Huh? I have stated that it is more work to separate CFLs into their component bulb and ballast parts. In terms of more work... Yes, I suppose so.
HPS: Connect ONE HPS bulb by screwing it into the socket (if socket is not prewired, wire it to the ballast), hang fixture/reflector at a suitable distance from the canopy in the center of the garden, connect (ballast) to electrical receptacle.
CFL: Connect an amount of CFL bulbs ranging from "several" to "many" by screwing them into their (an amount ranging from "several" to "many") sockets (if sockets are not prewired, wire them to a suitable number of male electrical plugs - otherwise, continue), create or purchase a suitable number of reflectors to ensure that the majority of illumination actually reaches the plant(s), hang said collection of reflectors at a suitable distance from the canopy so that they do not obstruct one another, connect all the male plugs to electric receptacles (Note: If (when) you discover that there are not enough electrical outlets, add one or more "power strips" as intermediary devices.).
What it comes down to is the "one vs. many" rule. If a person is doing what basically amounts to the same thing, there will ALWAYS be more work involved in doing a thing many times than there will in doing it once.
But that is, in a way, nitpicking.
Wait... Did I state that it was HARD to use CFLs - or did I state that there was more work involved?
I'm pretty sure that I stated there was more work involved. I do not really think that any of this stuff is difficult ("hard"). I did - and do - state that it is a bigger PitA to modify CFLs so that their ballasts can be separated than it is to do so with an HID (and that is assuming that the HID does not have a remote ballast in the first place) - and THAT is even assuming that only ONE CFL is involved (as opposed to MANY, which is - by far - the most common CFL setup). Which is why so few people seem to do it - even though doing so would remove a portion of the CFLs' heat from the grow area. In other words, people end up leaving the (multiple) heat source(s) of their CFL bulbs' electronic ballasts in place in their grow rooms because removing them is perceived as being a hassle / a PitA / trouble / difficult (/"hard?"). Which is what I stated earlier. And then restated when you misunderstood. And am stating again. NOT that one must have copious amounts of strength, endurance, mental fortitude, et cetera in order to grow with CFLs (which would be balderdash).
Although I will make the observation that...
Depending on the number of bulbs you choose to use, it DOES appear that you'll have (significantly) more components to assemble, hang, and adjust than you would if you just park an HID over the center of your plant-space and then raise it occasionally (and less often than with CFLs, one assumes, due to the inverse square law - one can get useful growth out of an HID even when the bulb is much farther away (in terms of multiples of the distance that CFLs would produce acceptable growth at)).
I do NOT assume sarcasm, snideness, or even rudeness. And I also tend to assume that any misunderstandings are both simply that and unintentional.
I also get the feeling that we could have had this discussion in person... in five minutes or less, lol. This is, after all, an imperfect medium for communication.
I'm going to assume that you are getting the results you desire. I'm even going to assume that you're doing better than I could (and that is probably not even an assumption
). IOW, I am NOT knocking your grow, okay? And I am not disparaging those who have little money to spend - that would be hypocritical, both because of my current situation and because I understand; I once spent about six hours doing exhaust work on my old beater because the only power tool - or saw - I owned happened to be a zero-torque Dremel tool.With that being stated... A 250-watt HPS will produce less heat than 336 watts' worth of CFLs, lol. Moving the ballast outside (of the grow area) will lower that heat production (in the grow room, where it counts) even more. I've seen such things on CraigsList selling cheaply now and then (unfortunately, there aren't any in my area at this time - I checked). It'll produce more light. The same holds true for MH, but it will produce somewhat more heat than HPS - but can give you the more compact growth that you might be after during vegetative. Even assuming that one ends up purchasing a "lemon," parts to refurbish them are cheap and can be had from any electrical supply store (or the Internet
). I'm talking about the "old-school" magnetic C&C ballasts here; deals can sometimes be found on electronic ballasts, but I wouldn't recommend that someone of average skills (like me ) rebuild one of those. If a person has - or is able to save - enough money, they can purchase a dimmable balast (either a 400-250 or a 250-170-150 type) that will both run bulbs of different wattages (handy for year-round grows where temperature varies by season) and often allow the user to dim a bulb (such as driving a 400-watt HPS bulb at 250 watts) AND allow one to choose between using an HPS or a MH bulb (which is useful if the grower only has a single grow area instead of separate seedling/clone/mother/vegetative and flowering spaces).
