Hydroponics Online Home Home Store Blog Forums FAQs Lesson Plans Pictures

Go Back   Hydroponics Forums Discussions > Hydroponics Discussion Forums > Hydroponic Grow Lights
Register FAQ Community Calendar Today's Posts Search

6500K 3K Lumen Fluorescent vs 6500K 2.3K Lumen LED. Which is the better choice?


 
 
Thread Tools Display Modes
Prev Previous Post   Next Post Next
  #1  
Old 10-26-2016, 05:34 AM
Psycrops Psycrops is offline
Junior Member
 
Join Date: Oct 2016
Posts: 2
Default 6500K 3K Lumen Fluorescent vs 6500K 2.3K Lumen LED. Which is the better choice?

I plan on growing lettuce/kale hydroponically.
-----
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
-----
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.
-----
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.
-----
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.

Reply With Quote
 

Bookmarks


Posting Rules
You may not post new threads
You may not post replies
You may not post attachments
You may not edit your posts

BB code is On
Smilies are On
[IMG] code is On
HTML code is Off

Forum Jump


All times are GMT -4. The time now is 09:44 PM.


Powered by vBulletin® Version 3.8.9
Copyright ©2000 - 2024, vBulletin Solutions, Inc.