cfl lights

[Brainfucked]

im going to grow 3 plants in my cupboard. I was thinking about getting 3 200watt cfl lights. but I see a lot of people using smaller lights for example the 26watt ones but they'll use a lot more. whats the difference between using 1 big light or lost of little ones?

id appreciate any replies thank you

 

[Brainfucked]

how many watts is too much? could I put a 200watt over each of my three plants and then a few 125watts around the outside? so thatd be 1000watts for 3 plants is that too much?

 

[thujone]

that's definitely too much. the plant doesn't care about wattage, the plant only cares about how many lumens of light its leaves are getting. the advantage of CFLs is that they don't produce much heat, so you can surround the plant with CFL bulbs and get overlapping light coverage to all the leaves with relatively little wattage. Problem is though, 100W+ CFLs do produce enough heat to burn leaves up close so 1x 100W is not going to be as effective as 4x 25W bulbs that can be positioned closer to the plant and offer better penetration with light overlap. Basically, the important thing is to design the grow area and lighting setup in such a manner that the end result will be each leaf getting light.

 

[Artificial Emotion]

I agree with thujone, CFLs produce less heat because they're smaller but more heat than HPS bulbs watt for watt so a 250W CFL would produce more heat than a 250W HPS. CFLs are self ballasted whereas the HPS ballast is outside the growing area and since they get hot, obviously a lot of the heat is dissipated further away from your plants. I would go with HPS light but make sure the wattage doesn't exceed 50W per square foot of floor space. HPS lights are more efficient and more productive for a whole host of reasons and plants seem to love them both in veg and flower but for the best results a combination of metal halide and HPS lights is the best if you can afford it. For a small setup in a cupboard if it's big enough a 250W HPS seems like the best choice and you can get bulb, reflector and ballast combos quite cheaply on sale.

Yes CFLs work but you would get such better results just investing in an HID light system. You can go as low as 150W or lower if you get them in specialised shops but I wouldn't recommend that.

Remember you're going to be needing to spend money on a proper ventilation system with an intake and extraction fan. You can't just have a light with no ventilation. I assume you have considered that as the plants need fresh air exchange and for hot air to be removed and cooler air to be taken into the growing area. It's right up there on the priority of things to set up.