CFL Tutorial

[Katatawnic]

The one thing on here I notice is that some of the posters seem to act like they're better than the cfl growers, now I don't mean all of them but some of them just have to put down cfl growers in my case I can have any light system I want I can just make one if I want to god knows I have enough parts at work to put one together but I choose the cfl's because I don't want a fire in my closet.

Hear, hear! I've got CFLs for my "smaller" veg area which will be "just" for veg sometime this week, and T5s for my "larger" veg area which will be my flowering area sometime this week. (Multi spectrum CFLs, dual spectrum T5s.)

Currently living in a very old house with very old wiring; as in only two outlets in the entire house even have three-prong grounded wiring! To top that off, the power for the kitchen, living room, dining room, and cooler are all on one circuit!!! Obviously the slum lords didn't hire an electrician to do the latest work on the circuit breaker. Talk about fear of fire! Between that and the fact that this house is also very poorly insulated and therefore quite difficult to cool, HPS is absolutely out of the question even though I'm not limited to a closet.

Honestly though, so far I've had no problems whatsoever with CFL/T5 lighting, and at this point can't see any reason to "upgrade" to HPS when it comes down to the added heat, price to buy, and expense to run. I'm growing strictly for personal medical use, not to sell. So if my buds do turn out not to be quite as dense as they would from HPS, who cares? It's only for me, and my concern is much more about pain relief (and the occasional fun evening, lol) than it is about how much prettier they might be with the "better" lights. (Quotations intentional. lol) If my electric bill has gone up at all from my lights, I've not noticed; it of course goes up in the summer, but doesn't seem to be any higher than it was last summer.

I'm scared enough of fire in this house. No way will I increase the risk, much less expenses!
Anyone who wants to insult me for not choosing their preference in lights can.... kiss-ass

 

[mhg26]

Ha true I love just siting next to my plants and watching them. It's so relaxing and it's like an escape from everything else- at least temporarily lol.

 

[maxamus1]

ok i get the hole sq foot thing but what size cfl would i need for 1 mother and 3 or 4 clones? or could i just get a 2' t5 for them.

 

[kho20]

lol yeah ive caught my self goin and sittin in there starin and shit for hours lmao

 

[mhg26]

Haha true when I need a break from reality or anything I just come upstairs and relax on my couch next to them. I don't think I've ever been this excited before I'm playing a guessing game with my brother about what colors the buds and hairs will be when they're ripe hahaha

 

[kho20]

guess a cold color and drop your nite temps youll win lol my brothers jus like damn i wanna smoke it

 

[mhg26]

Ha I'm hoping the THC production is kick ass from the white widow parent and nice and fruity from the blueberry parent. I know it's mostly indica though so it's probably going to be a crazy body stone lol. But I really want a good sativa for day time smoking and that's what the damn G13 Diesel was until I saw that it was male and had to cut it down

 

[kho20]

i bet itll be a foot in the ass you can always even out the stone by pickin a lil early ya kno more cloudy than amber

 

[mhg26]

Yeah that's also what I was thinking about doing man. But I do want to let her mature in flowering and reach her full potency kind of. What I might do is just harvest like half of her a few weeks early, then let her mature a little more and chop her fully a couple weeks later.

 

[kho20]

usually if its cloudy its only a few days to a week early tho so it prolly wont be any better id think lol

 

[mhg26]

Alright nvm ha I dunno then. I've never harvested before so it should be interesting when the time does come. I'm not sure how long it flowers though. G13 Labs doesn't give a specific amount of weeks for flowering so I guess I'll just go with around 8-10?

 

[kho20]

more indica means close to 8 to 10 more sativa 11 to 15 weeks my bet is on 9 and a half weeks to be where ya want

 

[mhg26]

Thanks kho I'll definitely keep you updated on how it turns out and how they look. Later

 

[kho20]

lol alrighty

 

[mhg26]

Hey Roseman, I have a question for you and I also just wanted to update on some explosive growth. In the past 2 days my girl has grown 4 inches!! She's into day 11 of flowering and is 42 inches tall! Anyway ha, I was curious if you (or anyone else on here) knows about how long male flowers take to fully mature? The two male clones I took are flowering faster than the females and I just need to know around how long in weeks or days I should wait to cut them down and extract the pollen from them?

