led xmas lights

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i recall someone on this board collects christmas lights. i saw a sample set of 150 red, green, yellow leds on a 65 foot string. the wholesale company i work for will be getting a quantity of these within a week. they are supposed to have 8 modes, but the sample i saw was lacking the control box. anyway i lit up a set and they looked nice. i'll probably buy a couple sets for the usual reasons, long-life and low power consumption. i havent seen these before? i'm not a salesman and we don't sell online. has anyone seen these?
 

The_LED_Museum

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<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by franken:
i recall someone on this board collects christmas lights. i saw a sample set of 150 red, green, yellow leds on a 65 foot string<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

I want some of these too.
The city is banning decorative lights to keep rolling blackouts at bay, and LED Christmas lights are the perfect answer.
 

K Horn

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The LED lights sound great!
Now I can throw out all these old
screwed up strings of lights.
 

Chris M.

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i recall someone on this board collects christmas lights

That would be me then
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I do know of those lights or ones like them, got a set from an online store called Simply Lighting. They have a few styles, I got the ones with the small round globes on. Not cheap, about 25 bucks (I think) per set of 60 controlled lights with 24 volt transformer plug, or about 8 bucks for a battery set but you could possibly rig up a wall-wart or variable PSU to run them I reckon.
I have seen direct 120 volt powered LED xmas lights too somewhere on the web that just look like normal lights (except for domed leds not pointy bulbs)- even with the add on connector plug, I guess they`re just connected in series with the mains. 60 LEDs at 2 volts each=120 volts, probably a rectifier diode in line somewhere too. I think they just used the diffused red, yellow and yellow-grreen leds that all use ~2v.

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i think they're the same ones chris, 24 volt power supply and said to consume 6 watts! when these babies roll in, hopefully with control boxes included, i'll be shipping a set to craig, as he's the guy who got me hooked on led's. $25 seems a bit high retail, but thats business i guess. maybe craig will feature these in punishment zone by christmas! kidding aside, it's the least i could do to help support craigs site and all the info that i drew from it. again i'm not a salesman but being able to buy these @ 25% over cost makes me able to contribute in a small way hopefully to the flashaholics that i enjoy reading about thanks!
 

lightlover

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Chris, Habitat ( a UK store ) has string and mesh lights ranging from £12-60. A friend saw some low-voltage transformered strings with ~8 cycles on special offer.
Phone your local store to check availability.

Ahem, how many lights do you use to decorate your home at Xmas ?
We have a local Xmas lights fanatic who charges entrance to his home to raise money for charity. Costs him £100's in electricity to run it for a month.

lite-lover
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Chris M.

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Habitat ( a UK store ) has string and mesh lights ranging from £12-60. A friend saw some low-voltage transformered strings with ~8 cycles on special offer.


Are they LED lights or normal filament-bulb ones? If LED then I`ll have to find a way of getting to our nearest store in Cardiff- and I don`t travel too well (no car either)!
I will admit I`m not too fond of controlled chaser lights for my outdoor decorating because theres no way to synchonise multiple strings with each other (without cutting off all the controllers and building my own higher powered control box to run them all together), also I normally prefer simple colour-fading effects to fast flashing and chasing. Thanks for telling me though.

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The_LED_Museum

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<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by franken:
i'll be shipping a set to craig, as he's the guy who got me hooked on led's. $25 seems a bit high retail, but thats business i guess. maybe craig will feature these in punishment zone by christmas! <HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Cool, thanks!
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Maybe I *will* feature them on the site so more people will buy them.
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The_LED_Museum

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<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Lite-Lover:

Ahem, how many lights do you use to decorate your home at Xmas ?
<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Well, until our electric rates went through the ceiling, I typically ran about 2,000 to 3,000 miniature bulbs. Most were in the window, a few hundred were in the tree, and a few hundred more for doorways and whatnot.

An additional hundred or two C7 bulbs were thrown in for good measure, but even with low power rates, these were too expensive to run for more than a few hours a night.

