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LED Christmas lights - love 'em or hate 'em?
25 CPS:
I'm not a fan of LED Christmas lights. They look dark and cold to me. They're just not that bright and the colours all have a very narrow passband compared to filtering the output of incandescent bulbs to produce the colours the old way and there's no comparison between white LEDs and clear incandescents at all. The white LEDS aren't as bright and not the warm colour temperature at all although some close on colour temperature but can't seem to match the brightness of incandescents. On the other hand when the colour temperature's off, it can be badly off with some of the nastier white and blue LEDs being these offensive frigid looking things that make you feel about 10 degrees colder the moment you look at them.
All that said, I did see LED Christmas lights used for an impressive looking effect about 10 years ago. What someone did in my old neighbourhood was outline parts of their house in bright incandescent lights and then ran LEDs back and forth inside the border to fill out the inside of each area in the corresponding colour of the border but with the dimmer and more narrowly defined effect of the LEDs and it the visual effect of the two put together like that was really impressive. I don't know if it was the homeowner who did this or if they hired someone, and I've only seen this done the once, but it looked great. Whoever came up with that idea knew what they were doing.
Anyhow, my house is strictly incandescent, front and back. When I moved in, I used clear ones following the roof profile and on the cedar tree by the front walk. After about five years of that, I relamped the strings with opaque coloured incandescents which looks really retro and I'm going to run them again this year but when I was checking things out the other day when it was warm out, the sun's given them a beating so I think next year I'm going to shake it up and go back to clear bulbs. The incandescents look so bright and cheerful compared to all the other houses with LEDs on them that it's almost loud but to my mind, that's how Christmas lights should be. It's hard to believe that it's a visibly standout exception now when it used to be completely normal.
My back yard's a pitch dark expanse as soon as the sun sets and I've gone through several different ways of attempting to light it up. Citronella torches and kerosene lanterns gave a nice light but were too labour intensive plus a fire hazard if any got knocked over. Putting a clamp lamp on the back vestibule with a 100 W bulb in it pushed the darkness back a bit for the first part of the back yard but that was ineffective otherwise but I had a string of clear C9 incandescent Christmas lights left over from the front of the house the first year I did that so I put them up on the back vestibule and it looked great and gave the area around that a nice soft glow. With that successful test, I outlined a section of the other three sides of the back yard with a combination of C9 and C7 clear incandescent Christmas lights and that gives a really beautiful soft golden glow that isn't overpowering if I'm out there with guests after dark. I don't usually put them on if I'm out there by myself though.
Ed.Kloonk:
Bah humbug.
Mr.B:
--- Quote from: Ed.Kloonk on November 17, 2020, 11:54:16 pm ---Bah humbug.
--- End quote ---
May the tin whiskers of a thousand circuit boards infest your lab…
:o
themadhippy:
Dont know about other places,but in the uk we tend to get the chavs covering there house in the cheapest pound land lights,all flashing at different rates or crappy light up santas and other tat,for example
pass the insulated side cutters
Ed.Kloonk:
--- Quote from: Mr.B on November 18, 2020, 12:18:56 am ---
--- Quote from: Ed.Kloonk on November 17, 2020, 11:54:16 pm ---Bah humbug.
--- End quote ---
May the tin whiskers of a thousand circuit boards infest your lab…
:o
--- End quote ---
I wonder what Clark Griswald would do with these fancy new LED xmas lights.
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