A Buck a Foot -- LED Ropelights at Costco

Canuke

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For those interested in rope lights, you might want to take a look in the holiday lighting section at Costco. I found white LED ropelight with one-inch spacing at just under $25 for a 25-foot ropelight, at the Lindero Road Costco in Westlake Village California.

That is not only less than half the cost per foot of commercial sources (80% cheaper in some cases), but is even cheaper per foot than the Philips ropelights at Target, despite the latter having only half the LED's with two-inch spacing. When run on rectified unfiltered 120VDC, these are the brightest ropelight I have.

Unfortunately, they also run the warmest on that power, about body-temp warm in open air, but almost hot if surrounded by insulating material, as is likely in an installation. Adding filter caps to that voltage will likely fry these... perhaps running two in series from filtered 160VDC would work fine.

These are not inter-connectable as is with either of the blue or gold-box Philips, and lack the rectification of the gold-box Philips (you'll have to add it yourself if the 60Hz flicker gives you headaches).
 

C4LED

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Any thoughts on the costs of running these 24/7/365? I picked some up for use in the basement and they're working real well so far. I'm guessing it should cost only a few dollars a year to run them all the time
 

Canuke

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The box for the Costco ropelights don't have power figures on them, so I'll have to estimate it based on those from the Philips.

3.9W over 9 feet for the Philips
= 433 mW per foot, two inch spacing
= 867mW per foot at one inch spacing (assuming identical LED's)
= 1.73W per foot on rectified unfiltered DC
= 21.67 Watts over 25 feet, straight AC
= 43.33 Watts, on rectified, unfiltered DC.

1.73W per foot might seem a bit much, but it still beats standard ropelights at about 5.5W per foot (as seen here)... and you can cut it in half if you don't mind the 60Hz flicker of straight AC.

For reference, the linked site quotes 0.77W per foot for their LED units, similar to my "straight AC" figure for one-inch spacing.

Filtering the DC would push these figures higher, but I couldn't say by how much. I lack the equipment to measure current draw at this time.
 
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bizzybody

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Got a link to it on the Costco site? Did some searching but couldn't find it.
 

Canuke

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Nope, I couldn't find it either. Their seems to be a lot of stuff in their stores that aren't on their Website... none of their Christmas LED lights are there at all, let alone the ropelight.

From the box: it says "ITM / ART. 110253" over the barcode. The ropelight is manufactured "for" Everstar Merchandise (USA) Co. Ltd. 7180 Troy Hill Dr. Suite L Elkridge MD 21075. Made in China.

There is even a customer service #, though I don't know if it's Costco's or Everstar's: 1-800-833-3390.

A minor update: 110253 is confirmed to be their sku# for this product.

Also, unlike the Lindero Road Costco, the one in Oxnard (right across the lane from Fry's -- very convenient, that, for trips out there) stocks their ropelights in with the flashlights, not the holiday stuff.
 
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Carbonium

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I bought two sets of these ropelights at costco today. I need 30 sets but they only had two.

The lights claim to draw .87w per foot.
I tested them with my kilowatt meter and they draw 45 watts per 50 feet. That's .9watts per foot in actual use.

They run very cool when stretched out. About 2 degrees above ambient temps. 10-15 degrees above when rolled in a coil for hours.

They "do" interconnect and you can run them up to 275 feet per rope.

Very bright but the flicker is noticeable. More so when coiled up.
 
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