LED Christmas Lights

LED's are great, if you buy the right brand. I bought a few strings from Target (Philips) and Lowes (Unknown brand) and the Philips stings are the only ones that don't have a burnt out bulb. But I use my LED Christmas lights all year. They work great for over cabinet lighting where you don't see the bulbs, just the light reflecting off the ceiling.

(And no, I don't leave the lights up all year outside the house. That just looks bad.)

 

Indeed. LED strings SHOULD last forever. But take it from a guy who's bought LED strings every year since they've been out - about five years now.... I don't have a set that has lasted the year yet. Yes, some strings are still going strong, but not all strings of any year's batch survived. They are getting better and more durable. The LEDs themselves are robust, but the way most of these strings are made just clobber the LEDs. Eventually we'll get there.

 

I really like the blues, they're very pure and pretty and really
mess with your ability to focus...
.
_H*

 

I don't get the current crop of LED Christmas lights. So many of them have ghetto plastic covers/diffusers to make them look like the cheesy giant bulbs of the '70s. Meanwhile, the incandescents are getting smaller and smaller, with some now using tiny lights that are driven by batteries and can't be replaced. LEDs would be perfect for those kinds of tiny twinkling lights.

Last year, I found a few strings of LEDs they were calling "rice lights" that were nice and small like this and picked those up. I haven't found any more like them yet this year, but while I've been to four or five different stores around me, I haven't yet been to the giant Canadian Tire to look.

 

The reason the white LEDs have a purple cast is the way they make white light. Most white LEDs use a blue, violet, or ultraviolet LED which is coated in phosphor. The high frequency light from the LED excites the phosphor, which then re-emits white light. This causes a couple of side effects: 1) Some of the violet or blue gets through the phosphor, making the lights look cold. You will notice this mostly in the center of the emitted light; 2) The phosphor has a finite life and will die well before the LED. This means that most white LEDs will fail sooner than you might expect, but it takes a long time and the failure is gradual - they get dimmer over time.

Some white LEDs make white light by mixing red, blue, and green LED dies on the same device. These tri-color LEDs make very pure white light, as well as any other color by changing the mix of primary colors.

All LEDs fail over time. Failure is normally defined as half-brightness. The semiconductor junction in an LED degrades slowly with use, causing the output to drop off. Evan so, we are talking about a lot of hours; typically over 10,000 and often much more.

As for your original question, I love LED Christmas lights. The only place I don't use them is on the shrubbery outside of our house, because there I need heat to melt through the snow.

Tom

 

I bought 10 sets (made in China unfortunately) and withing 24 hours, had two sets die on me.
Then a few weeks later, another set.

I had strung these all around the roof, I have two roof levels, garage and 2nd floor.

It was a major PITA, paid 3x the regular price, for lights that are UNFIXABLE.

You basically have to throw them out after !

After the winter, I checked last summer, and another set was acting up.

So withing 12 months my failure rate was 50%. Unrepairable. Paid 3x the price for nothing.

Had I gotten traditional screw ins, but the smallest low energy lights, the wiring would have lasted, made for outdoors, easily 20+ years.
The bulbs are dirt cheap.

Calculate just how long you actually keep the lights on over a year, it is not worth the extra cost for LED's.

Perhaps in California where you don't have winters & ice, your LED sets will last longer. For Canada, they suck big time.

 

I bought a set (China made, of course) that seem to have replaceable LEDs. They even supply two extras in the package. They do flicker (probably at 60Hz!) but from a few paces back they don't look bad. We'll have to see how they last. I'm most worried about the potential corrosion between the LED leads and the copper wire/plate in the socket. Each socket doesn't seem weather tight even though the lights are labeled indoor/outdoor.

They look like:

 

It's the usual thing with Christmas lights; it's not the lamps that fail, it's all of the crappy wiring. I wish someone made really good modular Christmas lights, so you could keep them running without a lot of solder and shrink tubing.

Tom

 

Those LED lights seem to be the way to go! Are they water proof?

I wonder how creative ya'll get out there, I know the rednecks down here get creative is set-up...



















Is there a point where people just say no more lights, or hey I think we have to many? In my neighborhood there seems to be a contest to see who can out do the other.. My yard has 3 illuminated deer in it thats it....

