Advantage V. disadvantage CFL's

[lastfrontier]

ok let me ask what you think about this

Raw light is measured in lumens a single sourse or ray of light if a ray of light crosses another is the ray not more intense at that intersecting point or are you saying not more intense but more dense?

 

[ceestyle]

ok let me ask what you think about this

Raw light is measured in lumens a single sourse or ray of light if a ray of light crosses another is the ray not more intense at that intersecting point or are you saying not more intense but more dense?

I'm sorry I cannot answer a question that makes no sense. This is a run-on sentence.

 

[lastfrontier]

i really want to know because both CFL and HID produce very great results and if the therory is true then what dose that say about lumens per square foot when growing there would be a big diffrense from my CFL hood and an 1000watt HID hood in term of lumens so less lumens and still quality results??????????

 

[lastfrontier]

i am sorry i dont really care about the puncation thing there buddy so stop busting my balls your not going to get a period out of me i type a lot in the command prompt and there is no puncuiation allowed so don't think i am just picking on you .

 

[ceestyle]

i am sorry i dont really care about the puncation thing there buddy so stop busting my balls your not going to get a period out of me .

I'm not busting your balls because I think you should use punctuation. I'm busting your balls because I can't fucking read your posts when they're like twenty sentences run into one another. I can't tell what the fuck you're trying to say and I won't try.

It's up to you whether or not to use a period.

 

[Phinxter]

well you have definatly proved that lux adds but you cannot convert fc to lumens it converts to lumen per m2
and nowhere did you show a reading of lumens being doubled by a meter under multiple lamps
keep in mind the same is true for my beloved 1000w hps if i run 2 of them i dont get 280,000 lumens
consider this lets say you have 2 HID lamps 1 400w hps and 1 600w hps
the lumen rating of the 400 is 55,000 lumens and the 600 is 95,000 lumens
and lumen is intensity or brightness do you think this would get brighter or more intense whan i added the 400w hps or would i just cover more m2 ?
exactly i would just have more lumens per m2 which is lux

so please ceestyle please show me where it states that you can convert from fc to lumens not lumens per m2 because thats lux not lumens

 

[Phinxter]

and to answer your question last frontier it would be more dense not brighter ie: more lumens in that m2
also another side note lastfrontier i will agree with you 100% on your *nix statements" and i wish to god when it gets done date-raping windows it would go after microsoft in general

 

[ceestyle]

well you have definatly proved that lux adds but you cannot convert fc to lumens it converts to lumen per m2
and nowhere did you show a reading of lumens being doubled by a meter under multiple lamps
keep in mind the same is true for my beloved 1000w hps if i run 2 of them i dont get 280,000 lumens
consider this lets say you have 2 HID lamps 1 400w hps and 1 600w hps
the lumen rating of the 400 is 55,000 lumens and the 600 is 95,000 lumens
and lumen is intensity or brightness do you think this would get brighter or more intense whan i added the 400w hps or would i just cover more m2 ?
exactly i would just have more lumens per m2 which is lux

so please ceestyle please show me where it states that you can convert from fc to lumens not lumens per m2 because thats lux not lumens

If you double the lux at the same point and the additional light is the same distance from the meter, you are also doubling the lumen output. Lumens aren't really relevant anyway - it's lux the plant cares about. Lumens measure the total light output of the bulb, integrated over all directions of radiation. It does not describe at all how much light your canopy is getting. A 200,000 lumen bulb would mean nothing if it were facing the wrong direction or were 10 feet from your tops, for example.

People that say more bulbs ONLY increase coverage are saying that lumens/lux do not add, which is incorrect.

If the bulbs are spaced far from one another, they only add where they overlap: if the two bulbs were in the same hood, it would be twice as bright but cover the same area, but if they were ten feet apart, they would be as bright as one bulb and cover twice the area. Spacing between those two extremes will be some combination of increased intensity and coverage area. Get it?

 

[Phinxter]

nada you put 2 lamps in the same hood you will get twice as many lumens per m2 but not a more intense / brighter light ... see my example of the 400 and 600 hps even if i put them in the same hood, it wouldnt be any brighter ... how could it be when 1 lamp is only 2/3 as bright as the other
however i do agree with the statement that its lux that matters not lumens.
and again i may be totally wrong but since they do not and cannot make a meter that reads lumens. and you cannot convert foot candles to lumens, only to lumens per m2 it will be impossible to prove or disprove.
which is why lamp manufacturers can make any lumen claims they like, noone can put a meter to it and prove it

the way i kind of see it in my head to make sense is that lumens would campare electrically to volts and lux is watts . so if you have 2 1000 watt bulbs you draw 2000 watts but its still 120volts

 

[lastfrontier]

at this point i am trying to just figure it out there is a lot to look at on this matter it seems as thoe i have been growing great crops in a dense field of just 3500 lumens if lumens dont add up. so as i said earlier what dose that say about the material out there saying you need a required amount of lumens to creat a great crop.

 

[lastfrontier]

that is my question when the rays of light intersect then has the ray become more intense or more dense or both because if it was more intense then the lumens would increase but if more dense then just the lux?

 

[ceestyle]

nada you put 2 lamps in the same hood you will get twice as many lumens per m2 but not a more intense / brighter light ... see my example of the 400 and 600 hps even if i put them in the same hood, it wouldnt be any brighter ... how could it be when 1 lamp is only 2/3 as bright as the other
however i do agree with the statement that its lux that matters not lumens.
and again i may be totally wrong but since they do not and cannot make a meter that reads lumens. and you cannot convert foot candles to lumens, only to lumens per m2 it will be impossible to prove or disprove.
which is why lamp manufacturers can make any lumen claims they like, noone can put a meter to it and prove it

the way i kind of see it in my head to make sense is that lumens would campare electrically to volts and lux is watts . so if you have 2 1000 watt bulbs you draw 2000 watts but its still 120volts

You obviously did not read my thread on how light works, or you would understand that what you wrote above makes no sense.

