Has anyone used, or know anyone who uses T8- LED conversion bulbs? I was looking, and could build a wrap-around light hood using about 12 of these for cheap! Seems would be great for my veg area, and could place CFLs between the plants for complete side lighting.
Hello there Blountville,
I have some info on cfl by MacGyverStoner its not t8s but great info
It is ok, lights for a new person is a whole lot to learn just on its own.
If you are needing to save some money and want to get only one light get the one 125 watt CFL (compact fluorscent light) and get it in the 6500 K spectrum, it will do fine in blooming flowering as well as vegetative growing. Yes it should do very well for that size canopy/floor space. With CFL lights you can do a real easy in your head estimation of about a minimum of 40 to 50 watts per square foot, and so actually about 125 watt. actually might be over kill, but it depends on how you are to mount the light, how much vertical space it will take up and if you can keep the temps down in such a small space. Even in a fluorescent light, 125 watts will put out quite an amount of heat.
The five 20 watt CFLs might be a better option for such a small grow but you might not save anything on heat. And in fact it may create more heat. Most of the heat with fluorescent lights comes from the ballast. In a CFL, this ballast is inside the vented plastic base. With so many lights, you have a whole lot of little ballasts that total wattage is 100 watts but the extra numbers of ballasts might create more heat than the one ballast in the 125 watt bulb. You might want to look into finding one 100 watt CFL in the 6500K for you size grow.
Here is some more information on fluorescent lights:
http://www.nodakelectric.com/energy-saving-lighting-tips/20
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BTW, 6400k -6500k is considered a blue white light (mostly), 5000 - 5500 k is considered pure white or neutral white and anything below, usually you’ll see maybe something close to 3000, 2700, and sometimes the 2100 as red-ish white, if you will. Technically 5000k to 6500 k can be considered “full” spectrum and will work for any part of the grow, vegging/growing or blooming/flowering.
Wrote BY MacGyverStonerBergman’s Lab Science Officer
Posted by garrigan62
These are leds that are designed as a replacement for T8 flourescents. They don’t need ballasts, and you could mount them side by side, very close to each other making a wall of leds pretty much.
Oh OK sorry I missed that somewhere I think Stoner had on on Led’d also I’ll go see.
Actually PAR is the ultimate measurement.
LUX is candle power and more a measurement of how bright the light looks to our eyes, and red and blue light by themselves do not look bright to our eyes, no matter how intense. This is one of the reasons red light is used at night to read by without ruining your night vision. And so LUX isn’t very accurate in describing how intense a red and blue, or mostly red and blue only light is actually.
PAR is short for photosynthetic active radiation, in other words mostly only red and blue light, however some orange and yellows, and even some green can actually be photosynthetically active.
Actually, although you won’t find it as common a measurement on HID lights like HPS and MH, it is a more accurate measurement on even those lights as to what they are actually providing for the plants, as far as the spectra that the plants can actually use for photosynthesis.
LEDs can absolutely be used by themselves to get as good of results as HID lights. But unfortunately not even the best LED companies are the best about being completely honest at what it might take to get similar yields under their lights. If you want the same performance, you really need similar wattage and the right lensing to also match deep penetration through the canopy. I personally only use LEDs.
Writer by MacGyverxStoner Science Officer
Posyredf by Garrigan62
Check out these I think you’ll jfinf them interesting
WillM