A friends parents erect 2 30' christmas trees in their front yard and the power co. comes out and installs a temp service drop. costs them 20k for the month of Dec. (thats install, power & lights) :huh: :blink: :mellow:

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(hycamguy07 @ Nov 28 2007, 11:31 AM) [snapback]545227[/snapback]</div>

In my neck of the woods, we call that "shining deer". It's okay unless the game warden catches you at it.

Tom

 

Rice Lights

I was at Ace Hardware yesterday and they have Rice lights there, asked the sales person about them he told me they have them at most Ace hardware stores, or can get them....

 

I measured a set of traditional "small bulb" incandecent X-Mas lights with my Kill-A-Watt meter and with about 3 small strands on the tree it was pulling 139 watts. That is the equivilent to two 70watt incandecent lamps or 12.6 of the CFL bulbs PG&E donated to my school for me to give out to people on campus.

I have a hard time justifying running 3 strands of christmas lights when I picture 12 CFL bulbs burning in their place. Lots of wasted energy IMO.

 

Speaking of LEDs, my guitar rock hero used nothing but LEDs for his Liars tour in 2004, an industry first. An exceedingly cool spectacle to complement a great band.

http://www.totalproductionus.com/SiteFiles/june_todd_rundgren.htm

 

I just picked up some LED C9 christmas lights at ACE to try out. They are the C9 (large bulbs) type and were on sale for $8 for a 25 bulb strand.

I plugged them into my Kill-A-Watt meter and they do not pull enough current to register.

As per my above post. Three strands of mini-incandescent bulbs pulled 139watts and given the fact C9 bulbs usually pull tripple the wattage, or more, of mini-bulbs these LED strands could save a good bit of energy and money.

 

Hey... no frown. This is GOOD news. I do find myself needing something that will register below one Watt more often these days though! It's all good.

While some of my neighbors see their energy bill double or triple during the holidays, I notice nothing different. My lights add about 25W to what I normally do. And of course I can still over that with my solar panels, so I think I'll be OK.

 

And lighting up your house and yard with scenes of wildlife, flying sleds, snowmen, and fir trees relates to the birth of the alleged offspring of god in what way, exactly???

"Hey, honey, we're coming up on the birthday of the christ child, who cleansed our souls of sin so we could go to heaven in spite of Adam's disobedience and who said everyone should give away their wealth to the poor. Let's celebrate by building a deer out of light bulbs in our yard and giving our kids the latest video games. Then let's go out with our friends and get drunk on eggnog.

Maybe god will be so busy celebrating his own birthday that he'll be too drunk to notice that we've turned it into an orgy of greed, commercialism, and bad taste."

 

I know. I just frowned because my meter wasn't good enough to detect the draw. I still have them plugged in so I can see how much they draw over time. My guess is it will take all night to detect 1 kWh. lol

Daniel, you'll get no argument from me. I don't light up my house in such a manner but my roomates who own the house have a few lights up for the obvious "festive" reasons and I am not going to tell them they are wrong. Instead I will test out better products for them and next year they can make some changes.

Now, does anyone have any ideas on what would be the best thing to do with old-style xmas lights that still work? I think just throwing them out is rather wasteful yet I also worry about some teenager deciding to hang them up in her/his room and let em burn for days on end.

 

What I want to know is....will my Hallmark light and motion ornaments run off of an led light string? (I've got the original Enterprise light and motion, plus a few others.)

I don't think you can mix strings so it's either all led or all regular old twinkle lights on the tree.

BTW our local utility had a trade in deal. Give them three of the old incandescent strings and they'll give you three led strings. Not bad. Between my Dad, my Mom and me we scored 9 strings of leds (36 per string). The next time I visited them my Dad had them all up. They covered the entire street edge of the roof plus there were some left over for my mother's rose tree. And they look great. I'll definately go led for outside.

But not on my tree if I can't keep my Hallmark light and motion ornaments.

 

I will store them in a time capsule and forget about it. Doesn't it sound right?
My Prius power my outdoor LED ornaments and strings. This is a multi purpose vehicle !! Eco_Holiday friendly.