GE Brightstik, anyone know the wattage??

[brendan]

I recently acquired a box of GE Brightstiks. No where on the packaging is there indication as to the wattage that these things produce. Does anyone know what it is from experience? They are 18" long and have a self contained balast.

TIA

 

[Local_42]

The FBS25/WX is rated at 33W and 750 Lumens with a 5000 hour service life. Try doing a search on the part# specific to your GE Brightstick. You can ignore the rest of this post; It is just babble.

I have a feeling these bulbs don't put out much visible light per watt. Keep in mind that when dealing with light the Watt as a unit of measurement is useless. Different bulb types will put out different light per watt. Try incandescent vs Carbon Arc or fluorescent and you'll see not only very different spectrums but Lumens per Watt. There is a difference even in similar types. Take Compact fluorescent vs a T-8 and you'll see a difference in Lumens per Watt.

 

[jsoong]

I have one of those & it is 33 watts.

Are you sure that the output is only 750 lumens? I thought all types of flourescent tubes are within 10-15% in light output. 750 is approx. light output of a 60 watt incandescent. A standard 40 watts flourescent gives out 1700+, I thought a 33 watts should be good for 1500 or more :?

Anyway my bright stik seems to put out pretty good light & my plants are growing great in my 10 gal. (tho I don't go for high light plants).

 

[Local_42]

I took those specs from a site that had that particular GE Brightstick for sale. I was also a little shocked that it called out 750 lumens. the info might have been inacurate, I just type 'em as I read 'em. I believe a 100W incandescent is about 1750 Lumens and your standard 3200K fluorescent bulb rated at 32Watts puts out at least 1700, so it makes no sense why the site claimed such a low reading.


Ignore the following if you don't like babel about lights:

I have a customer who is..well....persnickety. He has a walk in closet in his new home. In his walk in closet he has the following lights:

6) recessed cans housing 75W Halogen bulbs
1) pendant housing a 40W Incandescent
2) recessed florescent 2x2 reflective. These lights do not emit through a diffuser straight down. the light is reflected up and then out. These lights use (4) 56W CF each

So he has roughly (this is based on the manufactures claims for each fixture and bulb) 67,350 Lumens in a closet measuring 10' x 10'. I brought my light meter up there early one cold cloudy morning....

Washington Mutual has the following standards for lighting at ATM's:
10FC at face of ATM and Night Deposit
10FC at 5' radius
5FC at 5' to 50' radius
2FC at 60' radius where parking is designated for ATM parking

His closet well exceeds the brightest branch I have ever tested; not that hard I know, but you wouldn't believe how hard it is to have 10FC some places at misnight. Well over 200FC measured at the center of the room 3' above finish floor, meter head held parallel to the floor. Needless to say I would not be turning those lights on first thing in the morning....I value my eyes.

 

[jsoong]

Local, you've got me thinking, so I did some digging on diff. lights ... now I am more confused than ever!

It seems the lumen rating does vary a lot, even in the NO T12's. But, the lumen rating apparently is for human eyes & is skewed towards the middle of the spectrum. For growing plants, it is the shorter wavelengths that counts, so lumen rating, or even how bright a light looks to us is not a good indicator of how bright a light is to a plant.

I had some tentative plans of using a bunch of those 33 watts in a DIY hood in my next tank - under construction. It is compact & cheap, so I thought it would be a good way to get a lot of watts into a small space. Now I am having 2nd thoughts .... back to the drawing board ... sigh


PS - On that closet - YOu'll need sunglasses I have that much light in my 24x14 rec room & it's plenty bright!

 

[Local_42]

You are dead on about Lumens, the human eye ect ect. For instance, Mercury Vapor Lights and Metal Halide lights appear to be brighter and much whiter then High Pressure Sodium to the human eye. However, whilst working for WM I found that the HPS lights put out more Lumens per watt, even if they do look a terrible ugly yellow and did not appear as bright to the human eye. Unfortunately I had to resort to using the ugly HPS lights to get some branches to pass specs, BLECH. I believe that unless your plants need an insane amount of light the GE Brightsticks will work "fine" Meaning they will support life but may not provide the best conditions for the plants to thrive. I'd say try it out. If the plants do not fare well then try something new, can't hurt to try, right? my Cabomba are doing fine on 30W of cheep "aquarium" bulbs. Of course Cabomba is a weed is it not? My Amazon Sword however is very unhappy and I have no plans of going brighter. Meaning I am a cold blooded plant murderer...