I finally got one of these "warm white" 30x light strings I ordered off of eBay. Thing was under $4 shipped.
The LEDs are indeed warm white. They're VERY close in incan, although the color is inconsistent. The 5mm LEDs are inverted-dome, which is exactly what I was looking for (and they're a bit hard to find). The light distribution is quite excellent.
I DIG it. They're charming! Warm color temp, they don't suck ungodly amounts of power for the amount of light they make like incan xmas lights, and they shouldn't burn out at the ugly rate incans do.
But it's a retarded 4x AA supply. All the LEDs are in parallel, with no resistors that I can see. With a 4.5v power supply hooked up, they draw about 35mA per LED, and they get hot. I reduced the voltage to 3.7v and it's 20mA per LED. Also, the wiring is NOT outdoor wiring, it's neither UV resistant nor does it look waterproof. I wouldn't battery-power it anyways.
I'm kinda wondering about remaking it by inserting them onto some old green x-mas light wiring I have, in series so I can drive them with proper current control, and leave them outside as tree lights. I'd want to do this with a LOT of strings. But... it does sound like an excessive amount of work, and I'm not sure how to pull off the driver. A FWB and resistor is not gonna cut it, those things flicker in a way that really annoys me. I know there are driver chips out there, but the parts cost and making the board are problematic.
At that point I'm just scrapping the LEDs of course... it's much more work to strip and unsolder them out of the existing string than buying new ones. But there's no way to get 5mm warm white inverted dome LEDs for ~$0.13/ea, is there?
I guess I could in theory take like 6 of these parallel strings and wire them all in series off a 24v transformer with a current-control driver. But that doesn't result in balanced current per LED. In fact if one LED goes "open" the current-control driver will actually increase current to the other LEDs on that parallel group, potentially making it worse than constant-voltage control. And... well, the wiring's not UV resistant anyways, it won't survive long outside. But then again, is that green small x-mas light wiring UV resistant either? I thought it was but now that I think about it, it may just be flame-retardant. I seem to recall someone who had theirs out for years and I think it was in bad shape eventually.
Actually how do white LEDs themselves take sun exposure? Does direct sunlight degrade the phosphor on it or UV-rot the plastic case?
The LEDs are indeed warm white. They're VERY close in incan, although the color is inconsistent. The 5mm LEDs are inverted-dome, which is exactly what I was looking for (and they're a bit hard to find). The light distribution is quite excellent.
I DIG it. They're charming! Warm color temp, they don't suck ungodly amounts of power for the amount of light they make like incan xmas lights, and they shouldn't burn out at the ugly rate incans do.
But it's a retarded 4x AA supply. All the LEDs are in parallel, with no resistors that I can see. With a 4.5v power supply hooked up, they draw about 35mA per LED, and they get hot. I reduced the voltage to 3.7v and it's 20mA per LED. Also, the wiring is NOT outdoor wiring, it's neither UV resistant nor does it look waterproof. I wouldn't battery-power it anyways.
I'm kinda wondering about remaking it by inserting them onto some old green x-mas light wiring I have, in series so I can drive them with proper current control, and leave them outside as tree lights. I'd want to do this with a LOT of strings. But... it does sound like an excessive amount of work, and I'm not sure how to pull off the driver. A FWB and resistor is not gonna cut it, those things flicker in a way that really annoys me. I know there are driver chips out there, but the parts cost and making the board are problematic.
At that point I'm just scrapping the LEDs of course... it's much more work to strip and unsolder them out of the existing string than buying new ones. But there's no way to get 5mm warm white inverted dome LEDs for ~$0.13/ea, is there?
I guess I could in theory take like 6 of these parallel strings and wire them all in series off a 24v transformer with a current-control driver. But that doesn't result in balanced current per LED. In fact if one LED goes "open" the current-control driver will actually increase current to the other LEDs on that parallel group, potentially making it worse than constant-voltage control. And... well, the wiring's not UV resistant anyways, it won't survive long outside. But then again, is that green small x-mas light wiring UV resistant either? I thought it was but now that I think about it, it may just be flame-retardant. I seem to recall someone who had theirs out for years and I think it was in bad shape eventually.
Actually how do white LEDs themselves take sun exposure? Does direct sunlight degrade the phosphor on it or UV-rot the plastic case?
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