Davis, CA to light community tree with LEDs

[Darell]

Just read in our local paper that we're lighting our 50' community tree with LEDs for the first time this year. The city folks *think* that we're the first city to light their community tree with LEDs. Who knows? Last year, it cost $260 in electricity just for the tree lights. They expect that this year's energy bill will be under $8 for the same size tree. The light strings were donated by our county's Energy Affairs department (over the past couple of years, they have handed out CF bulbs to any resident that asks).

Pretty slick, all the way around. Of course when the tree is lit this Thursday, I'll have a close look to see what type of strands they're using.

[Chris M.]

Sounds great! Be sure and take some photos up-close for us. I wonder if they might be Carpenter Decorating`s LED-C7s? If so, it`ll look teriffic, they are great lights.


Out of my nearly-12000-light display this year, 1750 of them are LEDs. I want to do an all-LED year next year if possible. Finally found some LED versions of that power hungry flexible ropelight used on my Snowflake shapes and spiral trees, about time someone made that stuff with LEDs. I expect the power consumption this year will be in the order of 4KW or so, but switching from inefficient and dim miniature lamps to LEDs should slash that significantly. Given the inherant unreliability of filament-bulb light sets, as well as the aforementioned inefficiency, LED is *definately* the future of holiday lighting. And I like that a lot. They are more colourful, last forever (supposedly) and take so little power you could just leave them plugged in from Thanksgiving to New Years and not worry one bit.

This photo shows all too clearly the advantages of LEDs for those who havn`t tried them yet. A load of sets draped over the bannisters after untangling, all plugged in to test them. The LED sets are on the right. Just look how much brighter with such intense colours, and less than a tenth of the power the incands on the left are taking...



Yay [img]/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif[/img]

[Saaby]

When I saw the subject, I was going to come blame it on Darell -- but you started the subject! Congratulations, be sure to go there in your Rav4-EV so you can show off the LED tail lights and interior lights [img]/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/wink.gif[/img]

[Darell]

Chris -

They are C7's, but I have not heard of Carpenter Decorating. I'll get as much info as I can!

Ryan - Speaking of my Rav interior lights... I'm just come in from finishing up the sixth (I think - who's counting?) revision of those. If I go any brighter, I'm afriad my eyeballs will vaporize. It is like daytime in there - and that's saying something since the whole interior is dark grey! I now have five Lux1's in there, driven at up to (user-selectable, of course) 500mA.

[Chris M.]

http://torchreviews.net/ledc7.htm . Got sent a load last year to review, and decorate part of my display with too. They`re back this year of course. Includes the "intellishine" colour-changing sort that are just fantastic, all around the front door.

Better make my LED total 2325 cos the LED Ropelight Spiral Trees I found recently arrived today already and of course I had to find a space for them out front. See http://festive-lights.com , but you better have Flash, Java, Cookies and probably MSIE to make it work, the site looks nice but is fairly horrible. Note, this is a UK site and the lights are 240v. I did find some USA-origin LED ropelight too, but they sold it by the drum and cost over $2000 each [img]/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/eek.gif[/img]


Luxeons in the Rav? How cool is that!

[img]/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif[/img]

[Darell]

[ QUOTE ]
Chris M. said:
Luxeons in the Rav? How cool is that!
[img]/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif[/img]

[/ QUOTE ]
Pretty darn cool, if I do say so myself: http://www.darelldd.com/ev/rav_maplight_v2.htm (has link to the rear dome as well. I've also done the third brake light: http://www.darelldd.com/ev/rav_brakelight.htm

But here I am dragging my OWN thread OT. Oops.

I've gotta get me some of those LED rope lights! I'd never seen them before. Tonight is the tree-lighting, so I'll arm myself with flashlights and head on down there this evening.

[Chris M.]

Nice work [img]/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/cool.gif[/img] . I`ve been tempted to LED the van in some way, perhaps some high-level brake light/turn signals in the rear windows. I don`t own the thing though (company vehicle) so it would have to be totally reversible, can`t go cutting up the stock rear lights and filling them with Lux-Is.

A Google on "led rope light" and "led ropelight" ought to find you some place that will sell a sensible length, I`m sure there were one or two places. Doesn`t just come in single colours, there are multis too and even some groovy multi-channel flat stuff with three or four colours all side by side, for architectural lighting. Even if you have to import from over here, there`s definately one place that sells the single-colour stuff in low voltage form. I think they sell it to ricers to mod their cars, but no reason why a suitable 120-12v PSU couldn`t be rigged to power it all night long, along the guttering or around all those solar panels.

[img]/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif[/img]

[Darell]

You're right! All kinds of it - but mostly in 150' spools for MANY hundred$ [img]/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

[Chris M.]

You don`t want to line every edge of your walls, windows and roof with it then? Why not? [img]/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/tongue.gif[/img]

This page has it in a choice of colours, voltages and more sensible lengths for not quite so much $$$. Still expensive, but it`s LED, so for the time being, it will be.

** Disclaimer ** I don`t know what the quality of that stuff is like, just the first page I found with small quantity prices.


[img]/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/ooo.gif[/img]

[Darell]

Whoa! Still WAY expensive. Yikes.

