Quote:
Originally Posted by GpsFrontier
I agree everything you've said. I had thought about using the wattage of the light bulb itself, but just didn't know if that would be real accurate. Like you mentioned the actual wattage may very. Also I know the ballasts used by some lights must draw wattage/electricity. I too recommended using the Kill-A-Watt meter, I even left several links to some in my second post in this thread as a bit of info for anyone it may help. Although the original poster of this thread was hoping to be able to compare costs before buying the lights, so I'm not sure if it helped him with the exact question. But I agree they are very useful. |
You're right about the ballasts also costing money. It's a rule of thumb in the power world that any device that creates heat also uses electricity. Even a wire that is nothing but an extension cord will cause a very small increase in total wattage used by the device it's connected to.
I have used that Kill-A-Watt Meter so many times on the various devices in my home that it's paid for itself in nothing more than my own piece of mind.
You can even figure out exactly what toasting a slice of bread costs with it...hahaha
Lumens become important only when calculating *how much* light is needed and/or given to a plant. The medicinal marijuana growers in many states now find it necessary to calculate maximum lumens for optimum growth of their medication. I know an elderly lady who uses it for her arthritis and swears it helps her more than anything she's ever used. The growers of those plants really get into how much of this and that they use.
If I were growing exotic plants in an indoor, regulated environment type grow, then I would need to know precisely how many lumens per/square foot of plant canopy I was using, so that my plant growth would be maximized for the periodic plant sales.
Lumens, however, have nothing to do with power consumption really. They have more to do with plant growth and the ability to *see* in the various spectrum.
Photons being the physical part of light, wattage being the power side, spectrum being the type and lumens being the amount of photons of each spectrum.
Whew! That was a mouthful! hahaha