I plan on growing lettuce/kale hydroponically.
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Was curious what you all think might be sufficient for my purpose.
I'm also looking at it from a long-term price perspective as well.
It basically comes down to these options:
fluorescent: 6500k - 3050lumens - 86CRI - 32w - $1.59 per bulb
vs
led: 6500k - 2300lumens - 80CRI - 22w - $10.16 per bulb
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Will be using 3 hydroponic raft setups (all a mixture of lettuce/kale).
This comes to 3 fixtures per raft (2
bulbs per fixture).
3 fixtures x 2 bulbs = 6 bulbs per RAFT x 3 RAFTs = 18 bulbs total.
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Pricing Long-Term
~Fluorescent
Upfront Costs: $39.75 for 25 bulbs (I only need 18, but it's required that I buy a case (those can be backups I guess))
Monthly Energy Costs = $34.21
Yearly Energy Costs = $410.57
$450.32 = first year costs total for energy and bulbs.
~LED
Upfront Costs: $182.88 for 18 bulbs
Monthly Energy Costs = $23.52
Yearly Energy Costs = $282.24
$465.12 = first year costs total for energy and bulbs.
$15 more than the fluorescent, but more efficient/last longer, and end up saving $128.33 in energy costs the next year + years after that.
So the LEDs pay for themselves in the first year and save much more in the upcoming months/years.
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QUESTION: What would you all choose?
Is the lose in lumens really all that bad considering what I'm growing?
I tried researching the importance of lumens and only came up w/ a sq ft lumen number that didn't seem to have much confidence behind it.