I hate the fact that you can't get more than 2 years max out of Christmas lights.
LEDs are expensive, but what does the collective suggest for quality Lights? I'm thinking of going C9, because I never had the entire strand die, just a couple bulbs to replace every year.
In reply to SyntheticBlinkerFluid:
Die-hard incandescent x-mas light hoarder here...
LED's look like crap.
Some of my x-mas light strands were my dad's, take care of them and they last.
Take the bulbs out every season, roll up the strands and box them up, no knots the next year.
Taking the bulbs out also lets you make sure they are in the correct order next year.
big time hoarder here too. love the lites. i have some C7 and C9 LEDs, in the fake ceramic coating. they look the best, IMO. i prefer the look of regular incandescent for the minis though. i cant swallow the power cost of the real C9's either.
also, its nice to able to attach 170 sets of the LEDs end to end. yes, 170. as opposed to 2-4 sets from anything else. when running along the gutters, thats REALLY handy, as you have no need to run a new cord to a start point every 50 ft.
on the OP. id recommend GE industrial/commercial for the minis. they are REALLY tough. usually sold in rolls of either 300 or 600. also tough to repair when the time comes, cause the bulbs are press fit to the holders, and the holders fit REALLY well into the sockets. but they are rated to hold their own weight for up to 60 ft spans and i have yet to damage the three rolls i have.
as for the LED c7's and c9's, i like the ones my wife got me from (of all places) Michaels (yes, the craft store). they are REALLY short, (like 12ft), but if you watch for the sale, and bring a coupon (40% off tacked on to already 20% off sale gets you each set for around $4.50), then the length doesnt matter, just get lots of em. like mentioned, you can string together enough to go about 1.7 miles.
and im still a fan of the combination 140 sets that blink in waves and flash and such. used to be called multi-function. i have at least 15 of those, but i didnt see any at lowes this year, so they have finally fallen out of favor for the programmable LED's...which i despise.
-J0N
EDIT- also, i have found in my time (abut 15 years doing lites as a side job) that leaving the lites ON in the rain and snow drastically increases their survival. somthing about the heat keep em from corroding and failing when you DO turn them back on. BUT, make sure your cords ans such are out of standing water, (DUH).
Big time Christmas light guy here too. I even have my lights dancing to music (which I program myself, instead of the store bought stuff) and broadcast on FM radio. To add a GRM touch, I even have a Bradley GT in it. I had 3 individual circuits installed in my panel this year to handle the electrical draw.
I have a mix of LED and incan. They each have their merits. Yes, incan C9s will go bad too, just like the minis. Also, keep in mind incan C9s are power hogs. A set of 25 C9 lights draws about 1.5 amps, where a regular strand of 100 minis draws roughly .25-.30 amp.. A strand of LED...C9 or mini draws something like .05 amp.. As jmthuderbirdturbo said, you can string a crapload of LED together. With incans, the limit is about 8 mini strands, or 2 C9s. Anything more and you blow the fuses in the strand.
As for where to get them, honestly all my stuff comes from Wal-Mart, Target, etc... Do some of them blow out? Sure. But most last at least 5 or 6 years if you take care of them. The ones that blow out are cheap to replace. I always hoard the after Christmas clearances and buy whatever they have. I'm not picky, I'll find a way to use anything. Last year, I picked up an entire case of multicolor mini lights for $.50/box and LEDs for $.75/box. I've found that replacing the few that break each year with the Wal-Mart stuff is cheaper than buying the real expensive stuff, which can still break. I'm slowly converting my display more towards LED, as it'll allow me to have a whole lot more lights for less electrical draw.
I'm planning on permanently installing a length of rgb led rope lights around the eaves on my house. Since the controller will let you pick nearly any color I figure I'll just change the color for the holiday.
we have an led set for the front porch. bought 2 cheap 250 bulb strands from wal mart for the tree this year. (first year having a tree in our house since we bought it)
right out of the box a section of 50 lights is out. my first time dealing with finding a blown bulb, hit the google, learned a multimeter is a huge time saver to find the problem, and I felt like a berkeleying hero when I fixed it in minutes. Sure beats what my mom does, keeps returning the lights until she gets a strand that works out of the box.
Here's mine. Pardon the narration... LOL
https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?v=10152106077216318&l=1951533115657844094
They were about $80 per set. There's about $1200 worth of lights there around the whole house. I could really do with 1 more set.
failboat wrote: we have an led set for the front porch. bought 2 cheap 250 bulb strands from wal mart for the tree this year. (first year having a tree in our house since we bought it) right out of the box a section of 50 lights is out. my first time dealing with finding a blown bulb, hit the google, learned a multimeter is a huge time saver to find the problem, and I felt like a berkeleying hero when I fixed it in minutes. Sure beats what my mom does, keeps returning the lights until she gets a strand that works out of the box.
