CFL vs. HPS ****Title Fight****

stickyhits said:

you can use an hps for a stealth grow no ones ever heard of air cooling and the light can be within inches on the canopy

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No HID light should ever be within inches of the canopy even if heatwise you could use it there. In any case it would be stupid to use it so close as what you might again in light depth penetration you'll lose in distribution across width and depth as the air cooled hood is so low. So by using your hood so low to the plant canopy - the lower areas may receive more light but the plants on the edges of the grow space will recieve less overall.

And don't mention Cool Tubes either - their light distribution and spread is shit, the internal reflector is virtually useless it's so tiny.

The one thing people really do forget about with HIDs is the sheer amount of infra red radiated heat they give off - and the closer the plants are to the HID bulb the more direct radiated heat they receive - this just serves to dry out the top cola.

You can't exhaust radiated heat, because - it's radiated! It's not like inductive heat you get from the oven or a heater which you can exhaust. It's the same principle that heats up your food in the microwave and the same principle that burns you at the seaside despite the fact theres a strong wind blowing, except that's obviously ultraviolet radiation - but it's still radiated.

It's this radiated heat that causes problems and heat build up in small grow spaces - not the inductive heat you're conveniently exhausting with your exhaust fan.

This is precisely why my advice to people using HIDs asking for guidance on how far it should be away is always greater than everyone elses recommendations - because I factor in and allow for this radiated heat - others do not.

Putting a HID in a small closet or wardrobe is nothing like as simple as people make out - it can be done obviously - but you must allow and deal with the excessive heat build up - inductive as well as radiated.

beenthere donethat said:

P.S. I **did NOT** make this chart babygro. This is standard issue year after year in the wholesalers catalogs and retail info catalogs from Hydrofarm, Sunlight Supply and other "gardening" light manufacturers in the US. Got issue with it? Take it up with them and bring yer laboratory backed reseach.... LOL.

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Don't need the luck, but thanks anyway.

Nice try, but no cigar sorry, pretty chart though.

Now try working that chart out (I know you didn't create it) changing lumens for PAR watts (the light plants actually see and use) rather than lumens that is a measurement for what light the human eye can see. This is why HIDs contain huge quantites of yellow and green spectrum light that plants simply don't use.

I think you'll find your chart starts to look somewhat different, and precisely why lumens is a waste of time when calculating plant light requirements and why HID's are hugely expensive to run when you consider quite a lot of the light they output simply isn't being used.

stickyhits said:

grams per watt isnt that big a stat when everyone is growing different strains which is a big factor in it self for yeild

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I'd tend to agree with you - strain can have a big impact on yield, but then so can a lot of other factors as well - the yield of a strain is only one of those factors. But then again, if you're growing for yield then you're not likely to grow out a low yielding strain are you?

If you're a crap grower you won't get much yield off your strain regardless of how high yielding it is.

stickyhits said:

its more about potency and taste ive never smoked cfl flowered bud but im not sure it would be as good or anywhere near as dense that pic is like half an inch big cant even see it

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If you make and smoke hash, what relevance is trichome based potency?

Fluorescent's create light in a completely different way to HID's.
You should not expect HID bulbs to emit anywhere near the QUALITY of light that fluorescent's do, and
you should not expect fluorescent's to emit anywhere near the INTENSITY of light HID's do.
Fluorescent lighting needs more attendance from the grower than HID because the light needs to be moved up, often on a daily basis, so that the optimum distance (about 5cm) can be maintained as the plant grows. Because most of us have the electricity, space and environmental equipment needed for the "big rough" HID, that's what most people use.

So...is all of the light that the SUN puts out used/useable by the plant, babygro?

So....are ya now gonna inform us that CFL's are better to grow under than the SUN simply because they emit a better PAR spectrum? What about all of *that* wasted red/yellow/blue/green light?

Yup..nice try is right. As you said..CFL is good for SMALL grows.

BTW..have you ever owned/used an hps before?

I have used cfls, hids (400 & 600) & the best of all the sun.

babygro said:

I'd tend to agree with you - strain can have a big impact on yield, but then so can a lot of other factors as well - the yield of a strain is only one of those factors. But then again, if you're growing for yield then you're not likely to grow out a low yielding strain are you?

If you're a crap grower you won't get much yield off your strain regardless of how high yielding it is.



If you make and smoke hash, what relevance is trichome based potency?

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if youre growing for yield why would you even consider cfls if youre a crap grower you shouldnt even grow even if there is wasted light from the hps you could afford it and get higher quality nugs.if you dont want to get as high there is no relevance for potency cause I bet the hps buds would make better hash to

beenthere donethat said:

So...is all of the light that the SUN puts out used/useable by the plant, babygro?

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Nope.

The sun suffers from exactly the same wavelength distributions as a HID or fluorescent used inside would suffer from if it's the same colour temperature. The corrected colour temperature of the summer midday sun is round about 6,500 degrees kelvin, which is why bulbs with that colour temperature are often referred to as 'daylight' bulbs.

beenthere donethat said:

So....are ya now gonna inform us that CFL's are better to grow under than the SUN simply because they emit a better PAR spectrum?

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I've never stated that fluorescents are better to grow with than the 'sun' because of their improved spectral distribution and to be perfectly honest it's very naive to be even making the comparison. I was referring to the differences between HID's and CFL's and Fluorescents - where does the sun come into any of this?

The reason it's completely pointless and irrrelevant to be making any comparisons at all to the sun, and clearly something you're either not aware of nor understand the importance of is the 'inverse square law' of diminishing light intensity - the sun does not suffer from it, whereas HID's, CFL's, Fluorescents and any other man made single point light source do.

