LEDs to light Rockefeller Christmas tree this year

[Closet_Flashaholic]

For the news challenged:

http://www.cnn.com/2007/TECH/science/11/21/green.christmas.ap/index.html

I would guess it probably doesn't beat Cree's display in raw numbers, but LEDs are probably getting a lot more publicity from this.

 

[rizky_p]

more demands higher prices, i hopes it doesnt come to that

 

[Closet_Flashaholic]

more demands higher prices, i hopes it doesnt come to that

I would hope:

more demands = more profit = more R&D = more efficient/powerful LED = better runtimes/more light in the same size package.

I am sure price comes into play somewhere, however as long as there are at least 2 competitiors vying for the top spot, maybe prices can stay under control.

I would be more worried about the Honeywell lawsuit against Cree jacking up prices or limiting availability..

 

[Lightingguy321]

The new Ball is made from crystal triangles that house 6 to 9 lumileds Luxeon K2 LEDs (3white and the rest a mix of RGB). I read that from the magazine Live Design (I work in the theater industry).

 

[EricB]

[size=+2]WOW!!![/size]
:wow: :twothumbs:
I've been waiting for this! Just the last few days; I had been looking at the news articles mentioning the tree to see if it might happen to be going LED this year (like the New Year's Eve ball), but no mention. I figured; maybe next year or sometime after that, as they may be waiting for the price to come down, or the lights to be brighter or something. Now this springs up all of a sudden; just a week before the tree lights up. (I generally check this board in early in the week when I'm off, so I'm slow on this one. I'm usually the one posting such news here).

I wonder if they're going to have as much white in it as they did with the incandescents.
I also hope they save the bulbs when they chop it up. I always wondered whether they saved them, or just shredded the whole thing together (maybe not, with the wires, but it seems like it would be a lot of work to take all that off).

Of course; I'm looking down the line for the day when they have color changing controllable LEDs there. I would love to be the one to program them. So knowing single color LEDs were the first step; I wondered when that would be.
Also; I wonder if the competing tree in Long Island will have LED's too. Two years ago, there were two strings of LED's in it, and something told me that one might go LED first. So that one will light the coming weekend.

Just tonight the Lincoln Center tree went on, and it uses the same bluish white LED's in the star ornaments as last year.

 

[EricB]

I was so anxious, I went tonight to see what they looked like while still off.
They look like normal C7 size, and probably frosted. The first thing you see is that bright opaque green color for the green ones. You have to look a bit to see blue ones; like there are less of them. And of course, there are red, amber and clear ones as well. They also still have strobe tubes in the tree.

Also, the smaller trees that line the plaza, which always had the small incandescents, now have white "raspberry" LED's! It's a funny inbetween shade; not bluish, and not yellowish, but still having what looks like a slight brownish tint. Like looking at white light through black tinted glass (which is really slightly brownish). I imagine that must be the 4000K range. So that gives the trees a crisper look than the old incandescents. Kind of like those "sparkles" after a white colored fireworks burst.

 

[EricB]

OK; I just went to see it on, and it looks quite different.
It now has six colors (up from 5) with both orange and amber (in addition to red, green, blue and white). The white is 3500K. (The first large multicolor decoration I have seen to use new "warm white" facsimiles). So the tree does not have that sharp "icy" kick to it that other multicolor trees and decorations with bluer whites have. It actually looks quite natural. It's not as bright as with the incandescents. It has almost no glare, and you can't even tell it's on from around the corner. But of course, it is so much more colorful. There was always just too much white before, and the tree was always overall pale, though bright. Now, the white is not overwhelming everything else. The bulbs are C7 faceted.
There are as many blues as other colors, however, there aren't as many on the side of the tree I was looking at the other day when it was still off; so that's why I didn't see that many blue bulbs. Never seen the colors out of balance before. That section of the tree with less blues kind of resembled the overall color of the tree with incandescents. The incandescent blues were always not as bright, and being not as saturated, were not as prominent. Now, blue is dominant. When you move your eyes, so that the colors all blur together, the overall color looks like the same pale fluorescent electric blue or periwinkle as other multicolor LED trees.

 

[EricB]

http://www.amny.com/news/local/am-tree0104,0,5694512.story

Some others have noted that the tree looks less bright, but a spokesperson pointed out the new lights give off just as much light. "The LEDs illuminate at the same brightness as the old incandescent bulbs. The primary difference between the new LEDs and the old bulbs is the color spectrum. The primary colors are more pronounced with the LED bulbs."

True, as I had pointed out. It is producing less white glare.
And it seems the energy efficient bulbs are being kept on longer. I don't remember them ever keeping the tree up and lit until the 8th (my birthday!)
Now I have another chance to catch it one last time!

 

[PhotonWrangler]

Is there anyone in the NYC area that can get a few close-up photos of the LEDs inthese trees? I'd like to get a good look at them before the tree goes into the mulchinator next week.

 

[EricB]

In the concourse below the tree, they had a small replica of the tree (with the same color LED's) and surrounding buildings was constructed as an exhibit in the concourse space directly below the tree (between the windows to the rink), showing the new solar panels on the roof powering the tree. I had taken a picture of this, and used it as my desktop, and it even stayed all year on the other computer (I since switched to another computer most of the time). It's very blurry, though.

For this year, they have added more whites, creating an overal brighter and less bluish appearance. So it looks even more natural, and a bit closer to the old incandescent lighting. A slight blue deficit would now be located toward the bottom of the tree. The white lights on the trees lining the plaza are now notably dimmer for some reason.

There is also a sort of "sister" tree in Long Island, which last year still had incandescents, but now this year has made the move to LED. But these consist entirely of Foreverbright type faceted C6's in red, orange, yellow, green and blue. Since these strings do not mix the colors with white bulbs, there are now no whites in the tree! (except for the star, which uses the familiar pure white LED's). So it is even dimmer than the Rockefeller tree was last year, and from a distance, the colors blend into an almost ghostly violet glow. The tree three years ago had a few Foreverbrights on the bottom, even though the rest of it was incandescent.

Otherwise, this year has been a bust, as I was not able to find any affordable new addressable RGB strings. I did get 5mm strings of 60; 1 white (Philips), and the other, color (the Philips multicolors were out, and I just saw that the "dome light" version has orange in addition to amber, while the one I got had only amber and the other 3 colors). These I use for the window, instead of the heavier Foreverbright C6's. We now have a little year, so I strung those across a couple of bushes. And the DingDotz (now called X8 Dotz) are still going strong, and the Intellishines still dimmed down for some reason.