New LED Christmas Lights at Home Depot

PhotonWrangler

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I stopped by a Home Depot today and found a new line of LED Christmas lights there. They're all packaged in orange-reddish packages and some of them (particularly the cone-shaped ones) look like ForeverBrights or a knockoff. They had the cone-shaped ones in all red, a mixture of red and white, and a string of red, yellow, orange, green, blue and white. The cone-shaped lights come in a package with the "try me" button and the brightness (dimness?) appears to be on par with the FBs.

They also had a novel color-changing icicle set and a set of red, green and blue LEDs that come with a chaser-controller which can produce 16 different chase/flash/fade patterns. The chasing set had around 15-20 lamps (I think) and they were marked as $10.99. Since the three colors are wired separately to the controller, these might be hackable for larger, synchronized chasing displays.
:huh:

BTW I wouldn't be surprised if a set of the chasing lights showed up on Craig's doorstep someday.
:sssh:
 
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MillerMods

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I saw those too. I thought the price was very reasonable. I like the vibrant appearance. They are definately appealing for fun, hack type projects.
 

jtr1962

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I already purchased three sets-the 50 LED white C6 size for $7.99, the 50 LED white C3 size for $6.99, and the 50 LED colored C3 size also for $6.99. The colored ones have red, blue, green, yellow, and orange LEDs. I'm very happy with the price, construction, brightness, color saturation, and tint of the whites (slightly blue but not obnoxiously so like I've seen on some strings). These lights use wide angle 5mm LEDs inside the plastic diffuser so they do a pretty good job of being non-directional. My only complaint-some perceived flicker due to lack of use of filter capacitors but this problem seems to plague all LED Christmas lights.

Now it remains to be seen how long they last but at least LED Christmas lights are approaching the price of good quality incandescent strings. My guess is in a few years they'll actually be cheaper.
 

James S

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I have heard mention here of a "gold box" phillips string that has some sort of power supply so that they dont flicker? Does anybody know about these? I actually re-wired my strings from last year so that I could run them on DC and not burn them out ;) But before I buy any more I'd be interested to hear more about the ones that might already come setup properly.
 

Canuke

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James S said:
I have heard mention here of a "gold box" phillips string that has some sort of power supply so that they dont flicker? Does anybody know about these? I actually re-wired my strings from last year so that I could run them on DC and not burn them out ;) But before I buy any more I'd be interested to hear more about the ones that might already come setup properly.

That was me talking about those. They have a rectifier module in the power cord. So do the Home Depot LED lights, which I just bought last night. The "gold box" Philips ropelights are not end-compatible with the blue-box Philips ropes though (nor do they connect to the Costco ropelights; all three of these are mutually exclusive :mad: ), so you'll have to do some hackery to take advantage of the rectifier.

What really rocks about the Home Depot lights, is that it's DC coming out of the far end! That means you can add un-rectified LED chains such as Philips or ForeverBrights onto these, and they will also receive the DC! Woohoo! No more need to build a rectifier box, at least for the Christmas lights! I do not know the maximum carrying capacity of the bridge used herein, but I'm sure you can get away with more than 3 more chains (per the instructions). The pod *is* much smaller than that on the Philips "gold box" ropelights; I'd say they probably have a 1A max bridge in there, by size.

On the other hand, the plug indicates fusing for 3 amps max, and one chain (50 LED's) is rated for 54 mA draw. That's just under 60 chains by my rough calculations. :huh: A lot of the docs that come with these look like holdovers from incandescent chains, so I'd not assume that they made sure to use a 3A bridge simply because the plug, also likely leftover from incan sets, says 3A.

One drawback: anything that has a polarized plug, such as all the ropelights, won't fit. You'll need an adapter for those, or grind down the wide plug with a Dremel. (Usual disclaimer: I am not an electrician! Do that at your own risk!)

Now here's the weird part: If you connect an un-rectified set to the HD lights, there is a 50-50 chance you'll need to reverse the plug to get any light. That's to be expected with DC and LED's no?