That means in real terms that the light intensity of the sun received at a plant leaf at the top of the plant is exactly the same as the light intensity at the bottom of the plants leaves. That is not the same as with single point light sources as you well know.

The suns light intensity (in all the wavelength spectrums) is more than sufficent for healthy plant growth and therefore the fact that the sun outputs huge quantities of light plants don't actually use (in exactly the same way as HID's do) is completely irrelevant.

beenthere donethat said:

What about all of *that* wasted red/yellow/blue/green light?

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Why is it wasted if you're not paying for it?

You appear to struggle with the concept I'm trying to make here so a practical demonstration of it is perhaps in order.

Lets compare the light spectrum distributions and running costs of a 250w HPS and a 200w nlite PURple compact flourescent. Should be no comparison right? HPS's are always far superior aren't they? Let's see -

A 250w HPS outputs around about 25,000 lumens.
A 200w nlite PURple CFL about 13,700 lumens.

Still no comparison right?

Let's start doing the adjustment for PAR.

A 250w HPS will output about 35-40% of it's light output in the PAR spectrum so that means 25,000 x 40% = 10,000 lumens in the PAR spectrum

A 200w PURple nlite will output about 80% of it's light in the PAR spectrum so that means 13,700 x 80% 10,960 lumens in the PAR spectrum.

So there we have it, the 200w nlite PURple CFL is actually putting out MORE PAR spectrum than the 250w HPS despite the HPS outputting way more initial lumens.

Lets now look at running costs.

A 250w HPS Magentic coil will use approximately 1.3 amps on a 240v system - 312 watts.
A 200w PURple nlite uses 161 watts of electricity.

So, not only does the 200w PURple nlite output more plant useable light in the PAR spectrum, it's also just over half as expensive to operate.

Yeah you're right HPS are so much better.

stickyhits said:

if youre growing for yield why would you even consider cfls

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Because they're more cost effective in small setups than HID's are?

stickyhits said:

if youre a crap grower you shouldnt even grow

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Interesting thought, perhaps you'd like to let a few people know this?

stickyhits said:

even if there is wasted light from the hps you could afford it and get higher quality nugs

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So wasted light and money is irrelevant because anyone using a HPS can afford it? Again interesting viewpoint, try telling that to al the people on here moaning about how little money they have.

stickyhits said:

if you dont want to get as high there is no relevance for potency cause I bet the hps buds would make better hash to

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Would you like to explain your thinking behind this? I'm curious to understand how you think hash made from HPS buds will be more potent than hash made from CFL or Fluorescent buds.

Perhaps you might like to take a read of this article and particularly this part of it -

"Strictly nlite fluorescent only example: 10 x 200w (2000w) nlite PURple red lamps produced same yield as crop did with 3 x 600w (1800w) HPS, but the grower reported that although quantity/yield was fractionally down, the QUALITY was up massively, because there is so little heat, all of the "qualitative" characteristics of the plant tops are not "evaporated" by IR heat. this is especially relevant during the flowering stage when plant surfaces in the flower region are particularly photoponically sensitive and vulnerable to humidity and over-heating problems."

Source: PURple for the highest quality

so is that the light all cannibus cup winners grow with then since you think they are the best? the cost to run my thousand and all my other power only comes to 70 dollars if you cant afford that sell 4 grams and its paid big deal and you still have a huge yield to puff on

What is nlite flourescent?

SmokerE said:

What is nlite flourescent?

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nlite is a brand of high powered cfls, they go upto 300w i believe and have a blue red and purple bulb, the purple is more towards being dual spectrum and puts out even amounts of red and blue

nongreenthumb said:

the purple is more towards being dual spectrum and puts out even amounts of red and blue

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And a lot less yellow and green !

babygro is owning all of you on this one

How about this. Don't matter what light you have or nutrients you have or c02 system you have. All that matters is what you do with the stuff you have.







HPS is better

Yes he *is* ownin' all of us.

But thank goodness someone has come to the rescue to save all of us who've been doing it wrong since way back when...

call Cervantes and Rosenthal and tell em to retire...

there's a new pot Messiah in town...

lmao rep...

lmao
big bunch-o-talkin not much walkin
if every1 is soooo dead set 1 way or the other why not step up and put them head to head???? why try to point out the pros and cons of each without just showing what your talking about? this is a pot site for the most part right?,? big piles of growers on here right?,? some1 please man(or woman "im totally PC")up enough to do a grow or 2. c'mon its all in good fun, no1 will giggle. folks on here are all about helping new growers, why not show them? if you really think CFLs will smoke HIDs prove it. and if you think HID will stomp CFLs into dust show us.
all this "what i think" crap is just that, crap. until you compair head to head its all kinda lame. any1 can say that one light system is better than the other just from reading a few threads on this very site. its doesnt take much of a grower to puke up what they saw in some mag or on some site. do a compairitive grow or 2 and toss up a few pics along the way. if your right youll get youre point across and have proof to show exactly what youre talking about. if not,,, you get to learn a better way to do things.

https://www.rollitup.org/indoor-growing/8513-cfl-vs-floro-vs-hps.html#post77690

the CFL vs HPS vs FLOROS thread was mine. and before i get 300000 PMs saying what an ass i am or how unfair it was,,, please read the whole thread. i used what i had handy around the house. dont think im some tard that really expected a few lil wrong color CFLs would do all that great. it was just something to pass the time and get a feel for CFLs.

hi to you all, ive grown my plant with cfl's, im now in flowering period (day 16) day 43 total. i had a 400w hps on for 2 days but things were getting too hot so im back with the cfl's. im useing 1x 125w blue, 2x 125w red spec envirolites giving a total of 375w. i got 1 plant in a space measuring 18"x18"x6ft. check out my second grow in the general section.

o2