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

angelgoob · Jul 3, 2016

Muleskinner said:
The 17w Philips floods I posted a few pages ago continue to do well in my garden, although they're not cheap (#435438 ~$23). The plants look extremely healthy.

The lumen numbers are misleading. I compared the 17w floodlight to some older bulbs with more lumens and the floods were about 3 times brighter on the canopy. The way the light is focused is much better, it's perfect for growing. 35 degree beam angle seems best.

these are replacing my old 250 MH veg light that needed a new bulb every 6 months. I can dial down the electricity use. Each 17w Phillps bulb can easily light a 10"X10" seedling tray. I was burning 250 watts for just a few seedlings.

The key is those lenses and that specific angle of 30 degrees of light. If forces the plant to see a sun and produce growth along the apical meristem or something. Basically the top is getting extreme light. Which makes sense because when the sun in angled straight above something the plant is getting the most intense light! This method is probably strain dependent to OMCC. One main central cola. :biggrin:

HuffnPufferfish · Jul 3, 2016

my led box gives me a shitload more light than the sun does at middle of the day, yeah sure the sun is great and all, but facts dont lie

plus no plants gives a shit about intensity, when its lacking averages, you have plants all over your growroom, not just 1 under 10 square cm

angelgoob · Jul 4, 2016

blyx considering your past groh, being so consistent, you would say you're canopy limited?

Is it space or light that is limiting your buddage? Never say 80's enough. Make some oil make it not be enough.

It seems like you hit the 1gpw mark every time, good job!

HuffnPufferfish · Jul 4, 2016

more veg more yields

MicroRoy · Jul 4, 2016

[QUOTEcaging Pufferfish;7537884]more veg more yields[/QUOTE]

Over veging to the point that you need to cut the growth back to fit in the cab is time wasted.

HuffnPufferfish · Jul 5, 2016

vegging doesnt just make your plant wider, it also starts to stack eh

PoweredByLove · Jul 5, 2016

HuffnPufferfish said:
my led box gives me a shitload more light than the sun does at middle of the day, yeah sure the sun is great and all, but facts dont lie

plus no plants gives a shit about intensity, when its lacking averages, you have plants all over your growroom, not just 1 under 10 square cm

what? your led gives you like 1million foot candles of light? i don't buy it. i went out at noon with my lux meter app. sun is way brighter than indoor light could ever hope to be.

vegging your plant more makes it bigger that's for sure. to the limits of the container anyway. not necessarily gonna make it branch more unless you top it a bunch. then there's a point of diminishing returns.

for instance i have 2 plants one grows like a bush and one grows like a vine.

if i top them both the same amount of times then viney one will most likely do better.

why? simple. the bush one is already bushy and makes lots of nodes which in turn will lead to ample budsites. topping this one more will just create more areas for leaves to sprout out of of, increasing the need for pruning and diluting the average size of each bud as the energy is spread out fairly evenly among the plant.

the viney one however since it normally only makes a few budsites with most likely longer colas as that's how most viney plants grow. then topping it will increase the number of sites and instead of a few larger colas you get many more smaller ones. and since it's not a leafy plant like the bush you shouldn't have much to trim and prune and the end result is less work and more buds vs more work and less buds when you overly veg and top bushy plants that don't need it.

benefits from topping.

does not benefits from topping.

angelgoob · Jul 5, 2016

All his plant is tops though, how much more could they really stack?

HuffnPufferfish · Jul 5, 2016

you dont have to buy its; the sun is freeee!

well i dont live in some tropical climate, i picked the longest day of the year, sun at highest spot in a week of perfect clear hot weather, and then i went inside and check my veggie box, it was a shitload more

and it was how i calculated everything 3 years back, math doesnt lie, back then i did some research into hours of sun and intensity around the world, and used that to build my little box, i did however NOT look for advice on cannabisrelated sources, there is plenty of science around to look at first

i rather have everyone not believe what i post, it makes it easier for me to just keep doing what i do, instead of having to supply proof for what i did, like how its impossible to get 2gr/w from t8's on your first grow, ill just have to believe it...

did you ever grow 4 inch tall plants, with 2 month veg?

Arf · Jul 5, 2016

PoweredByLove said:
what? your led gives you like 1million foot candles of light? i don't buy it. i went out at noon with my lux meter app. sun is way brighter than indoor light could ever hope to be.

.

Sunlight is just under 100,000 lux at sea level. It's easy to exceed that with LEDs and HID grow lights, I have measured both many times. Sure, your plants need to be very close to the light, like within a couple of inches in most micro grow cases, but it happens frequently, especially to new growers, that's why we have leaf bleaching when the supply of nutrients can't keep up with the photon hit rate.