No! I have no idea how, but if you chain HD lights together, they *always* come on, fullwave DC, no matter what the plug orientation is! They detect the "upstream" DC source and auto-switch to pass it through. Anybody know how can they do that (show a circuit diagram, perhaps)?
 
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asdalton

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I saw some LED lights, which looked similar to Forever Brights, at Target for about half the price that I paid for my Forever Brights in 2003. Since they appeared to be about the same brightness as mine (although it was in a lighted store, so I can't be sure), I resisted the urge to buy.
 

Canuke

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Incidentally, I forgot to add that AFAICT all the HD lights have just one diode in them. So, in terms of total light the "C3" size is the best buy at $5.99 per set of 50. The "C6" are $6.99 per 50 and the C9's are $10.99 for a set of 25.

At least, I'm sure of the C6's. Anybody have the C9's?

Also, at the Home Depot in Newbury Park (CA) also has an LED "garland", 60 lights in one chain of 9 feet. They come in a clear cylindrical container, and have alternating large and small faceted spheres on them, colored red, yellow, green and blue; the larger spheres have the LED's in them. These also have the rectifier modules, and exhibit the same chain behaviour.
 
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jtr1962

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Canuke said:
What really rocks about the Home Depot lights, is that it's DC coming out of the far end!
I noticed that also-it's roughly 108VDC average which is exactly what you would expect from full-wave unfiltered DC made from 120 VAC. I tried putting a 200 VDC, 200 uF capacitor across the end plug. The lights got much brighter, the flicker disappeared, the voltage rose to about 168 VDC, the power usage increased from about 2.2 watts to around 8.5 watts, and I got a nice shock when I accidentally put my fingers across the capacitor leads. :eek:oo: In other words, it's not a good idea since the LEDs would probably dim in short order or even die.

No! I have no idea how, but if you chain HD lights together, they *always* come on, fullwave DC, no matter what the plug orientation is! They detect the "upstream" DC source and auto-switch to pass it through. Anybody know how can they do that (show a circuit diagram, perhaps)?
Anything with a full-wave bridge will not only rectify AC but also be polarity-independent on DC. This also opens up some new ideas. I'm thinking of making a box with a full-wave bridge filtered by an LC (inductor-capacitor) circuit instead of just a capacitor. The advantage is that I'll end up with pure DC at around 108 volts. I can then put a few sockets on the box to plug the Home Depot lights into. They'll be getting exactly the voltage they need and they won't flicker. No need to start hacking the strings apart, either, plus with the very low current draw of each string I could probably put 30 strings even with a 1 amp full-wave bridge.
 

Canuke

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jtr1962 said:
Anything with a full-wave bridge will not only rectify AC but also be polarity-independent on DC.

As soon as I read it, well duh :ohgeez: -- thanks jtr1962! You'd never know I have an EET degree, sometimes... though it's old enough (1990) to predate blue LED's.

jtr1962 said:
I'm thinking of making a box with a full-wave bridge filtered by an LC (inductor-capacitor) circuit instead of just a capacitor. The advantage is that I'll end up with pure DC at around 108 volts.

Nice, I was wondering about how to get the DC but not at 160V :duck:.

How about making that DC variable/dimmable? Would a standard triac dimmer upstream of the bridge work with this circuit? I'm thinking of buying bunches of the red, green and blue ones, wire them up by color, then using dimmers to "tune" the color. This would be for a relaxation area, not a workspace :sleepy:
 
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jtr1962

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Canuke said:
How about making that DC variable/dimmable? Would a standard triac dimmer upstream of the bridge work with this circuit? I'm thinking of buying bunches of the red, green and blue ones, wire them up by color, then using dimmers to "tune" the color. This would be for a relaxation area, not a workspace :sleepy:
It would probably work but you would need a small resistive load on the AC line before the bridge rectifier in order for the triac to turn off. A small incandescent lamp of maybe 15 watts, or perhaps even a 4 watt night light bulb, would suffice for that.
 

Canuke

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jtr1962 said:
It would probably work but you would need a small resistive load on the AC line before the bridge rectifier in order for the triac to turn off. A small incandescent lamp of maybe 15 watts, or perhaps even a 4 watt night light bulb, would suffice for that.