It has been years (ten?) since I've had to mess with it and I do not wish to misspeak, so I will not try to remember which one it is, but the difference - in magnetic ballasts - between an HPS and a MH is basically one component. The old (but still usable) "switchable" ballasts just introduced/removed that component, so to speak. It's pretty simple to modify one into the other (or to turn it into a switchable one). IIRC, there are old threads here about such things. One can even build a ballast from the component parts (again, quite easily). This isn't rocket science, it's playing connect-the-dots so that one's parts end up the same way that a diagram shows, lol. I've even seen ballast boxes made out of wood (NOTE: I absolutely would NOT recommend this!).
You can get a 250-watt MH bulb for under ten bucks (US). Are they the best? LMAO, I mean no. Are they... sufficient? Sure. They'll work, and work for an average vegetative (or even vegetative plus flower) phase without having lost a significant amount of illumination, which means that a person would have a few months to save up for a better bulb (or two).
This is painful to type, and it is painful because I am - right now, lol - in the process of trying to put together a grow and it's hard to, err, transfer money from other areas to a grow-budget when "a good day" means that I get to eat TWO meals. And it touches on something that sometimes seems to be a universal truth - "Rich b*stards have it easier than the rest of us!!! <ARGH!!!>" No, wait, that's not it... "Poor people often end up spending significantly more than wealthy people do in order to accomplish the same task." Yeah, that's it, lol. It's like... This is actually a true statement: When the price of bread goes up, people purchase more of it. Why? Poor people (generally) eat more baloney sandwiches than rich people. They don't have the ability to have a varied, healthy diet, and to choose to eat what they want. They spend a much higher percentage of their income on food than wealthy people do (even though the food they buy is both less varied and cheaper). They're not filling out their diet with sandwiches because they enjoy eating sandwiches every day for at least one of their two meals (or for their one meal), it's just that they cannot afford more appetizing alternatives. So the price of bread goes up... They can't buy less bread because they don't have enough money to purchase alternatives (steak and dinner rolls being more costly than slaughter-house floor processed meat and bread). They have to buy at least the same amount. It costs them more, and the only way they can now pay for it is to purchase even less of the "non-bread" items than they were previously... so they end up buying MORE bread to make up for buying less of everything else.
I think I might be rambling... Anyway, I can understand buying 336 watts' worth of CFLs (and multiple sockets, Y-adaptors, reflectors (home made works well, BtW), et cetera instead of a 250-watt MH (and ONE socket, reflector, and ballast) for one's grow room. Even though one can shop around and get a basic 250-watt MH setup relatively cheaply (and then upgrade it over time if so desired - a better (and/or air-cooled) reflector one month, a better bulb another, or even an electronic, switchable, dimmable ballast at yet another time), a used one even cheaper, or assemble a setup out of its component parts for even less money... The average (asking) price for a MH (or HPS) setup at a hydroponics store is significantly higher than that of "a few CFL bulbs."
<SHRUGS> And some people, finding themselves with ten bucks in their pocket today, seem to be utterly incapable of holding on to that $10 until next month. For those people, not spending it RIGHT NOW on their grow setup means that they never will, lol.
(Many) years ago, my brother used to deal about the best cannabis in the area. He didn't like to sell it by the ¼-ounce, but he would if I pestered him, lol. The only thing was, his herb was a lot more expensive than other people's. I would occasionally ask him to sell me an eighth of an ounce. Nope. "But I'll buy the other eighth next week." "Save your money and buy it all next week, then," he'd reply. Yeah... more often than not, I'd go buy a ¼-oz. somewhere else with my money, then the next week I'd try to get him to sell me an eighth ("I told you last week, save your money. Dumb*ss."
Now, it seems that some people sell decent-quality cannabis for $100/¼-oz. and $300+/oz. IOW, I could put together a cheap HID setup for (or even less than) the price of a ¼-oz. of cannabis - and grow MANY ¼-ounces. Of course, I don't have the money to even buy an eighth, lol. (I sort of put the cart before the horse in initiating a grow, huh?)
Rambling again, I guess...