From the outside, my place looked like something out of National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation, since 95% these were crammed into one room of a tiny 1br. apartment in the middle of downtown.
It was usually the only apt. for blocks around to have any substantial Christmas lighting at all, so it stood out like a sore thumb and could be seen for blocks.
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Even got me in the paper one year.
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Power usage went from a typical value of 150KWh in October to 1.44MWh (megawatt-hours!) in December because of all the damn lights. It's a wonder my watt-hour meter didn't blow off the wall!
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glad to see the interest in these lights and how many will be in stock. wow you guys really light the place up at christmas! we usually run mavbe 300 or so lights outside, but this could change!!!! i'll post whether or not the controller comes supplied. ps craig, figure at least 2 weeks between check-in time, pricing? and shipping, probably UPS. maybe longer. the wait will be worth it, just like updates to the "zone"
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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. i'm not at liberty to mention our cost (thats the name of the wholesale game) suffice to say we got em dirt cheap and i'm told there are plenty more available. if anyones interested, i can post our company e-mail addy and you could order there. (i may deserve a pat on the back from our salespeople who are relatively clueless as to internet sales!) i don't know if it's appropriate to try and sell these in this part of the forum? i'm not trying to "push" these and personally would not profit directly on any sales of these, just thought i might be able to save you guys some dough!
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Brock

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Franken, post the info over in the "Dealers Corner". I know your not really a dealer, but I want the info and I imagine a bunch of other people do also. But I don't think you should post it here.

Brock
 

The_LED_Museum

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<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by franken:
i recall someone on this board collects christmas lights. i saw a sample set of 150 red, green, yellow leds on a 65 foot string. the wholesale company i work for will be getting a quantity of these within a week. they are supposed to have 8 modes, but the sample i saw was lacking the control box. <HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Hi Franken.

I got mine today - thanks!!

This model has 120 LEDs on a 65' string, and as you mentioned, has no controller despite what it says on the box. The colors are actually quite nice - the green is green and not that baby puke yellowish color like I was expecting. They're bright enough to stand out, yet not so bright you need sunglasses to look at your Christmas tree with.
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The included "wall wart" supplies 24VAC at 200mA; in practical use the LEDs should only draw 100mA. Half of them are on during the first half of the AC cycle, the other half come on in the second part of the AC cycle.
So there's not nearly as "flickery" as they could have been.

The very tips of the lamps are kind of magnifying, so they have a sparkling effect when you walk around them.

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The lights stay cool enough you can run them in the box without anything becoming too warm, and the low voltage/low current makes them inherently safer, especially for those who own chewing pets like rats, hamsters, or new puppies.

With the lid closed and after running for about an hour, the interior of the box was probably not much more than 30°C (around 87°F if I guessed right).
The wall wart stays cool, as if there were no load on it whatsoever.

I might want to buy some more of these for the holidays... I suspect this box is going to be hung up and used year 'round after I've taken pictures and whatnot for the website...
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So there's my initial thoughts on these... and I haven't even taken them out of the box yet.
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The_LED_Museum

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<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>

Do you have any contact or order info I can put on my review? A website URL or a simple set of ordering instructions perhaps?
 
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glad you like'em craig. guess they were cheap because of the "phantom" controller box. surprised to see the quick work done on them though
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i'll update the "led xmas lights" post in "dealers corner" with more info. thanks
 

Chris M.

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Franken- can you ship overseas and do you accept a visa card- I`ve got to get a set of those for myself, they look great!

Nice writeup Craig, they are brighter than I imagined in that pic round your room. This room`s full of xmas lights already (I know- it`s springtime but what can I say- I`m a hopeless light addict!), but one more set won`t hurt!


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chris, for those light addicts among us, we can ship overseas. go to dealers corner and click on led xmas lights for more info.
 

hank

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I wonder where these strings originate? Nice to see them showing up cheap and plentiful.

Two years or so ago, I bought a couple of strings of them -- also described as controllable but lacking any controller -- when the Hammacher-Schlemmer catalog had them, and have liked them fine. (same box, anyhow, as the one pictured at http://www.backwoodssolar.com/Catalogpages2/lights2.htm#WHITE%20LED%20LIGHTSThe descriptions match too. I've been thinking of putting a separate circuit for them for night-lighting our house too.
 
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