"On the AC line" means in parallel with the bridge, I take it. I could just use a C7 or C9 Christmas light of the same color.
 

jtr1962

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Canuke said:
"On the AC line" means in parallel with the bridge, I take it. I could just use a C7 or C9 Christmas light of the same color.
Yes, parallel to the bridge. I'm thinking of trying the exact same thing myself so if I do I'll post the results in this thread.
 

Canuke

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I look forward to the results, jtr1962. I picked up a C9 light set to cannibalize for sockets, and a set of "ceramic" C9's, so the resistive load is the right color for its associated LED's.

By the way, back to the Home Depot light strings: theirs are the BEST DEAL BY FAR of all the LED light strings I've seen (and they are nearly everywhere now).

Tops is their 70 unit string, multi-color, in the mini-light shape, for $4.99, followed by the "C3" size, any color config, goes for $5.99. The latter are the best deal for all-one-color setups; monochrome mini-light sets jump to $6.99 for 50 lights. I have no idea why having all one color nearly doubles the price per LED for minilights, but the C3's are the same price for all color configs :shrug:

The least deals are the C6 at $7.99 for 50 (all you get for that are bigger plastic "bulbs", they are still just one LED per light) and C9's at $10.99 for 25, but I've no idea if they have just one LED or more per light. That being said, these are still a better deal than comparable strings elsewhere, especially with the bridges.
 

wasBlinded

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My local Home Depot has 70 light C3 multicolored LED strings that ring up as incandescents for only $4.99, compared to $6.99 for the 50 light strings.

There was no label for them on the shelf, so they may have been mis-shipped or something.
 

Canuke

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Incidentally, I did an experiment to see what would happen to the rectifier pod on the Home Depot strings, with increasing loads.

I added one of the Costco ropelights (which, draws 1.75 watts or so per foot on rectified unfiltered DC, about 45 watts), and noticed the pod getting slightly warm. After I added a second Costco rope, the pod became just a tad warmer than body temperature, but still didnt' smoke or anything.

The bridges are encased in insulating plastic pods, hardly a heatsink. Based on that, I'd say that their safety limit, with a lot of margin, is about one amp (120W). As I figured, the 3A fuses in the plug are a holdover from incandescent strings, and probably will NOT protect against a melted rectifier pod. I'd say that's a problem, if someone goes by the fuse, runs 3A through the string and has a fire due to rectifier overheating... not good. (FWIW, the rectifier pod on the "gold box" Philips rope I have, has "1.6A" emblazoned on it, and it's three times the size of the Home Depot ones.)

Apart from that, seeing as the two Costco ropes represent 50x12=600 total LED's downstream in addition to the 70 on the original string, it means you can still safely brighten up a lot of un-rectified LED's with just one Home Depot string.
 
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slvoid

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I bought a set of 2 of the cone shaped ones along with a box of blue icicles. The icicles were a bit disappointed but the cone shaped LED lights were extremely bright and saturated, much more so than traditional christmas lights.
 

James S

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and if you dont mind getting down and soldering a bit, it's easy enough to reconfigure the strings to have the problem number of LED's for the output of your rectifier. I did this with a string last year, full wave bridge rectifier with an RMS output I measured about 180v if memory serves and so I added a third again as many LED's to the end of each section of the string (the phillips strings I had were 2 long strings of led's wired in parallel.) I made each part of the string slightly longer, turning 3 strings into 2 longer ones with a little left over as I recall. I can't recall the actual number of LEd's I added, but you'll have to do the math.
 

EricB

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What are these "C3's" I keep seeing mentioned now?
The small ones, which are called "mini-ice" are labeled "M5", so it's not those, and those along with the G12 and Maxi-rice are the only things smaller than the C6.

Just to report, St. Patrick's Cathedral now has the new Warm White C6's on the strips of pine besides the front entrance. At first glance, they look like regular incandescents, but when you look closer, you see they are a pale yellow, sort of like a cool white fluorescent or mercury behind badly yellowed plastic, or maybe a little like the halogens or whatever those are in many of the fancy shop windows, only dimmer.
 

PB92

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I like them, I have them all around the handrail of my deck......................
 
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