You are spending more on electricity powering those CFLs than you would in powering a 250-watt MH - and you'd get more growth out of the latter (and a little less heat - 100 candles can produce as much heat as one average fire). And I consider such things to be significant! Whatever one spends on one's grow room, those expenses are generally not recurring monthly expenses. Yes, there are bulb replacements, but not every single month. And, well... IDK how many CFLs you're using in your vegetative area, but if it's at least five and they cost you $2 each, you could buy a CHEAP MH bulb for that. If it's at least ten and they cost $5 each, you could get a nice one that produces illumination closer to the range that is considered to be optimum for vegetative growth. No, it's the monthly electricity bills that add up over time. Paying to run more watts of less efficient lighting, paying to ventilate (or cool!) more heat produced by less efficient lighting seems like wasted money to me, that's all. Not wasted as in "those lights cannot grow cannabis" (because obviously they can!), but wasted as in "a more efficient light set up would produce the same - or better - results for the same - or less - electricity."
And THAT'S the main reason that I do not favor CFL bulbs, at least not for one's main lighting - if you want the same results, it will cost more money over time. If someone is only going to use, IDK, less than 150 watts' worth of CFLs in their grow, and/or is only going to grow ONCE (but even in such a case, they'll end up spending more on CFLs unless they keep the wattage down below maybe 300 or so), then they won't experience this. But who ever ends up only growing one crop (ever), lol? And look at the many grows - even on this one forum, in the journals section - where a person starts out with a few watts' worth of CFLs, but by the end of their grow they've got 800, sometimes even 1,200 watts' worth of the things? That's a not insignificant component cost - and a very significant amount of BTUs (heat). Lots of light, sure. But a person who runs a 400-watt HPS setup (preferably, but not necessarily, with either a 400-watt MH or a MH "conversion bulb" for vegetative growth) might be able to attain a level of production comparable to the grower who uses 800 watts' worth of CFLs (flip a coin - grower prowess, technique, etc. comes into play on this one... but the grower that uses a 600-watt HID setup will most likely blow both of those growers out of the water, lol, and that's saving 200-watts' worth of lighting electricity each month and a fair amount of ventilation/cooling watts as well).
I will likely continue to use CFLs for seedling and early vegetative growth. Unless I am lucky enough to find some 4' tube-type fixtures whilst dumpster diving that I can cannibalize (the bulbs generally are spaced too far apart to suit most growers). I used to find such critters routinely when CFLs became popular for home/office lighting, lol, and saw some when LEDs hit the scene (for the same purpose). But now that I am actively looking, not so much.
I might end up using them throughout the vegetative phase. And I might use them in flower.
But I certainly do not want to. By the time I got paranoid and "disappeared" a few years ago, I had downsized considerably and was only using a Lumatek dimmable 400-watt setup. I gave it away, that person gave it to someone else, and THAT person has offered to send it back up the line - IF he can find it <SIGH>. He stated it might be in storage and offered a mercury vapor light to use in the meantime (No, just... NO, lol). If I end up having to do an entire grow with only CFLs, I'll have to play the "buy a couple bulbs this week, buy a couple sockets/etc. next week, rinse/lather/repeat" game - and I'll end up using over 400 watts' worth of them, paying for the electricity to run them, and having to deal with the heat... and not producing as well as I'd like.
IDK. Even if I DO manage to get my old HID light back, I wouldn't be opposed to using (some) CFLs to supplement it. After all, one of the strains I'll be growing is Simon's (Serious Seeds) Kali Mist - and that's a 90% sativa, IIRC, so I'll need all the help I can get
.See above. Also... I once grew in some large aluminum trash cans - and used 70-watt HPS to do so. I used a 150-watt the next time, but that seemed (to me) to be about the limit for such small of a space, and there was more heat to deal with. That was long before I ever heard about the Internet as anything other than what you could interface with by going to the local college and using a minicomputer that ran VAX/VMS, so I don't have any pictures or even text about it. But here is a 150-watt grow that I remember reading along with:
150W HPS - 18 pics - 9 weeks flower
He didn't do much (any, lol?) training, and admitted that he failed to take the 150-watt HPS' lack of penetrative ability into account, so his grams-per-watt number was pretty deplorable (around .63 G/W, I think). I think he improved it in a later grow, but I don't remember whether or not he documented it. It does illustrate how one can use HID lighting in small spaces, though.
Actually... When using such a small HPS - that does not have great penetration - it wouldn't surprise me if someone could do better using (the same watts' worth of) CFL bulbs. The CFL grower would be able to place the multiple bulbs at different locations, which would help to make up for their (even greater) lack of penetration, while the HPS grower only had one light to position. I'd sure like to see a grow that used ONLY 150 watts of CFL bulbs, start to finish so I could compare the two. You wouldn't happen to have a link to such a grow, would you?
Agreed... to an extent. Sometimes, it is a matter of wanting the instant gratification of being able to start a grow right now, combined with an inability to say, "I do not have the money to buy a more powerful light this month. I can save some money next month, but that - by itself - won't be enough, either. I KNOW - I'll just hang on to what I saved this month and add it to what I save next month!"
<SHRUGS> That has been me, upon occasion.
I have no hate for CFLs or those who use them - not even for those who use ONLY them. I have no hate for those who grow using the DWC hydroponic technique, ebb & flow, hand-watered hydro (aka "hempy"), in pots full of soil, in the ground under the sky, et cetera. I've seen people get really intense about their preferred method (of lighting, of growing, whatever). Sometimes this goes to the extreme of stating that their method is "the best." (I, for one, have used several types of lighting and several methods of growing - and couldn't tell you what "the best" is. Probably, it has not been invented yet, lol.) Oddly enough, sometimes those people turn out to have only ever utilized one type of lighting and/or growing method :rolleyes3.
In terms of modifying CFLs? It is actually possible (depending on the brand of bulb - some seem to be more difficult than it's worth) to remove the ballast within the CFL, extend it away from the rest of the bulb, and place it in another location. This lessens the heat that the CFL outputs in the grow area. For one low-wattage bulb, it's highly unlikely to be worth the trouble. For grows that use many CFL bulbs... Well, the hassle goes up, of course - but so does the benefit of moving their ballasts. The best result-to-effort scenario would, I suppose, be when a grower uses a few higher wattage (such as 250-watt) CFLs. But in that case, I'd probably recommend that the grower break I mean experiment with a few low-wattage ones first, lol.
I am not sure if the process has ever been explained here. But you ought to be able to find a "how-to" (with pictures) via the search engine of your choice. If heat is NOT an issue in any way, I wouldn't expect you to bother modifying all your bulbs. But it might be interesting reading in any event (if you like seeing examples of others' DIY skills/insanity).
That could be meat for another debate, lol. IIRC, plants have certain processes that occur just after darkness happens that don't get carried out when in the presence of light. But obviously that does not prevent them from growing (well) under constant illumination, so I do not know just how important they are.
Yes. My first "experience" with attempting to grow cannabis indoors... Do you remember those old incandescent "grow & show" bulbs, lol? They should have stamped "As seen on TV" on the packages so that poor ignorant hillbillies like me would have known not to waste their money. But I got burned. And then I got burned AGAIN ("Gee, these things don't work. Hmm... It says right on the box that they do. I guess this attic must be too hot. And maybe I need to buy even more of them."), lol. Or maybe my try at using some mercury vapor lamps (HUMMMUMUMUM HUMMMUMUMUM HUMMM - they were great if you wished to be kept awake all night. Probably excellent if what you wished to grow was skin cancer. Or if you felt that your vision was just too good and wished to rectify that "problem." For growing canabis... not so much.) came first. I just lump both disasters together as my "dim(wit) period."
but if they follow the rough guidelines for making sure they have enough watts in their grow area, they can figure out whether they really want to stick with growing or not.
This is true. But we have the Internet - and this wonderful forum - now. Just as a person can learn about using CFLs - and observe others via their grow journals, he/she can do the same with HPS, MH, LED, or a combination of them.
This is also true. Most people who start trying to grow cannabis tend to continue until circumstances other than the grow itself intrude (a spouse who is not comfortable with the growing, unwanted attention from a landlord (if they rent), OFFICIAL unwanted attention <KNOCKS ON WOOD>, et cetera).
I did once pick up a lightly-used setup at a bargain price because the person failed through... Well, mostly laziness but ignorance played a part. He later bought much of it back (at an even more reduced price, and less two bulbs which were too used at that point and considered to be free) after he did some reading.
