led xmas lights

[The_LED_Museum]

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by franken:
well they're in and we have 160 sets in stock. i cant find any controller supplied though, so they just light continously. we are selling these for $12.50 plus freight of course. weight is 2.7 lbs<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

I've got a guy who wants to buy a couple of sets of these lights from you... are you still with us?
Do you still have any of these left?

Does anyone know where to get them if Franken is no longer with us?

 

[Chris M.]

I wanted to get a couple of those too a while back- I sent a note to the contact address on your review page but got no reply. Guess they sold out already....

I also tried to find a place that sells those neat "Forever-Bright" sets- blue and white ones especially- but none of them would do it, or couldn`t do it. Craig, you couldn`t put me in touch with your contact at ForeverBright could you? Perhaps see if they wouldn`t mind sending a couple over here for an, er, review?

 

[Ron]

I just got out the Xmas lights and found half dead strings again. After checking all the bulbs and finding the usuall no problem I hit the stores.

At our local Menards they carry something called Rope Style Lights.

What they are are 1/2 inch clear tubing with LEDs inside. 1 light every inch. We went with the multi-colored strings but they also had solid color ones. They came in 30 ft lengths for about 15 bucks. Up to 5 strings can be connected together. Claims 30,000 hr average bulb life. No more tangling, no more burned out bulbs... I think I went to LED heaven. Now to see how they hold up.

Instructions claim 30ft string consumes 165 Watts, 1.38 amps.

Ron

 

[Chris M.]

Ron are you sure those were LED ropelights? I think I know the suff you mean- solid tough tube with the lights moulded into it. But normally it has tiny long life bulbs inside, not LEDs- try this- when the stuff is off, are they all clear "bulbs", then they light up multicoloured, or are they all coloured when off too? If they`re coloured when off, you`ve got bulbs there, 99% certain. I used neon ropelight in 1999-2000, it`s very nice but not the same as "regular" xmas lights in my opinion. Looks a bit "commercial" and unless you have it secured perfectly straight along wherever you`re running it, it can end up not looking so good. I may use it again though, not sure.

Course you could prove me wrong- it`d be nice to see LED neon ropelight. Any way to take some up-close macro pictures? I`ll dig one of my lengths out later and do the same.

~~~~~


Incidentally I got hold of some great LED lights recently from UK electronics supplier Maplin Electronics. I believe they ship overseas but like everything in this land of ours, they`re very expensive! Still you`s lot may like to see them.

All-White plain bulbs or All-Blue clear stars! Only drawback is they have one of those annoying multi effect pushbutton controllers that won`t remember the last setting it was on when you turn the power off- so I`m going to fit a connector so I can remove it and connect straight to the 24v transformer if I don`t want effects.

White. Look like Nichia parts, with specially molded inverse-conical tops to spread the light out. They`re from a lucky-bag of colour ranks it seems, I see slight subtle tints of greens, blues, pinks and yellows, much the norm for white LEDs and quite attractive really! Overall though, a nice cold icy white....

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Blue. Possibly Nichia 3mm moulded into those stars which diffract the light all around. Wonderful colours, two distinct ranks it seems- some are the more common slightly cyan-tinted Nichia blue (like the Photons), and some are a stunning deep blue (like the ASP Sapphire), almost violetty in fact- not far off the wavelength of those deep blue narrowband Kingbright LEDs Craig sells on his LEDs For Sale page.

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Watch out for these being used in my lights display this year- a seperate web site about my xmas displays is being worked on right now and will be accessible from my homepage in due course.

One concern I had with these- these LED lights came with spare LED bulbs! And what`s more, one of the white LEDs was out, so I needed one of the two spares suppled with the set!

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Well, not quite out, but very dim- but it was like that out of the box. No need to make a fuss and have to ship`em back for a new set so I just changed it over. So far so good but I`m a little concerned that more will fail, the white set I`m keeping a close eye on- it`s hung up in here already. Great colour!


If you want some of your very own you can get them from http://maplin.co.uk for a whopping GB£30/set of 56. Not sure of the avaliability at present, but they better have at least one more of each cos I like`em so much I`m going to use one set in each of the four main windows at the front of our house. Good that I have a mainly blue and ice-white colour scheme this year!

 

[e=mc²]

Chris M:
Do you notice the 50Hz or 60Hz flicker when these are illuminated? I was just wondering if they are directly AC powered or are they using filtered DC?

Ed

 

[Ron]

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Chris M.:
I think I know the suff you mean- solid tough tube with the lights moulded into it. But normally it has tiny long life bulbs inside, not LEDs- try this- when the stuff is off, are they all clear "bulbs", then they light up multicoloured, or are they all coloured when off too? If they`re coloured when off, you`ve got bulbs there, 99% certain. <HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Since they are colored when off I would say you are correct. I just had never run across a bulb with an average life of 30,000 hrs. Sounded more like an LED to me.

They do look different than traditional Xmas lights but since the wife liked them and they saved me a lot of work, I am sold on them.

 

[Chris M.]

There is a flicker if you look for it- move your head fast to look up at them and you see little dotted streaks- I expect it`s rectified to DC inside the controller, but not smoothed. I do have a frequency counter but no light dependant thingy-wotsists to hook to it so I can see if it`s full wave (100hz)or half wave (50hz). My guess says it`s 50, but it`s no big deal, TV screens flicker worse than these do.

You could, of course, power it from a 24vDC smoothed supply, if the controller were removed (it probably takes its timing from the 50hz frequency) and have no flicker at all.