 

[Karloff]

As an electrician it's nice to see your showing some concern for your home I can't tell you how many times I've rewired homes where people do just stupid things with the wiring.
I even met a guy that didn't want to let the firemen when he had a small fire in his attic he caught it early and attacked it with a supersoaker he thought he'd put it out but in reality he didn't the firemen were able to convince him to take his family to a hotel for the night to be safe four hours alter the attic caught fire again and this time the firemen went in and hosed the house down the water damage alone was incredible.
The guy was trying to get rid of some bats in his attic he read that if you put a lite on in the attic it will force the bats out as they don't like light, but having an old home he had no lighting in the attic so he took a lamp form the lilving room propped it up on some stuff in the attic. It fell over at some point and caught the attic on fire when the firemen arrived he told them he didn't want to let them in with their hoses but let them inspect the attic and it appeared the supersoaker had put out the fire but what they didn't see was a few embers still burning under the wet insulation.
This guy was an idiot he and his family spent the next six months living in a trailer on the property while the house was rebuilt and in my opinion they didn't do him any favors rebuilding it, it would have been cheaper to knock it down and put a modular home in it's place not to mention alot quicker.
But in your case your home or for that matter any home is built and wired to the minimum standards allowed by law all the code books and all the standards are the bare minimums that you can do to build and wire a home.
I've worked with every type of wiring that there has ever been including knob and tube this is a type of wiring where the electrician ran individual conductors with no ground wiries because it wasn't mandatory the knobs were hollow ceramic tubes placed in wooden beams to protect the wires from damage and the knobs were used to make 90 degree turns with the wiriing also to protect the wiring and they would tap the circuit using an additional wire that they would solder onto the main circuit homes like yours would not have switches on the wall but instead pullchains on the lighting fixtures this meant that you would have to enter the dark room feel around for the chain sometimes falling over an unseen obstacle which was later changed now the building codes make either switched controlled outlets or lights mandatory in homes.
I won't trash your choice of lighting rather I applaud you for using your brain.
I just wish more people gave more concideration to their homes and families instead of yields and keeping up with the Jones's.
I've heard that about 90% of house firs are electrical in origin.
Your home is probably your single highest investment and most people treat it like it's disposable.
Insurance companies look for any reason to get out of paying claims, don't give them a reason to leave yo high and dry.
Use common sense don't overload your circuits.

 

[stoney shaggy]

I am having one hell of a time finding 6500k bulbs order two at 1000bulbs got them today to find them useless in pieces i will not order bulbs again. and the crappy thing about it ha just pissed off but does anyone know where to get them in denver metro area help this is the only thing stopping my grow no lights

 

[Roseman]

ok i get the hole sq foot thing but what size cfl would i need for 1 mother and 3 or 4 clones? or could i just get a 2' t5 for them.

One mother needs 5000 lumens, and the two small clones need about that much, to share. Do the math.

 

[Roseman]

Hey Roseman, I have a question for you and I also just wanted to update on some explosive growth. In the past 2 days my girl has grown 4 inches!! She's into day 11 of flowering and is 42 inches tall! Anyway ha, I was curious if you (or anyone else on here) knows about how long male flowers take to fully mature? The two male clones I took are flowering faster than the females and I just need to know around how long in weeks or days I should wait to cut them down and extract the pollen from them?

I don't know exactly.
I do know if I plant seeds at same time, the male will be mature 10 days to two weeks earlier than the female.

 

[Roseman]

I am having one hell of a time finding 6500k bulbs order two at 1000bulbs got them today to find them useless in pieces i will not order bulbs again. and the crappy thing about it ha just pissed off but does anyone know where to get them in denver metro area help this is the only thing stopping my grow no lights

You might wANt to read this thread, for at least 4 places mentioned that retail CFLS.
Lots of places have 2700 K CFLs, 65 watts, 42 watts. Lowes, Home depot, Walmart, Targets, etc

I have ordered over 30 bulbs in 3 years and never had one break in transit.