I was trying to get this from the Buy Buy Direct office last year. By the time I went to purchase it, it was pulled because of some defect. the onlyones I could find online were the Centch models on alibaba.co, but that is some wholesale trading thing, and I have no idea how how to get that stuff. (They also had rgb light strings called "LED Cluster".
So last week I decide to look around the area of Broadway below Herald Sq. I guess it is supposed to be the "Perfume/Bling Bling District" or something? Many of the stores have the buckles of various colors in the window. So far, I had only see people wear red, but they have all the other LED colors, including a lot of pink (which I had never seen before). If you're lucky, you might find red/yellow/green. This is what I was often shown when asking for "multicolor". But most had never heard of an rgb version. So out of all the stores on that strip, one slim store actually had the rgb. And where the wholesale office I had been to had it for $55, this store was giving it for &15 (25, if you're buying less than 4). So I returned and got it, impressing friends and co-workers.
IT has only 3 button controls. The first turns it on, and then selects one of six messages in the "switch" mode, selected by the second button, the "Up" button. When you select a message (they were all preprogrammed with "Welcome"), it either scrolls the message, or if you hit the up button again, you go into "Input" mode. Then you use the up and down buttons to change the letter, number or other character. (Everything is being done in red at this point). You then hit the first button to add the letter to the word, and you repeat for 512 characters for the first message, and 256 for the rest. (Space is hitting the enter button twice). You can also adjust Luminosity and Speed, using the Up button menu. Then, when you have the message running, the down button changes the color. Standard 7 color rgb: R, G, B, y, c, m, w. You apparently can't mix colors at the same time, like apparently some of the ones I saw online. Many of the ones online had USB connection, but this one doesn't (perhaps that's why it is cheaper). So it is just two lithium 2032 cells that slide into slots on both ends of the exposed back.
The problem is, this thing eats up the batteries in about a half hour. I had gotten it home, and had programmed my name and a couple of other messages, and then when I go next door to show it to some friends, then I only see a red , and the other colors were blank. Then, when I tinker with it, I could get a dim green, and when I took the batteries out and put them back in, I could get all the colors, briefly. When I have it out overnight, then it comes on at full brightness, but quickly dies.
So I bought new batteries (some stores like Radio Shack charge up to $5 each, others 3, or 2, and I found one that gave them for $1/50. The store I got the buckle from was going to give me another pair for $1. each, but I had no idea ofhow fast they would die, and how much others would charge for them!), and took it to work on the subways, where I displayed it in the window of a C train saying "TO EUCLID", in white (our trains no longer have destination readings in front, so I thought this might be an interesting idea). I put it on around 59th St. (entering midtown), and was looking to see if people noticed. By the time I got to Brooklyn (again, about a half hour), it had died down to the dim red, and then I took it down. (The blue starts to go a bit first, and then the green, so the white takes on a yellowish and pink tint, and then eventually turns to red).
So it seems this thing is only good for brief displays. Unless someone has longer lasting 2032's. (Do they have them rechargeable? I'll have to look online). The stores that display the buckles in the window have some sort of adapter they are all hooked to, that appears to be plugged into the AC. The first night I looked, I had gotten there when many of the stores were closing, and they would turn them all off at once with a switch. So something like this would be good if I was displaying it somewhere there was a plug (like on a Christmas tree). So I'll see if I can get one of those. So this one will tide me over for some time, and maybe in the future, I'll get the USB one. Maybe give this one to LED Museum or whatever (He so far only has the red one on his site [edit: I see he has the small green and blue badges now too]). If he didn't already have the Carpenter Decorating Intellishine bulbs on there, I'd probably be sending those, as they have dimmed and discolored a bit.
Speaking of Christmas, to recap this season, there were a lot more LED strings out there in people's and businesses' decorations. (Many are still up as of this post, and I run across them for the first time and am surprised). You still may have to search a bit to find a lot of them on people's homes, but one block in Valley Stream, LI had a buch of them one one side of the street, (but they were still outshined by the massive incandescent displays on a row of houses across the street). And all the LED lights in stores like Target and Lowe's were quickly emptied. So this is really catching on!
