So little potential? Your not making sense to me. Car analogies don't really work well =/
Driven so low it's actually getting more out of it(light emitted vs power consumed) than you would if you were to drive it hard. I mean, by the same logic why not use incandescent since it's even cheaper.... Why pay so much for a specialty CFL?
Also aside from the fact a 50w CFL wouldn't fit inside your bucket.... I have a few 68watt cfls. They're giant.
Let me put it this way. Two 27w CFL consume 54w and together emmit 3500 lumens. One 3070 consume half of that having the same output in lumens. Price for the two CFL is 10$, price for the 3070+heatsink+fan+driver is 70$. So, you get the same light output and save 25w with the COB. How much money will you save in electricity?
In the US the average for Kwh is 12 cents. If you run your lights 18/6 365 days a year with the CFLs 54w it will consume 473Khw, 57$ on the bill. With the 3070 running at 700ma (25w) it will consume 219Khw, 26$. Under this circumstances the 3070 up front costs would be paid 26-27 months after purchase. More likely the lights wouldn't be used 18/6 365 days and majority of people pay more than 12 cents per khw, for the average grower it would take somewhere near 3 years to cover the up front costs.
In my personal view, for particulars who grow a few plants per year it doesn't make sense to go after the top notch technology for premium price tag when there are high chances that the same technology will be obsolete a few months later, unless that sector reached a certain level of maturity. I don't think leds in general reached that state yet.
I'm just crushing numbers, I don't have any personal experience with COBs, I would like to try and take my own conclusions. Just promoting a nice healthy discussion
I don't know if a single 50w would fit, but I had 3 23w CLF before the led strips. Should I complain about the heat ?