[Chris M.]

Aah, but just think of how much less energy it uses. And how great that deep LED-blue colour is.

Go on, you know you want some really!

[img]/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif[/img]

[EricB]

LEDTronics has a bunch of ropelights, that are priced by the foot, and seem a bit more reasonable.

I'm wondering if the Rockefeller Center treee will ever go LED. It is 30,000 bulbs, however, and I guess it would be very expensive. As it is, those incandescents are way too pale (and they have so many whites in it anyway). Some other displays in the area have fone LED, however. (I was going to open a whole thread on it). Across the street, on SAK's, an LED snowflake display across the whole face of the building, which flashes between white and blue (and stays white most of the time) has replaced pine garlands with red and yellow incandescents. 2 blocks down, the entrances to the Cartier building are adorned with magnificent white LED tiaras! Several blocks away, it looked sort of like reflections of huge mercury spotlights from across the street or something, but as I got closer, I could see that they were self-luminous "jeweled" crowns of LED's! And the snowflake at 57th and 5th which was always incandescent has now been replaced by a smaller, but silvery one whose main lighting appears to be those hybrid mercyry/incadescent floodlights like are used in many diamond window displays (so it was a higher temp bluish white, but with some tinge of yellow. In subway signal teminology, it is called "lunar white"). It was also covered by flashing white LED strobes. In the reopened FAO Schwartz, the entire ceiling is now a full color LED display. More stores now are using those color changing clear shelves that are lit with hidden LED's.

Also, in case no one has seen the thread I tried to start on the Intellishines, I got six of them (to cut cost and see how I like them) for my window, and they are great. I should get more. Perhaps if I find the new frosted Forever Brights I ordered for the window are unavailable. I used an old Dept.56 six light string, plugged it into a female plug that I wired to a Radio Shack 1.5-12v/300mA. adapter.

[Darell]

Well, the ceremony happened as scheduled last night. I was wrong about the tree size - "only" 25'. But I digress - the LED lights were awesome, and on closer inspection, they are C7 Foreverbrights. All colors including white.

The bad news is that the tree has a goofy, shag-rug-looking gold star on top. Not only ugly, but still lit with incandescents for whatever reason. [img]/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/icon3.gif[/img]

Anyway, it was a fun night, and it seemed like the whole town was there.

[Chris M.]

Interesting. Get any photos? I was tempted to get some ForeverBright C7 size for this year, but like the fact that Carpenter`s C7s can be swapped around to make different colour schemes. Given the fact that there`s over 150 of them here, I decided to stay loyal and keep with them. It`s still blue and white overall, but in a slightly different combination to last year.

Too bad about that tree-topper. Your description reminds me of *all* our town center`s holiday lights they string accross the high-street. It`s about time we went 21st-century now we`re a City and all, but something tells me that isn`t going to happen for quite some time.....


[img]/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/rolleyes.gif[/img]

[Darell]

[ QUOTE ]
Chris M. said:
Interesting. Get any photos?

[/ QUOTE ]
Well, it looks like a big tree with LED lights on it. Pictures wouldn't be too impressive, I'm afraid. I have the same lights on my house. I should maybe take a picture of my humble setup one of these days. Just put it up today. I've done the front of my house with five strands, two strands around the front door, eight strands on the front tree. Total consumption for several hundred "bulbs" - 25W. [img]/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

[EricB]

I've found pictures of both the Cartier and Saks LED displays:

[PhotonWrangler]

Thanks for the link to those C7 LEDs, Chris! Now I know who makes them. I've recently received a couple of sample strings of these, and they seem significantly brighter than the FBs... maybe 'cuz they run on DC? And there's none of that annoying 60hz flicker either.

I've sent one of my sample sets to Craig for review on The LED Museum. I think he's gonna review them once the holidays are over and he can take them down from the tree!
[img]/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/blush.gif[/img]

I've noticed some flaky behavior on the color-changing bulbs, however. They seem to be intermitttent no matter which socket I place them in. The bulb has to be unscrewed slightly and leaned just so in the socket in order to get them to light. Every now and then one of them needs a gentle tap. I looked at the bases closely and they seem to have uneven solder blobs on the center contact, so that's probably the culprit. The single-color bulbs seem to be better - possibly made on a different production line?

Anyway I like them! [img]/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/thumbsup.gif[/img] [img]/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/santa.gif[/img]

[EricB]

You're talking about the Intellishines? I've had no problem with them (though I only got 6). Perhaps it could be the sockets on the string you are using. (though the solder seems to be even on mine).
Among the things they are thinking about for next year, are 120v. versions that can be screwed into the same strings as regular incandescents.

[The_LED_Museum]

[ QUOTE ]
PhotonWrangler said:
I've sent one of my sample sets to Craig for review on The LED Museum. I think he's gonna review them once the holidays are over and he can take them down from the tree!
[img]/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/blush.gif[/img]

[/ QUOTE ]
Once we cross into 2005 and the Christmas tree is discarded, I'll be evaluating this light set. [img]/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img] I'll very likely hang them up above my computer installation and operate them year-round once my evaluation is finished. [img]/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif[/img]