So last week I decide to look around the area of Broadway below Herald Sq. I guess it is supposed to be the "Perfume/Bling Bling District" or something? Many of the stores have the buckles of various colors in the window. So far, I had only see people wear red, but they have all the other LED colors, including a lot of pink (which I had never seen before). If you're lucky, you might find red/yellow/green. This is what I was often shown when asking for "multicolor". But most had never heard of an rgb version. So out of all the stores on that strip, one slim store actually had the rgb. And where the wholesale office I had been to had it for $55, this store was giving it for &15 (25, if you're buying less than 4). So I returned and got it, impressing friends and co-workers.
IT has only 3 button controls. The first turns it on, and then selects one of six messages in the "switch" mode, selected by the second button, the "Up" button. When you select a message (they were all preprogrammed with "Welcome"), it either scrolls the message, or if you hit the up button again, you go into "Input" mode. Then you use the up and down buttons to change the letter, number or other character. (Everything is being done in red at this point). You then hit the first button to add the letter to the word, and you repeat for 512 characters for the first message, and 256 for the rest. (Space is hitting the enter button twice). You can also adjust Luminosity and Speed, using the Up button menu. Then, when you have the message running, the down button changes the color. Standard 7 color rgb: R, G, B, y, c, m, w. You apparently can't mix colors at the same time, like apparently some of the ones I saw online. Many of the ones online had USB connection, but this one doesn't (perhaps that's why it is cheaper). So it is just two lithium 2032 cells that slide into slots on both ends of the exposed back.
The problem is, this thing eats up the batteries in about a half hour. I had gotten it home, and had programmed my name and a couple of other messages, and then when I go next door to show it to some friends, then I only see a red , and the other colors were blank. Then, when I tinker with it, I could get a dim green, and when I took the batteries out and put them back in, I could get all the colors, briefly. When I have it out overnight, then it comes on at full brightness, but quickly dies.
So I bought new batteries (some stores like Radio Shack charge up to $5 each, others 3, or 2, and I found one that gave them for $1/50. The store I got the buckle from was going to give me another pair for $1. each, but I had no idea ofhow fast they would die, and how much others would charge for them!), and took it to work on the subways, where I displayed it in the window of a C train saying "TO EUCLID", in white (our trains no longer have destination readings in front, so I thought this might be an interesting idea). I put it on around 59th St. (entering midtown), and was looking to see if people noticed. By the time I got to Brooklyn (again, about a half hour), it had died down to the dim red, and then I took it down. (The blue starts to go a bit first, and then the green, so the white takes on a yellowish and pink tint, and then eventually turns to red).
So it seems this thing is only good for brief displays. Unless someone has longer lasting 2032's. (Do they have them rechargeable? I'll have to look online). The stores that display the buckles in the window have some sort of adapter they are all hooked to, that appears to be plugged into the AC. The first night I looked, I had gotten there when many of the stores were closing, and they would turn them all off at once with a switch. So something like this would be good if I was displaying it somewhere there was a plug (like on a Christmas tree). So I'll see if I can get one of those. So this one will tide me over for some time, and maybe in the future, I'll get the USB one. Maybe give this one to LED Museum or whatever (He so far only has the red one on his site [edit: I see he has the small green and blue badges now too]). If he didn't already have the Carpenter Decorating Intellishine bulbs on there, I'd probably be sending those, as they have dimmed and discolored a bit.
Speaking of Christmas, to recap this season, there were a lot more LED strings out there in people's and businesses' decorations. (Many are still up as of this post, and I run across them for the first time and am surprised). You still may have to search a bit to find a lot of them on people's homes, but one block in Valley Stream, LI had a buch of them one one side of the street, (but they were still outshined by the massive incandescent displays on a row of houses across the street). And all the LED lights in stores like Target and Lowe's were quickly emptied. So this is really catching on!
Last edited:
