Off the shelf retail store screw-in LED and CFL bulb comparisons

[Muleskinner]

very cool! the GSC/Cannatonic looks incredible, what a great combo. I have Cannatonic, it's been a hardy, high-yielding plant for me. Somebody must have crossed a Cannatonic male w/ GSC.

I'm also not so sure about the conventional wisdom of spectrum and flowering. I once flowered a Sweet Tooth #3 under a 5000K MH light, and I was surprised to see that it did extremely well compared to my HPS plants. High yield and potency, and very clean calyx-to-leaf ratio. I've also used HPS for veg and it works great.

My experience is that it's more important to keep the spectrum the same for the plant from the day flowering starts. i.e. don't start changing the spectrum once flowering has begun, it can shock the plant and cause hermi.

 

[HuffnPufferfish]

thing is, light spectrum outside changes every minute....

 

[Terpene]

I constantly change the spectrum on my plants as they stretch in flower and they don't care a bit. Everything starts under the screw in LEDs but overly tall plants get shoved under the blackstar (pink light) because they need the vertical space. Squatter, flatter plants sit under my 2700k screw in LED array cause its brighter than the blackstar. Nothing ever herms because of the switch.

Color isn't going to negatively affect the plants, just change the way they bud to a small degree. Light intensity is all that matters, more = better.

 

[Muleskinner]

thing is, light spectrum outside changes every minute....

I know, that's what I thought. Who knows, maybe it was something else that freaked out my plants. maybe the intensity of the lighting was changing as well as the spectrum? that could be it - maybe it was just light shock. I'm going to try to give them consistent lighting from now on. maybe I'll get a PAR meter so when I'm experimenting I don't blast them too hard with new light.

 

[HuffnPufferfish]

i could write a book about the 'myths' about growing, both in general as for cannabis only, its amazing what you can find on the internet or from someone's mouth, not that they KNOW they just DO and then CLAIM

so ive been doing some things WRONG on purpose to see how RIGHT one can be, and in the end, life will find a way, plants just grow and the more you think about it, the more of a headache you get

imo you can trow anything at them, as long as you keep trowing it at them, theyll get used to it

 

[TheScrogFrog]

I think i'm set on bulbs. Lol.

 

[The Revolution]

Nice grab Scrog, those outta last ya a bit! lol

 

[wildgrow]

One trick indoor growers of long flowering sativas use to control stretch is to flower under mh for the 1st 2-3 weeks and then switch to hps for the remainder of the time.

 

[psyphish]

One trick indoor growers of long flowering sativas use to control stretch is to flower under mh for the 1st 2-3 weeks and then switch to hps for the remainder of the time.

Or just use ceramic metal halides for the entire grow.

 

[Gnz]

Or just use ceramic metal halides for the entire grow.

Yeah this. I'm using 4000k whole way through with no issues so far other than light intensity being way higher than anticipated. I have a 3000k I've been using for late flower but going to use 4000k or at least a 50/50 mix in the future.

4000k certainly doesn't slow stretch much if you're wanting a nice short bushy plant, 5000k might.

These aren't the best example, they were flipped at a fortnight old about 10 days ago.

 

[Navigator]

Here's the LED light fixture I made from scrap furring strips. I tried to design it so I could get an extra 1/2" overall height. Every little bit helps in this little tent.

View Image

Hey Scrog Frog, Building up a cab and wondering where you picked up those narrow light sockets. I seem to be only finding the wide ceramic ones at my local hardware shop?

 

[Muleskinner]

i could write a book about the 'myths' about growing, both in general as for cannabis only, its amazing what you can find on the internet or from someone's mouth, not that they KNOW they just DO and then CLAIM

so ive been doing some things WRONG on purpose to see how RIGHT one can be, and in the end, life will find a way, plants just grow and the more you think about it, the more of a headache you get

imo you can trow anything at them, as long as you keep trowing it at them, theyll get used to it

another thing I've learned from watching friends grow is that results vary based on many factors. Strain, temps, soil or medium, nutes, watering habits, other culture stufff.

Changing lights or something else can affect one set of plants very differently from another. running your own experiments is best! My little foray into screwing around with different light spectrums did not end well and won't be repeated.

 

[TheScrogFrog]

Hey Scrog Frog, Building up a cab and wondering where you picked up those narrow light sockets. I seem to be only finding the wide ceramic ones at my local hardware shop?

Lowes
http://www.lowes.com/pd/Eaton-3-Way-660-Watt-White-Hard-Wired-Cleat-Socket/1098601

Amazon
https://www.amazon.com/Pass-Seymour-White-Medium-Socket/dp/B000BQRY5M

Available at many hardware stores too. Just gotta keep an eye out for em.

 

[Navigator]

Thanks! Much appreciated.

 

[mjconfid]

i would go with these.