Secondly the sun changes relative position and intensity as clouds move over and the earth rotates, which reduces the duration of photon saturation outdoors considerably, compared to a non-moving light indoors.

mjconfid · Jul 6, 2016

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

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.

That's promising! Picked up some of the Phillips bulbs a couple of days ago, and can't wait to them set up in my cabinet....once I get the cab sorted.

Thanks for sharing - that goes to Blynx and everyone else who has contributed to this thread! :tiphat:

ratsidecar said:
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.

Funny, the only successful grow I've had was with 110w PLLs and the buds were super frosty. As I was new to growing, I thought it was just a freaky plant. Didn't occur that it was the due to the PLLs (PLLS also put out UV, I think?)

Terpene noted earlier in the thread that the 6500k led bulbs produced frostier buds, so I think I will definitely try an all 6500k grow sometime in the future.

When I was looking for 100w equivalents in 6500k I couldn't find any decent branded ones, but they are now listed as a new item on the Phillips UK website. Their new 1521lm 100w equivalents are 13w instead of 13.5w..don't seem to have hit retail quite yet though.

Terpene · Jul 6, 2016

mjconfid said:
Terpene noted earlier in the thread that the 6500k led bulbs produced frostier buds, so I think I will definitely try an all 6500k grow sometime in the future.

When I was looking for 100w equivalents in 6500k I couldn't find any decent branded ones, but they are now listed as a new item on the Phillips UK website. Their new 1521lm 100w equivalents are 13w instead of 13.5w..don't seem to have hit retail quite yet though.

A minor correction, I just checked the pack, I've actually grown with 2700k and 5000k bulbs - not 6500k. My bad guys!

If you're asking me, I would actually prefer the bluer lights in flower (and definitely in veg) as I always end up over vegging and Im constantly fighting the stretch of my pure-ish sativas.

I found 10 packs of 14w Feit 5000K LEDs at my local Costco for $50. I changed out my entire veg area and one day when my 2700k bulbs go out (in 3-4 years or so :laughing:

) I'll go all 5000k bulbs throughout.

For those wondering, the bulbs I'm talking about are:

I found packs of them on ebay, but haven't seen them elsewhere online. http://www.ebay.com/itm/NEW-FEIT-10-Bulbs-LED-100-Watts-Replacement-uses-14W-Daylight-E26-5000K-1500-Lum-/231903913631

HuffnPufferfish · Jul 6, 2016

^ that will def benefit your plants

i still love vegging under tubes, since the moment i start using the 4k leds, they stretch like im putting them outside..

ratsidecar · Jul 8, 2016

Took a trip to poundworld today and picked up a "supacell" brand bulb.
5w 450 lumen, warm white

They feel a bit cheaply made and the plastic diffuser globe pops off these really easy. I ran it for 15 minutes and it was barely warm to the touch. It uses 9 LEDs, probably around 0.5w each

It is destined to light my home, For the price of £1 they may be useful to people for covering larger areas using a small amount of power and for giving a more consistent spread of diodes for a given wattage as you can pack the bulbs closer together.

Unfortunately I don't have a meter so I can't add any more measurements to the list for you

Muleskinner · Jul 9, 2016

Question…does anybody know of any LED bulbs that emit UV spectrum? Most of the floods and spots have no UV so they don't bleach interior fabrics.

q3corn · Jul 9, 2016

Terpene said:
For those wondering, the bulbs I'm talking about are:
View Image

I found packs of them on ebay, but haven't seen them elsewhere online. http://www.ebay.com/itm/NEW-FEIT-10-Bulbs-LED-100-Watts-Replacement-uses-14W-Daylight-E26-5000K-1500-Lum-/231903913631

Ok, now I gotta go to costco. Those are the exact same parameters of the 14w Phillips bulbs I've been paying ~$5 each in packs of six at home depot. Nice tip

Terpene · Jul 10, 2016

Jacket aka [(Princess Diesel x P91) x Destroyer] at roughly 10 weeks under the LEDs.

#1cheesebuds · Jul 13, 2016

wow wow!

Arf · Jul 14, 2016

Muleskinner said:
Question…does anybody know of any LED bulbs that emit UV spectrum? Most of the floods and spots have no UV so they don't bleach interior fabrics.

Leds only emit a very narrow band of wavelengths depending on the chemicals used to make the LED. The white LEDs use a 450nm royal blue LEDs to hit a yellow phosphor which combined approximately makes white light to the human eye/brain.

If you want UV from a LED you have to buy a UV LED and that's pretty much all it will do.

It's cheaper to use a UV fluro.

I haven't seen any real studies which indicate that Cannabis benefits from UV, I guess you can always use is to break down chloramine in tap water.