• Do you need help identifying a 🌶?
    Is your plant suffering from an unknown issue? 🤧
    Then ask in Identification and Diagnosis.

CFL Bulbs emitting radiation and LED comparison

PrairieChilihead

PrairieChilihead

I have been using CFL bulbs through the winter and have been very happy with them. The plants have loved them, they use very little electricity for the high wattages I've been able to achieve and they don't get hot, meaning I can place the light closer to the plants. All in all, I've been considering them a success. However, all Winter my wireless network set up for various laptops and goodies have been suffering. I hadn't put 2 and 2 together until last night (when a lightbulb went off :)) , but I have now confirmed that when the lights are on, the network registers as poor (1 bar) and with them off as excellent (5 bars) -- no question about it. That makes me wonder about what kind of radiation they are emitting. My young son is down there by the lights untold hours playing his XBox 360 within a few yards of the lights and I am getting concerned about the set-up. Do any of you know more about this topic?

Related question to this topic...How do LED lights compare? Can you get LED lights in the high wattages the plants will require at the right temperatures?

Thanks!
 
Ohh yeah CFL's depending on how many you can be pretty bad. CFL's emit what's caused EMI (electromagnetic interference) this is known as "dirty electricity" and in high amounts can cause headaches, dizziness, etc.

If your dead set on using CFL's to grow plants then you probably have a few of them setup because they don't emit as much lumans as a MH/HPS setup. If that's the case you should consider getting lights that have a EMI-RFI filter on them. I know the ECOGLO line have lights with filters on them and i'm sure a lot of other bulbs do to, but I went with a MH setup because I didn't want to setup 12 bulbs just to get the same amount of luman as 1 MH.

Here is a good article that has some info about CFL's EMI problem.

CLICK HERE
 
I don't know more about how much radiation they emit, but if you go into your wireless settings you can change which channel it broadcasts on. Should fix the poor signal while the lights are on.
 
I don't know about CFLs specifically, but pretty much every electronic device gives of some electromagnetic radiation.

Like beandip says, the frequency that the CFLs run at is likely close to the channel that your WLAN is on.

I'd personally be more worried about the EMI coming off your cell phone that gets pressed next to your brain, or put in your pocket next to your boys. Or a bluetooth headset if you have one... stuff like that. Your body is constantly getting bombarded by electromagnetic radiation.
 
Is your wireless network an 802.11b network? Because pretty much any appliance has the potential to interfere with 802.11b.
 
RyboFlav said:
I don't know about CFLs specifically.

I'd personally be more worried about the EMI coming off your cell phone that gets pressed next to your brain, or put in your pocket next to your boys. Or a bluetooth headset if you have one
Click to expand...

Cell phones, blue tooth, and every piece of electronics had had EMI emitting shields built into them since 1999 which is mandated by the FCC so cell phones and bluetooth headsets are not an issue.

CFL's also must be below specific EMI levels so 1 bulb won't cause any issues or problems, but because you need so many CFL bulbs to effectively grow plants most people use 4 or more. That's when you run into a problem as the safe levels of EMI is now 4 to 10 Times that of what the FCC allows.

To sum it all up 1 bulb = ok 4+ bulbs = problem.
 
I'm not sure where this "you need so many CFL bulbs to grow plants" comes from. My 105 watt CFL bulbs provide 6,900 lux a foot away, my 150 watt HPS gives me 13,000 but also a lot of heat. Plus the CFL cost $25, the HPS $45. From the data sheets I've seen, Metal Halide's mean lumens per watt tend to run less than 60, so I don't see MH being better, per se, unless one is looking at spectrums.

Mike
 
Mike, I was just going by my comparison. I wanted enough light to feed about 100 small plants I have growing so I started off with a 400 watt MH and just upgraded to a 1000 watt MH and a 1000 watt HPS as I felt the light could have been a brighter. Each 1000 watt ballast and bulb puts out over 100,000 lumens. I agree that they put off a lot of heat, but the hoods actually have this circle that allow you to connect a fan to them so I'll just get the fan and won't have to worry about heat. Plus both ballast and 3 bulbs cost under $100 because I got them used so the whole setup was actually cheaper for me than buying CFL bulbs. If I tried to get 200,000 lumens out of CFL bulbs I would need 28 even if I got the 105 watts bulbs and spent $40 per bulb it would cost $1,120!! That’s more than 10 times the amount I paid for my setup. So technically they are not better, but for me it was all about cost.
 
LGHT,

I understand better now. Starting from scratch and not being able to get sweetheart deals on ballasts and bulbs, MH and HPS is always going to cost a lot more.

You used a lot more light per plant than I did. I used 1000 watts (700 in CFL bulbs, 300 in HPS) and at one time had 1100 seedlings under them. The plants (tomatoes) did not get leggy but they did get too big too soon.

But being honest, I hope to be done completely with growing under lights. Next year, I hope to raise all my plants in a greenhouse. I'll have a germination chamber (since it is built and I have the lights installed) where the plants will spend the first week or so of their lives, but then they will go under the sun.

Of course, I understand not everyone has room in their back yard (or even has a back yard!) for a Greenhouse.

Mike
 
A good deal makes all the difference. Since I am one of the few without a yard, front or back I'm just gonna get the seeds big enough for the raised bed and grow just a couple of plants under the lights. I have been wanting to try out the hydro so once the seeds are big I'll keep 2 for the lights and put the rest outside as well.
 
Good luck! I like hydro but I've had success and failure. Thanks to an airstone that got clogged, I almost lost a plant. Now I just have the hose in the water!

Let us know how the grow goes, with pix!

Mike
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top