Cree Bulb vs 23 Watt CFL Veg Out! Can Cree Take On The Light-Weight Champ?

Hey gang let's have a little fun and see if those oh so hyped Cree Bulbs are ready to take out that old vegging standby, the 23 watt/1600 lumen CFL. We'll be vegging 2 Barney's Farm Blue Cheese clones of roughly the same size that have been recently transplanted into 3 gallon bags filled with a HF/FFOF/Perlite blend and have been fed some Azos, Mykos and Super Plant Tonic and should be just about recovered from transplanting and ready to start growing. So without further ado let's meet our competitors.




Height wise I'm going Seymour Budz style with the CFLs and will keep them as close as possible to the plant, while the LEDs I'll probably start at 3 or 4 inches and see if there's any stretch going on. The light schedule is 12/1 and there may be some borderline abusive LSTing going on along the way . Personally I'm going with the CFLs on this one and if the Crees fall behind I'll add a Warm White 9.5 watter to see if that helps. Likewise if the CFLs fall behind, I'll replace them with new Philips ones. And if some reason the Crees completely dominate well it's bye bye CFLs and probably the rest of my upgrade plans for my veg cab. Otherwise I'll get some better pix of the clones size later and I'll just post some pix every few days over the next month to six weeks. Take Care Peeps!

Awesome!.........i'm in brother.......did you try the cree's dimming ability before butchering it ?

good luck

Nice ..I'm in !

PSUAGRO. said:

Awesome!.........i'm in brother.......did you try the cree's dimming ability before butchering it ?

good luck

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Butcher? I simply voided the warranty. And no I didn't try to dim them. And if these suckers don't veg I'll just Gorilla Glue the globes back on. LOL Actually I'm already thinking of changing how the Crees are hanging. The splitter works better for CFLs.

And I forgot to give a BIG shout-out to CREE for being what seems the only company that knows how to package their stuff. That package design was so easy to open compared to everything else in this world they should get a medal and a parade for it. Seriously!

how did you remove your globes? On my first, i ended up smashing it and covering the sharp edge with tape. I'm guessing there's a better way?

caretak3r said:

how did you remove your globes? On my first, i ended up smashing it and covering the sharp edge with tape. I'm guessing there's a better way?

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One of the breakdowns on the Internet said bake at 200F for twenty minutes. Worked like a charm form me. Pro Tip:Wear gloves .

PetFlora said:

Having grown under smallish - big cfls, my $$$$ is on the CREEs. Even if it's close, getting rid of CFLs (mercury gas) is worthwhile for the environment

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Not sure if you are thinking of adding more globes to your rig on the next run....i guess you will be watching this quite closely pet?

Subbed up. I am a convert. I use to use 96w's of cfl's(4x24w) but i seem to be getting better results out of 3 10w red:blue led chips. Hope all goes well for you too.

Fran, beware of altering the properties of the LED through heating it for so long.

Actually I melted the silicon covering on one, so SB you may be right! LOL
Sorry for the lack of updates but my comps gone schizo and work is killing me but I got some time off so I'lll get on top of this soon. As of now the CREE has fallen off the pace a bit but this might have to do with the way the lights are positioned and the fact both plants were under CFLs before this demo so maybe there is a period of adjustment going on. I've been taking a lux meter and trying to get some readings and the CREE's output is very surprising. The CFLs bounce around 350,000 with a peak of 400,000 lux. The CREEs average lower but hit peaks at over 500,000 so there seems to be lots of light flooding out of the CREE. How much is usable? Hopefully we'll see.

I'm going to try to post some photos later but my Android tablets a PITA. See-ya!

LOL, good luck getting it fixed man

You can also alter their spectral distribution and output through over-long heating, apparently. LEDs often have the "Maxmum permissable number of reflow cycles" listed in data sheets. Not sure if its the heating and cooling that they dislike or simply the prolonged heat.

Hey SB, guess which LED bulb has a single blue LED now? So I guess 200F is a little much . That's what I get from taking advice from a straight. I can't rep you again, but next time I'll talk to you . I'll get a picture of it soon.

So here's the pix from the beginning of the demo.

Mehhh looks smokable to me

I would guess its the prolonged heating that killed it, as my reflow plate is like....207C i think?

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Not convinced removing globes brings anything to the party. Here are my clones, vegged mostly under ONE 22w EcoSmart (FEIT) NW (!600 lm). Note liter bottle in rear for perspective. I added my Philips 17w WW 3 days ago

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PetFlora the CREE globes are frosted and wrapped in silicon, which is used for it's diffusion effect only. (PS, It works brilliantly. You really can't tell that it's not an incandescent unless you look straight at it, which is a bad idea btw.) But when the globes come off the extra brightness becomes apparent. I wonder what the lumens are with the globes off? Anyway the trick is to find the best way to direct the light since they were designed for throwing the light outward in all directions, hence their 110° beam setting and circular design. But feel free to grab 2 and do a demo! Shaeeeeeeeet, maybe I'll do it. Something tells me I may be getting more of these.

Peeersonally i tihnk omnidirectional light is counterproductive in a horticultural setting.... I'd love to see exactly how many W of directional light beats a 23W CFL (about 5W im guessing lol)

If i had those bulbs i'd hang em vert in between a few plants (actually did this with 23W CFL on my led setup, for a while)

Hard to imagine my plants lacking due to globe dispersion. Bulbs used here are RP so removing globe was not an option, neither has this seemed to have neg consequences.

As you know, you convinced me with this theory to remove globes from 5 @ 7.5w bulbs. They do focus light on a very small area, but I am not convinced that is such a good thing. Maybe if aimed directly at some developing buds, as they are now. Looking closely at those buds where 7.5 sans globe is aiming almost direct and comparing to buds farther away, nothing jumps out one way or the other.

If I get the Crees it will be to compare globes vs sans globes. Not exactly apples to apples (wattage/mfg differences) but it should still be easy to tell what effect to plant outside sweet spot

Here is March 26th pic

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