Nice job actually taking the time to try to fix them. My experience in trying to fix them has been less successful. If the entire strand is out, that's usually a blown fuse and I can swap that in 2 minutes. But if half of it is out, I've had very little success fixing them. However, out of the 80-100 boxes of new lights I bought in January of this year on clearance, maybe 2 or 3 had issues when I pulled them out. The rest are fine, so it's not a big loss.
In reply to Klayfish:
fwiw, I had to work in small sections to isolate the problem, generally in groups of 10-15 lights. for whatever reason if I tried to test a section of 25 lights, the multimeter would not beep even though there was no fault in that section, probably just small cheap wiring and too much resistance.
All of our strings are probably 20 years old. We take reasonable care of them. That said, it might soon be time for new ones! LED's are too pricey. Most of our sets were purchased on After Christmas Clearance for next to nothing.
Our tree.
Sweet! Nice tree. I'll have to try to snap some pictures of the inside and outside of our house. We're getting to the point where it's over the top...who am I kidding, we're long past that.
Oh, I can't wait to get out the Christmas Dolphin...
In reply to Klayfish:
Thanks, the tree is all the wife's doing. LOL She spends an entire day or more getting it just right. I want our whole damn house covered in christmas lights as well as all the trees in front and back. I want it to take me like a week to get it all done. That would be when I'd say I'm done.
We have a 3 foot tree and some christmassy welcome mats and oven mits. That's the extent of our holiday cheer.
Conquest351 wrote: In reply to Klayfish: Thanks, the tree is all the wife's doing. LOL She spends an entire day or more getting it just right. I want our whole damn house covered in christmas lights as well as all the trees in front and back. I want it to take me like a week to get it all done. That would be when I'd say I'm done.
Keep adding slowly, and you'll get there. I started the programing work for the music back in February. Did some prop work in the summer and early fall. The actual set up of my outside display started Nov 1st. I took 3 weekdays off work, plus worked every weekend and all Thanksgiving week to set it up. I don't know how many total hours, but it's well over 50. The inside of our house didn't take as long, but still took quite a while...and isn't quite done yet.
We are going to put a strand or two on our potted avocado tree in the back yard. Bah humbug.
No lights for me. The festivus pole will have to go up at some point though.
oldopelguy wrote: I'm planning on permanently installing a length of rgb led rope lights around the eaves on my house. Since the controller will let you pick nearly any color I figure I'll just change the color for the holiday.
That was what I was going to do !!! I thought I had a good idea there then you could change the colors for Xmas Halloween valentines st Patrick's.........
Klayfish wrote:Conquest351 wrote: In reply to Klayfish: Thanks, the tree is all the wife's doing. LOL She spends an entire day or more getting it just right. I want our whole damn house covered in christmas lights as well as all the trees in front and back. I want it to take me like a week to get it all done. That would be when I'd say I'm done.Keep adding slowly, and you'll get there. I started the programing work for the music back in February. Did some prop work in the summer and early fall. The actual set up of my outside display started Nov 1st. I took 3 weekdays off work, plus worked every weekend and all Thanksgiving week to set it up. I don't know how many total hours, but it's well over 50. The inside of our house didn't take as long, but still took quite a while...and isn't quite done yet.
Video is a must...
I haven't gotten video yet, need to get the camcorder or the wife's iPhone. I ran outside to make some adjustments and took a few quick shots with my old digital camera. It's spread out over a big distance so it hard to really capture it well in photo or video, but you'll get the idea. I took a few shots of the Bradley. It looks better when viewed from the street as you drive by...a definite 10 footer. Here's a link to the album and a couple of the pictures.
Bradley photo
Photo of some of the lights that dance...it was hard to catch them all on, there are more that aren't lit, such as arches on either side. Those are the Bradley headlights in the far background
Our Christmas villiage
Our big family tree. We cut one down every year from a tree farm.
There are good uses for led christmas lights.
Like this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=D2FX9rviEhw
or this: http://www.albinoblacksheep.com/flash/lights
I don't have the time or exterior outlets to crazy outside the house but I get a little carried away with my trains
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zyxoJ1uFq_M
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O0IkQJfTdgY
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i0z-bpry6JI
I didn't have enough exterior outlets either. Like I mentioned, I had 3 additional ones put in just for this purpose. Now I'm using 5 circuits, each can hold 15amps. Though as I transition to LED, the draw goes way down.
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