Pearsont74- when you talk about lighting with your
LFS or fellow hobbiests you ask how much light do I need not how much power should I burn....in general the more power you burn the more light you get using like technologies e.g. 40w incadesent vs 60w or 40W
NO fluorescent vs 110W HVHO but you get more light out of a 110w
VHO than out of 2)55W incadesents so you would want to use
VHO.
What I found is not so much what bulb you use but the reflector you use.
if you use any fluorescent bulb they are quite the same in that a 40w T12 is about 2500 lumens and 110w T12 is about 5500 lumens (watts per lumen about the same (bare bulb endcaps no reflector or housing)).
what make T5 and
PC brighter is the small diameter of the bulbs both about 5/8" instead of 1.5" of T12 (T#=#/8") think a water pipe...1.5" pipe running 40
gal per min. vs 1.5" pipe running 110
gal per min...you have increased the pressure in the water pipe to get more water to flow out of it.... how else can you increase the pressure in a pipe....you could decrease the pipe diameter e.g. 40gpm-1.5"pipe to a 110gpm-1.5"pipe OR 54gpm-5/8" pipe.
So a
VHO or a
PC or a T5HO all about the same output in lumens, but it's the reflector that distinguishes each bulb.
VHO's parabolic reflector would have to be huge and the
PC's can't use a parabolic reflector because it is doubled and can't be put at the focal but the T5's can and that is why they are said to be soo much better.