CFL Light Tutorial

[FryingPanFlyer]

Thanks for all the responses guys.

For the record, I did try another bulb, still didn't work. But I don't have a multimeter, I believe I might have something that tells you if a wire is "hot" but that's it.

I don't know if this will help but that is the last bulb in the 4 bulb series. It just seems odd that that's the only one with a problem and all the rest are fine.

I agree, it is odd. Now you need to go into trouble shooting mode. The wiring is simple enough, you don't need a license to do it. You just have to make sure it's right. Not to say you can't handle it, even aviation mechanics need someone to look over their shoulder. Who hasn't taken a car to a mechanic that forgot to replace what ever gasket?

Time to trouble shoot, look over all the variables and see which one is causing the problem

 

[Tokensmoke10]

I agree, it is odd. Now you need to go into trouble shooting mode. The wiring is simple enough, you don't need a license to do it. You just have to make sure it's right. Not to say you can't handle it, even aviation mechanics need someone to look over their shoulder. Who hasn't taken a car to a mechanic that forgot to replace what ever gasket?

Time to trouble shoot, look over all the variables and see which one is causing the problem

You must have either smoked too much FPF or just completely skimmed over my other response After a little game of find the broken connection, it ended up being just a lose wire nut!

Thank you for all of your help FPF!

 

[origamijoint]

Tokensmoke10
Hey man....loose wire nuts. I understand. A really cool journeyman I worked with a few years ago about wire nuts which I have adopted. He explained that as electricians we need to be expert at wire nut connections as the old days of solder and wrap the connection in about a million pieces of tape are over. SO to help all avoid problems with wire nuts I will share a little knowledge.

Wire nuts are color coded for size of the wire and the amount that they can correctly hold. The most common are the little orange ones (great for small small wires), beige, yellow, red, Grey and the big blues. They also sell green ones with a hole drilled through...but do not waste you money on them.

It can be a pain in the ass to join stranded wires and solid wires together. So I have learned to take the stranded wire and separate the strands in half. Then I twist them around the solid wire. Almost like a braid. Then I get the correct wire nut....and push them in until it grabs. AND now the most important part......I slightly tug on each wire...I know they both have seated in the metal locking part of the wire nut when they do not come out.

Some like to twist the wires together before placing them into the box/raceway/device...whatever....I do not because it makes it a pain to separate them in the future....and there will be something else to be done.

In some instances....I wrap the nut with high quality electrical tape. Scotch 88. And this tape is made to stretch quite a bit....so you can really tug on the tape and get a solid wrap around the wire nut.

Then before you pull or cut the tape.....give it a few spins....that way there is a little tail to make it easy to access the wire in the future....this avoids having to use a blade to free the wires.

I will take a picture of an electrical box and how I make and position wires in it. It makes it a snap when having to access a certain wire to add or troubleshoot something.

But glad you have the wires figured out.

 

[origamijoint]

FryingPanFlyer

Your post has illuminated one of the greatest lessons of life.
Elliminate the variables. One by one.

 

[origamijoint]

a little tug......secret to all electrical success.

 

[origamijoint]

Voltage drop should not be an issue in almost any grow room/area unless someone does a poor job of splicing the wires together or goes way too small on their wiring and the wire heats up enough to increase resistance to a problematic level. The distance required to create enough wire resistance to cause a problematic voltage drop is relatively large. The ballasts of CFL's are designed to feed the correct voltage to the "exciter" with a degree of input AC voltage variation taken in to account...probably at least 10%+, I could email a manufacturer and probably find out if we want to calculate this out. I have a copy of the 2005 NEC book in my car that should have decent estimates of wire resistance per foot for whatever gauge wire. Based on what the manufacturer says is a safe voltage drop we can calculate the maximum length wire run that can be installed without causing issues. Fun fun! I love electrical stuff...

Personally I don't really care for the yellow interior lighting schemes, I like the daylight spectrum better unless it's really late at night. That's probably what you were hunting for for use in your kitchen. Makes things easier to see imho, great for work areas.

