addional cost for new refector would be £40 then there would be a further £40 per bulb depending on if i use 3 or 4 2700k bear in mind i have 2x 6400k not bein used just now. as i have said in my other posting on this subject i also intend some side/undercanopy lighting in the form of 3x 20w and 2x 11w cfls total cost for them all in will be £15 all in all should only be £100 for 500w.
i accept that cfls will produce some heat but i do not anticipate any where in the region of say a 600w hps allowing me to get my bulbs far closer to the buds this has worked well as you can see from my pics in the veg process.
as for bulb dencity i dont care bout dencity just that it is goood for a smoke, theese maybe stupid thoughts of a stoner but i would like to continue this process out of my own curiousity.
ok right there i found the words that have you hung up! your mainly worryed about heat, and with cfls you can get the bulb very very close without burning so in your mind using the inverse squar law your plants are getting more light with cfls that are close compaired to a hps taht is far away. ok, im not gonig to try to convice you what to use but let me tell you what my 1000 watt hps looks like and im gonig to bet it will satisfy you 100% !
ok down to it. hps bulbs are hot, the way we solve this is to cool them off! the way i desided to do this is by first going to wal-mart and buying a 20 inch box fan for 20 $. i hang this fan by string to the side of my bulb blowing directly on it, the fan is about 1 foot from the bulb. with this fan blowing on my bulb i can touch the 1000 watt bulb with my bare fingers and not be burnt at all. iv had my hair touching it for several seconds and no burn, no pain, no heat. ok, so thats the first step , i havent gotten rid of the heat im just moving the heat away from the bulb as fast as its being generated, the next step is to remove the heat. on the other side of the bulb i have ducting sucking air OUT of my grow area, this sucks out all the heat and my tent stays at about 75-78.
my 1000 watt hps can be about 2 inchs from my plants and im fine. i try to keep it atleast 5 inches so my plants dont grow into the light and they can grow 2 inches on a good day with 1 inch being about the minimum. batwing reflector so the air can move freely.
all that being said i paid 100 bucks for the hps setup , 20 for the fan, 100 for the fan sucking out air and 20 on ducting. so 240 bucks for what i like to think is a very good setup
cfls are ok, and they do the job. i have some cfls flowering a few plants right now in a differant tent, the results of that are ok, nothing great, but they work. i think each of my plants in the hps tent thats are the same strain and age as the cfl tent are atleast 2-3 x the buds and weight.