You do not understand the difference between lumens and lux, or you would get that measuring lumens is meaningless. Every meter actually meaures lumens, but converts to lux by dividing by the area of the photodiode used to measure it, giving lumens/area.

There is no difference between 'intensity' and 'brightness'. Both are a measure of how many photons hit a unit area per unit time and their energy (color, wavelength). Photons from a 20W CFL or a 1000W HID of the same color are THE SAME. There are just more of them emitted from a 1000W HID.

 

[ceestyle]

that is my question when the rays of light intersect then has the ray become more intense or more dense or both because if it was more intense then the lumens would increase but if more dense then just the lux?

You two are arguing about things that make no sense: talking about light being more 'intense' or 'dense' is pretty funny.

Why is this so hard to understand? If you have one bulb that puts out X lumens, at a distance of say, one foot away, you're going to get Y lux, a measure of light intensity. If you move it to two feet away, you're going to get roughly Y/4 lux from the X lumens. If you move it three feet away, you're going to get roughly Y/9 lux.

Now add a bulb at the same distance as the first. You're now putting out 2X lumens total from the bulbs. At one, two and three feet, you're going to now get 2Y, 2Y/4=Y/2, and 2Y/9 lux.

Get it? Do you see now why the lumens don't matter for your plants? In both cases, you have the same lumens at all distances, but different lux depending on the distance from the bulb.

 

[lastfrontier]

thank you this is what i was trying to say in the beginning with the meter and yes you in my opinion are correct that when the rays of light from the bulb being so close that they over lap you are increasing both lux and lumens.

 

[Phinxter]

i understand a lot more than what you think
and for the sake of this arguement i would like you to answer 1 question without sidestepping it
lets say i believe that lumens add up , can they add up like the manufacturer claims ?
ie: 2700lm + 2700lm +2700lm
or since the 3 lamps will never be the exact same distance from the meter they add up like this "They still add, but according to the 1/d^2 rule"
the lamps will never occupy the same space

 

[ceestyle]

i understand a lot more than what you think
and for the sake of this arguement i would like you to answer 1 question without sidestepping it
lets say i believe that lumens add up , can they add up like the manufacturer claims ?
ie: 2700lm + 2700lm +2700lm
or since the 3 lamps will never be the exact same distance from the meter they add up like this "They still add, but according to the 1/d^2 rule"
the lamps will never occupy the same space

You continually demonstrate that you're not grasping the fundamental meaning of the lumen and difference between that and lux.

I can't answer questions that don't make sense. Lumens don't take into account distance, so your question is non-sensical.

Take the example I gave above about one bulb vs. two bulbs and you can answer any question you could have about the addition of lighting.

 

[alka]

has anyone measured the surface brightness of a cfl? i have a feeling the 15 watt is the same as a 23 and a 40. The bulbs just have more surface area to emit light from.

I only have a cheapo light meter but mine tells me that my 15 watt right next to the bulb is the same brightness as my 42 watt. The 42 watt bulb is around three times the size of my 15 watt. Apart from surface area there is no difference in intensity from one coil to the next. I have a feeling growing under 15 watt or even 8 watt lights is only slightly less effective with cfls as under larger wattage lights ( which all that means is a larger surface area emitting the light).

i use all 23 watt cfls for my grow and some 15's, i really don't think 40 watters do anything at all because at less than one inch away it is the same to my light meter. ( they do spread light over a slightly larger area )

For each cola i try to make sure i have 4 points of light around it within 1-3 inches. each plant always yields 1.5-2 ounces. no 40 watters.

 

[eudroken]

I think you're pretty much right. The concept of the fluorescent light is excited gas... CFL's are simply self-ballasted. The higher watt bulbs are always larger. They are all based on the same ballasting tech...

With those assumptions in the open; I believe you are correct. Each fluorescent bulb higher in wattage, based on the same T8 mini ballast, is simply producing more lumens, not any more "brightness." So you're getting more light, just not any stronger or penetrating.

I've been wondering about this topic myself... Should I get fewer, more powerful CFL's or whatever's most cost-effective? I'm pretty convinced all I need to worry about is the light coverage, because no matter how many CFL's you put in, they wont penetrate any deeper into the foliage... Make sure the highest lumens are where they need to be on the developing plant, and that the plant is not searching far for the light it craves.

I guess the only thing you really need to consider is how effectively your CFLs are dispersing their light to the plants... Try to concentrate lumens where they need to be, because that's all you can do with CFLs. They're low wattage for a reason.

I wonder if there's a theshold... Oh yeah, before anyone zelously attempts to bash my rationale, remember I'm still learning.

 

[alka]

i use 9 23 watt cfls in a grid 3x3
covering a 2x2 foot roof

i just put my plants so that a cola is growing up between 4 lights. so it has 4 points of light 1-3 inches away on all sides.

It always produces fat buds with a good strain.

No moving lights around i just use books to keep the pots where i need them and a couple of clip lamps in front lighting the sides really close (15 watts)

this is one plant that was in the last pic.

I like this method, its simple, each plant is lst'd before it goes in and then i keep each cola exactly the same height while flowering, so the plant doesn't stretch one cola like crazy. I end up with 4 or five fat colas in the end.

 

[eudroken]

Looks delicious to me... But I'm still learning.

The only thing I'd do differently is try to focus more of that CFL light back towards to buds. But they look good so maybe they dont need it.

Are the buds ever light or loose?