I need help with my plant lighting and figuring out if I’m even using the right stuff? Right now I’m using a 100 watt equivalent (14 actual watts) daylight led bulb medium base general purpose 1500 lumens and a purple led 65 watt equivalent (8 actual watts) 450-650nm br30 reflector light bulb, is this sufficient for one plant? The plant is only about a week and a half old
No its not
You may be able to grow a plant in those conditions with that lighting but don’t expect great bud structure or a good yield
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What kind of bulbs can I buy from a local store that will work good and not be too costly?
If you can order, get a decent light from Amazon. If that’s not practical, get about 12 23wtrue cfls. You’ll need six splitters the outlet the splitters can screw into and I’d purchase cheap disposable aluminum pans from dollar store and make your own reflectors. I’d get 8 2700k bulbs and 4 higher Kelvin rating, normally like 5500k
I’m new to all of this and need a simple efficient setup, I really just need help on getting the right bulbs for my 2 lamps
If you give a budget, I’m sure there will be some great recommendations.
I don’t really have a budget but also not wanting to buy all new equipment, I just need recommendations on 2 bulbs I should get for my lamps that I can get locally from Lowe’s or tractor supply or Walmart or a local grow shop?
You can goto home depot and buy 14w a19 LED warm white and soft white bulbs, get around 4-5 of them, as 2 of them aren’t going to do anything for you. You would need around 100w per plant.
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You should be able to get the 23w day light bulbs almost any where. I am going to let you know this up front. You are going to find it will be cheaper to just buy a 300w led light right off the bat. I probably have about 200 in CFLs light sockets and adapters plus splitters. it adds up fast. I could have started with a 300w led for 80.00. Add on top of the how much work it is to try and keep a light over each bud and you will more than likely quit or give in and get a better light to make things simple. The 2700k cfl bulbs average about 10.00 each once you get to flower. I only use the cfl to start seedlings for the first few weeks now. Then they go under a LED. Just letting you know. CFLs are going to cost you a lot more then just getting a usable light right now. Money that could have went to a light you needed. My 02
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Yep, that’s the story. You need about 50 true watts of CFL per square foot. One plant takes up about 4 square feet, so that means 200 watts or about 9 of those 23 watt CFL bulbs. You can get them pretty cheap at WalMart if you look at their different bulbs carefully. Then you need to figure out how to squeeze nine sockets into a 2 foot by 2 foot space, They will cost more than an LED light to run. Between squeezing all those CFLs and the cost to run them, that’s why people use LEDs instead.
Even with LED floods, etc., you still need about 50 true watts per square foot. Those 14 watt LEDs are not as good as a 23 watt CFL with a good reflector, and MUCH more expensive. If you still want to go with CFLs, get about half cold white and half warm white.
Or read the “Let’s Talk About DIY Lights” thread to get a huge amount of info on alternatives.
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If only doing a couple plants, you can get away with doing a few per plant, 8 a19 14w bulbs will give you 112w of true LED lighting both daytime and softwhite for around 25$, of course you would need the materials to light them, in my opinion they are better lighting than the CFLs. Removing the diffusers would make them a lot better.
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Thanks for tag @Budtastic, I think the other guys have it covered.
There’s not really anyway to get around having s little bit of light. The bigger cfl’s, a19 bulbs, whatever will work. But you’re going to want a bunch of them. And it often costs just as much as a dedicated grow light by the time you buy splitters, cords, and all that stuff.
@Aolelon I think we should start scoping out those knock off boards for one that comes with a barrel jack. For what the average person spends on making this household stuff work, I bet we could find a plug and play solution. Or real close anyway.
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@dbrn32 that might be a pretty good idea, a lot of those companies are fully willing to customize the boards as you want, as long as you’re willing to pay. And then just wire the connector to a driver and be able to plug them in?
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I’m not going to lie, they are really not that bad of quality for the price, I mean if you’re looking to squeeze every last drop of efficiency out of the boards than they are definitely not what you want, but I’ve seen pics of people growing with them, and they look amazing.
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Some of the drivers are already outfitted with those dc barrel connectors. They may even have ac side ready for pc styled cord. I’d have to go look around more, I never really paid that much attention. But you figure worst case scenario if we can scrounge up a board with barrel connector already in it, and a driver with one, wiring up a male ac plug should be easy enough for the average pot head lol.
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They’re not going to be any worse than an a19 or cfl that’s for sure. Probably less work too if the components are out there.
Yea for sure, I can talk to the lady that I ordered my boards off of and see if they have anything or can produce anything like that,
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Sweet! You do that and I’ll check on the drivers.
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You understand me!!! 
Jk but that’s hilarious.
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