PoweredByLove : Nice Plants! The UK version of the Phillip's soft tones that tg77 linked to are CFLs rather than LEDs though.

tg77: I think both of the bulbs you linked to are CFLs. That's why they are so cheap and their specs list low lumens per watt. I have been trying to find cheap bulbs in the UK and can't find them as cheap as the US prices..... the best value UK ones I could find are 13.5w Phillips at B&Q /Amazon/John Lewis for 8 pounds. They give 1500 lumens. B&Q currently have a 'buy any 4 bulbs for the price of 3 offer'.

:http://www.diy.com/departments/philips-bayonet-cap-b22-135w-led-gls-light-bulb/1136950_BQ.prd

The other cheap UK options I found are 5 packs of 9w or 10w 800 lumen bulbs for 10 pounds from screw-fix and Toolstation.

http://www.screwfix.com/search?search=lap+5+pack+gls for cool white or warm white.

http://www.toolstation.com/search?searchstr=39839 37727 for warm white only.

So the 800 lumen bulbs are cheaper per lumen than the Phillips, but the Phillips give almost twice the amount of lumens for a third more watts. Think I will be going for some cool white 800s for veg and the 2700k 1500s for flower.

 

[Arf]

I would be suspicious of the lumen figure on the Phillips 13.5W. 1,500 seems too high, 1,400 would be more like it looking at their other models, also Warm White does less lumens/watt because of the Stokes shift from 450nm down to red from the yellow phosphor, this creates noticeably more heat than say the daylight 6500K version, which lets a lot more of the 450nm blue through.

You can also get the 13.5W from Amazon:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Philips-230-Bayonet-Light-Bulb/dp/B010UQK9TA

 

[TheScrogFrog]

I would be suspicious of the lumen figure on the Phillips 13.5W. 1,500 seems too high, 1,400 would be more like it looking at their other models, also Warm White does less lumens/watt because of the Stokes shift from 450nm down to red from the yellow phosphor, this creates noticeably more heat than say the daylight 6500K version, which lets a lot more of the 450nm blue through.

You can also get the 13.5W from Amazon:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Philips-230-Bayonet-Light-Bulb/dp/B010UQK9TA

Yeah not sure if lumen figure is accurate, the 14.5W advertised Philips draw 13.2-13.5W, the 8.5W advertised Philips draw 8.0W.

Measured on Kill A Watt meter.

They are DARN bright.

 

[dr-dank]

Nothing wrong with using 5000k or 6500k for veg at all.

Those Cree bulbs are a replacement for a 40W incandescent bulb and only 6w so there's far better options for the price. 18w and 21.5w bulbs are a good choice but the 14w bulbs seem to be best value for money

Thanks (Arf too).

I see that many here are flowering, duh. My intent was to use only for veg/clones, which explains why many want the 3000K. As for bulb choice, I recently built a new clone cab out of a 13G trash can. I felt that given it was clone the lower wattage would be good. I did pick up a stronger one (same brand/type). I think it was a 75W replacement so maybe its the 14W.

So far the fan on the new clone chamber does not even activate. Very little heat.

Best regards

 

[HuffnPufferfish]

have you tried ikea in uk? no joke, they had a good deal while back

 

[ratsidecar]

I am located in the uk and have been following this with great interest.
I have been testing these LED bulbs for myself. I chose bayonet fitting ones as they give you a few degrees of movement in the sockets to provide a small amount of control over their direction.

This plant is 7 weeks old. It spent its first 5 weeks in a 1.5litre pot under a single philips 13.5w 1521 lumen bulb. After 3 weeks I could tell it was wanting more light.

It was repotted at 5 weeks old into a 13.5litre tub, during repotting I accidentally broke the top 3 nodes off the plant so made a scrog screen to let it bush out under. It was then put under 3 of the philips 13.5w 1521 lumen bulbs and 1 tesco brand 806 lumen 8.5w bulb, so just under 50w total power. The philips bulb uses 40 led chips at about a third of a watt each. The tesco bulb uses 9 led chips at about 0.9w each. Both bulbs are warm white but the tesco bulb is noticeably whiter looking than the philips one.

Due to a lack of timer or lightproof area at the moment it has spent its entire life underneath a kitchen table under 24hours of light, with ambient air circulating with no fan.Strain is an elite seeds la cheperudeta. I tried to clone the broken top part of the plant, however it managed to root successfully after 12 days but died 2 days after rooting.

I tried a homebase brand 1521 lumen bulb, this one uses 15w of power and has a larger, heavier ceramic base, a plastic diffuser screwed on top of the LEDs and a glass globe over the whole thing. Im not as impressed with this bulb, light spread is poor with the diffuser in place, it will be hard to remove, is quite heavy and visually is not as intense as the philips 1521lumen bulb.

Plant growth is super dense and bushy, I had alternating nodes by 4 weeks from seed and was on node 11 by this stage.

Its the best growth I have seen from the least amount of power, I have grown with a 600w HPS and 110w of PL-L tubes previously and started out before that with a 250w envirolite.

For quality and flavour I always felt that the flourescent lighting was better than the HPS for the way I grow, and the whiter the colour spectrum the frostier and tastier it became. Am very interested to see what these warm white LEDs do and how it will compare.