody else probably is! :woohoo:

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Actually using a computer power supply. you only need a 10 amp one to run two lights. the power supply only draws an extra 10 watts for a total of 80 watts!! i measured the current draw so this is real time power consumption. I'm not sure if this is patentable. To get one cost big$$. I want to build these in a turn key package with reflectors, bulbs, ballast, power supply and even adding a few large cfl's for veg stage and of course cooling fans.
I done a lot of research in reflector design and bulb type to get a perfect light pattern so that it is not too concentrated in one spot. and also bulb color makes a big difference. I just got my quantum light meter back from repair. This meter measures PAR light. It doesn't tell you what color spectrum whether it is blue or red but it tells you par light reading. With this meter, i measured the par output of these and found why they are working so well. My readings are at the top of the canopy and it is at a peak of 1800 uMol/s and average of 500uMol/S even down low!! the cfl's had a more even reading all over at 300 and much less as you move down. These readings are what you expect from a 1000 watt HPS! all be it a smaller area. The most amazing thing is that the readings from the HID are 18 inches away from the bulb wereas the reading from the cfl's were done at about 8 inches and faded rapidly as you moved further away so the reflector is doing an awsome job not only at ligt distribution but also heat is not an issue at this distance. Remember my cfl set up is 355 watts the hid's are 80!!

updates please?

hey everyone,
here is some photos. I fucked up. I noticed some bugs on my plants and bought some storebought bug killer. Well i used it and it did some serious damage andi had to harvest early on my hid grow. i do have two plants that i didn't spray and is about 3 weeks behind the plants in the pics i hope will verify my grow with HID however. They are looking awsome. Anyways this what i got. the 25000 and 2700K cfl actually looks real good after week 6 they really started to bulk up and surpass the HID but this was after i f- up. I'm going to do another grow comparing the result of the 25000K and just using 2700k bulbs. The HID ulthough early harvest, i think would have out performed the CFL grow easily. I grew three plants with the HID of only 80 watts!! the 25000K and 2700K combo was 355 watts and is about the same yeild as the 80 watt HID harvested early. In two weeks my other two plants should be ready under HID. I think these HID's really have some serious potential. Remember the key to using them is using them with a proper reflector. Keep in mind this is my very first grow ever!!

I'm not surprised by your results - you had better spectrum than HPS and you had conical reflectors for the HID which greatly improved the photon flux density compared to a traditional batwing or light enclosure. Had you installed those HIDs horizontaly and in a similar setup compared with the CFLs (no reflector except the top,) I'm almost positive the HIDs would have been weaker compared to the CFLs.

Awesome results, nonetheless! I've always preferred conical reflectors and vertical HIDs over horizontal ones with batwings or enclosures - mugh higher efficiency of light concentration, much better results every single time.

I know this thread is old, ancient old, but I've been considering trying to experiment with those 35w hids for at least a year now after reading this thread. Elsewhere on the net, other forums and such, all I can find is people asking if it's possible and other people saying that it's not possible and would be foolish to attempt. This is the ONLY place online I've found that someone actually experimented with this and the results, while disappointing, due to certain factors, prove that this experiment is not only possible, but probable in terms of success. It would be awesome if someone attempted this experiment and was successful because imo, it's the best alternative to cfls thus far.