No flicker Christmas led lights?

I dislike the flickering LED Christmas lights. Are there any brands that do not flicker? If so, where do I find them?

If not, which brands are best? Some I have seen are quite dim.


Thanks.


Chris

I haven't seen any on display that flicker. I assume you're talking about tree lights?

I don't think LED lights have the brilliance and warmth that incandescent ones do. However, the convenience and safety are hard to ignore.

The Philips lights (shiny blue-silver box) at Target seem to be brighter and flicker a little less than the other ones I've seen.

There's been discussions of adding a full-wave rectifier to the light strings. This does eliminate the flicker and boosts the apparent brightness a little bit (I've tried this myself), however you need to be extra cautious with this kind of a setup because 120v DC is more hazardous than 120v AC.

I have observed that any LED strings (including the Philips) flicker when the LEDs are in motion, such as when you're fiddling around with the string. But once installed, I do not notice the flicker, unless I move my head or eyes fast - really fast.

The Home Depot LED lights come with built-in bridge rectifiers, which double the brightness and the frequency of the flicker; you won't notice 120Hz flicker unless you move the lights or your eye quickly.

AFAIK all the others forgo the bridge, which results in a TV-scren-like 60Hz flicker with 15-30% duty cycle as the diodes only use the positive-going peaks of the 60Hz AC wave.

You can add a filter capacitor to filter the DC if even 120Hz is a problem, but the resulting DC voltage (160V) will probably kill the lights. CPF'er jtr1962 has some ideas on how to get around that; there's more info here if you are interested.

After buying 3 sets and putting them on the tree, what I didn't like was the marketing in the lights; at the store, the demo lights were running on batteries and it wasn't showing any flicker.

Lightmania