Voltage drop should not be an issue for us.....but I have seen it time and time again as more stuff gets added. And throw in a pump...that is supposed to be on its own circuit....and stuff starts to funk. That is why multimeters are so important. How about balanced loads on the neutral? Just joking man....you know your stuff. Good to meet you.

 

[FryingPanFlyer]

You must have either smoked too much FPF or just completely skimmed over my other response After a little game of find the broken connection, it ended up being just a lose wire nut!

Thank you for all of your help FPF!

I think it was option 1, I do tend to get thoroughly relaxed when the time comes! lol

glad to hear you got it under control!

Hey, I'd appreciate you consideration for member of the month!

 

[FryingPanFlyer]

FryingPanFlyer

Your post has illuminated one of the greatest lessons of life.
Elliminate the variables. One by one.

Thanks for the props man, I feel kind of silly not reading closer!

 

[Niedermeyer]

Very informative.

 

[origamijoint]

Thanks for the props man, I feel kind of silly not reading closer!

Silly you are not. Faded or Non. You are brilliant. Because you went forth and asked the questions. And in the answers you were given....I found much information. And bringing your mother in law into it......well that is simply wisdom.

 

[CharlieMopps]

I have grown on 3 occasions with cfl's. Every time I get blown away by how well these plants will grow with a couple energy saver lights from walmart. I agree that there are distinct advantages and disadvantages from using cfl's, but I really like them. I will note that hid systems will produce epic yields and amazing trich development. But for those of us flying under the radar, looking to keep temps in check, have low startup costs and trying to save on energy, cfl's are an excelent choice.

 

[scaredeecat]

roseman very informative post,
with all thats been discussed, i have a question to ask, maybe it was covered and i skimmed over it.

i am making a box 4'wx3'dx4't how many and what size cfl,s do i need? of course i am going to bloom my plants at 24" trying to keep them small

 

[FryingPanFlyer]

roseman very informative post,
with all thats been discussed, i have a question to ask, maybe it was covered and i skimmed over it.

i am making a box 4'wx3'dx4't how many and what size cfl,s do i need? of course i am going to bloom my plants at 24" trying to keep them small

Let me help Roseman for a bit here. I've got a veg closet going, it's 28" x 42" x 5' (I'm not going to flower in it). I've got (8) - 55w cfl's in there and the plants are thriving! The more the merrier. I don't know how few you can go with, but fewer will lessen the yield.

 

[MostlyCrazy]

Also, scaredeecat, plan on your plants getting at least 2x and maybe 2.5x their veg height when they go to flower. With a 4' height and room for the lights you might want to flower them at 12-16" to leave yourself enough head room so the plants don't grow into the light. They will be ready to flower when the leaves start alternating indicating the plants are mature.

 

[origamijoint]

roseman very informative post,
with all thats been discussed, i have a question to ask, maybe it was covered and i skimmed over it.

i am making a box 4'wx3'dx4't how many and what size cfl,s do i need? of course i am going to bloom my plants at 24" trying to keep them small

You need all the CFL's you can hustle, steal, forage, or "obtain". And that is the fewest amount. Quoting from The MJ Hort/Medical bible....."10,000 L's @ at the plants is the goal.

 

[scaredeecat]

Let me help Roseman for a bit here. I've got a veg closet going, it's 28" x 42" x 5' (I'm not going to flower in it). I've got (8) - 55w cfl's in there and the plants are thriving! The more the merrier. I don't know how few you can go with, but fewer will lessen the yield.

thanks this helps alot

would i need the same to bloom? if not what do i need in the same amount of space

 

[scaredeecat]

You need all the CFL's you can hustle, steal, forage, or "obtain". And that is the fewest amount. Quoting from The MJ Hort/Medical bible....."10,000 L's @ at the plants is the goal.

thanks the more the merrier

 

[Roseman]

roseman very informative post,
with all thats been discussed, i have a question to ask, maybe it was covered and i skimmed over it.

i am making a box 4'wx3'dx4't how many and what size cfl,s do i need? of course i am going to bloom my plants at 24" trying to keep them small

yep, you skimmed right over it. On the very first page where most of the info is, it says