You could sell them to ME at a deep, deep discount. Or, alternatively you could offer them to someone in exchange for a portion of their harvest - this has been known to work out well for both parties, but it probably depends greatly on the people involved. There's Craigslist and the like. Also... I haven't visited many hydroponics stores, because they're all many miles from here - but I once saw a "used equipment aisle" at one of them.
Still... Yes, I can see where there could be a financial loss involved.
Hmm... It's not mumbo jumbo. Don't sell yourself short. And don't overestimate ME, lol. I just like to read (a lot) and have been lucky enough to retain some of it. <SHRUGS> And I do have some experience with various things. But I would be the first to say that I am as likely to be mistaken as the next person. I still get schooled from time to time (which is a GOOD thing - because it means I will have learned something), and when I do I try very hard to be appreciative rather than angry (I have been known to say/type "Thank you" - and to mean it).
And that is a shame. I wish all bulbs / light sources came with the same types of specifications, which were arrived at by an identical set of testing procedures. A pipe dream, I know.
YES! This is one of my pet peeves. I have actually had to explain (on more than one occasion) why a grower's "600 watts of 'equivalent' CFLs" were utterly insufficient for a grow room that was sized the same as one that they read about which utilized a 600-watt HPS (or 400-watt HPS, or 1,000-watt HPS...). And, as you may have noticed, sometimes when I try to explain something, I have trouble finding the right words - or end up making someone angry.
If one is lucky, they do. But even that doesn't say everything, since - unless the source of illumination is a single-wavelength LED - light is made up of combinations of wavelengths. But, yes, it is helpful to know.
I like to think in terms of matching the light(s) with the grow space - and then filling the space with one or more plants. I've grown (not recently at all, and only a few times) SOG with as many as nine plants per square foot, and I have had single-plant scrogs that covered ~10-12 square feet. One sativa, assuming it is trained (to deal with its natural tendency to grow up to 20+ feet tall, lol) can take up as much space as quite a few indicas. And I have read that, because in Australia fines/punishments have a direct ratio to the number of plants being grown, it is not terribly unusual to see ONE plant being grown - with up to 10,000 watts' worth of light fueling it in a grow room that looked like the multi-story open entryway to a mansion.
But if you add a description of what - to you - constitutes an average plant, then such a rule of thumb can be useful, yes.
I remember seeing charts like that. I seem to (vaguely) remember being recommended a minimum of 3,000 lumen per square foot for vegetative and 5,000+ for flowering. Or 50+ watts/ft² during the flowering phase. That was about the time that I switched from growing with metal halides to growing with high pressure sodiums (hadn't thought of using MH for vegetative and HPS for flowering yet, or of mixing the two at a 3:1 ratio - and then reversing the ratio for the other phase), and my experience at the time seemed to agree.
To be honest, I think that is true for all of us, regardless of what type of lighting (et cetera) we use. And there are just so many variables involved with growing... Even when the same grower wishes to compare two different things, I hardly ever see him/her end up changing only that one single thing between grows, which makes true comparison difficult, if not impossible. And, of course, a master grower (I am absolutely NOT one!) can often end up with better results than someone of lesser abilities can with more/better equipment.
I get a sense of pleasure whenever I see a cannabis plant being grown. In that sense, it matters not whether they are achieving 2 grams per watt across a large grow room (which appears to be much more difficult than approaching the same figure in a much smaller space, ironically) - or if they only harvest 10 grams from ONE little autoflowering plant that they grew on their porch/balcony. If they can harvest enough to share a bong/bowl/joint/brownie/etc. with someone (or better still, are able to gift a portion of their harvest to someone whose quality of life will be improved by such a gift), that is just a bonus.
I wish that, over time, every person got the chance to try several types/combinations/amounts of lighting (and other things that are involved in growing indoors) and decide what works best - for them. But, sadly, this costs money (and time), which means it is unrealistic for many people. Thankfully, we have resources such as 420 Magazine to help us!
You thought YOUR post was ridiculously long? Uh oh...
Assuming that there was no malice intended, don't worry about it. I was married for a little while (~10 years) so if I had not already developed a thick skin from growing up in "a bit" of a rough neighborhood, I would have then.
Oh, and BtW: I KNOW that I am an @ss(hole), lol. I have to try every day not to express it. Sometimes I feel that I might be failing miserably... So I do not get offended if/when someone notices, and makes an observation about it. I think of it as a public service