How much light is needed for growing?
Depends on the size of plant you are trying to grow. I'll try to answer this "in general" instead of being specific to one size plant. Light seen and perceived with the human eye is measured in Lumens. There is an ideal amount of lumens for growing and a minimum amount of required lumens. The very minimum amount of light required for smaller sized plants grown is around 3000 lumens per square foot. Let me put emphasis on "minimum amount" of light. However, that's not 100% exactly accurate, since although you may have a 10,000 lumen light, the amount of light that reaches the plant varies with the distance between the light and plants, and the reflectivity of the grow area. The ideal amount is somewhere around 7000-10,000 lumens per square foot for average sized plants. As long as the plants do not show burn, as much light can be used as you want to use. (Note, the sun produces about 10,000 lumens per square foot, on a sunny mid summer day).
Contracy to "talk" you CAN have too much light.)

Determining lumens for your grow area:
First determine the square footage of your area (example in a 4 foot by 4 foot area, there is 16 square feet, 2 by 2 feet is 4 Sq ft. ) If you have a 1000 Watt High Pressure Sodium Light Bulb, that produces approximately 107,000 lumens. Divide this by 16 (your square footage) 107,000 divided by 16 = 6687 lumens per square foot. So just divide the total amount of Lumens, by the total amount of square feet, and that's your lumens per square foot.


Many people have problems calculating the math.

You have a 3 X 4 and that = 12 square feet of grow space. The above says you need a minimum of at least 3000 lumens per sq ft, and a Maximum desired amount of 10,000. Half way would be 6000 or 7000 lumens per sq ft. 7000 is ideal. You 12 sq ft times 7000 lumens would be 84,000 lumens needed, on average, half way between the 10,000 max and 3000 mimimum.

You can look at the chart on page one and see that most CFLs provide 60 or 70 lumens per watt. We'll go with 70 lumens per watt.

84,000 lumens needed, divided by 70 per watt= you need 1200 watts to be "ideal" and half way between Minimum amount needed and the Maximum amount. If you go with 42 watt bulbs, you need 28 bulbs. If you go with 105 watt bulbs, you need 11 bulbs. and again, that is for the ideal amount. Most of us use less than perfect and get by.

If you went with bare minimum light, say 3000 lumens per sq ft, you'd need 36,000 lumens, divided by 70 = 514 watts, or about 12 42 watt bulbs at very bare minimum needed.

Post # 117 says:
I saw a dude, a young college student on limited funds grow a plant in his closet with ONE 42 watt 2700 K bulb. He was so proud and got a little over a half ounce of dried bud from his plant.

I have seen many many growers use one bulb only, or two bulbs or just three bulbs and have all one kelvin, or all 6500K and no 2700K, or be 26 watt bulbs, and just did not have the dual spectrum. BUT, they got a harvest and were very grateful and proud to get it. I did my first grow with only two 65 watt bulbs in VEG and added two more in Flowering. I was so very proud of that grow too! Mostly I was proud I did not kill them and they lived.!!

You just have to go with what you got, or can get, sometimes!

 

[Roseman]

Let me help Roseman for a bit here. I've got a veg closet going, it's 28" x 42" x 5' (I'm not going to flower in it). I've got (8) - 55w cfl's in there and the plants are thriving! The more the merrier. I don't know how few you can go with, but fewer will lessen the yield.

28" times 42" = 1176 sq inches or 8 sq ft of grow space.

8 X 55 watts = 440 watts total that you have now or 440 X 70 = 30,800 lumens is what you have. And we know that your garden and harvest was very healthy too, telling us you had enough lumens and watts.

When we put it to the math equation,
Your 8 sq ft needed a minimum of 3000 lumens per sq ft, = 24,000
or a max of 10,000 lumens per sq ft = 80,000

so your 30,800 was very well above the minimum and close to half of the maximum.

No one ever uses the Maximum 10,000 equivalent to the sun, so I 'd say your lumens and watts are very close to ideal. And the proof is in your grow, which was beautiful.

 

[Roseman]

You need all the CFL's you can hustle, steal, forage, or "obtain". And that is the fewest amount. Quoting from The MJ Hort/Medical bible....."10,000 L's @ at the plants is the goal.

yep, 10,000 is equvilant to the sun's lumens on a sun shiney day!