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| LED Christmas lights - love 'em or hate 'em? |
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| james_s:
Well I'm not religious so I never cared one way or another about that side of things. Christmas is a family tradition for me and I enjoy the traditions, celebrations and lights, it cheers up the otherwise cold, dark and gloomy season in my half of the world. If some want to pretend that these mostly ancient Pagan traditions have something to do with Christianity that's totally fine with me. If someone doesn't want to celebrate then that's fine too. Don't come in here and complain though, we were having a perfectly good discussion about decorative lighting. |
| bombledmonk:
I disliked led's until I permanently installed this. https://photos.app.goo.gl/2p6MU5JZiiSphiRCA (video) |
| RJSV:
AlbertL: Thanks for your thread, here is a picture, of my LED controller (bought at local Auto Parts store). Up top, of the 3-D Paris scene featured on Hallmark greeting / holiday card. There are both white light and the regular usual R-G-B sets. I've brought the wires out to a breadboard for easy changes. Controller is that little square box; there is a remote. Bringing up RED feature, some LEDs are below deck, for a 'dawn-like' effect with controller sequencing. Up top, I made a simple 'egg crate's light baffle, for downward lighting (Blue and white led). |
| Zero999:
I've generally had a positive experience with LED Christmas lights. I now have two sets. A large one of 100, which cost £8 and I have around my tree at home and some much cheaper lights at work, which I've modified. The cheap set is made of two sets of 10 lights, which were originally designed to run off two AA batteries. The LEDs were all wired up in parallel, without any series resistors. I cut them into strings of 5, connected them in series and powered them off a 12V mains adaptor. I don't like the deep blue/indigo/violet LED lights, which look very harsh, but white (both ice and warm) are nice and multicoloured is always good. I've not noticed any flicker. All of the LED lights I've seen run off a DC power supply, rather than directly off the mains. |
| VK3DRB:
I just evaluated some Christmas lights. Quite ingenious. Two wires out the controller. All 100 LEDs are monochrome. They use PWM to drive the LEDs, reversing the polarity to switch between one set and the next. So with two wires, they create a vast array of patterns. The wiring we very well done. It runs on 4.5V (3 x AA cells), and so electrically it is safe. This entire set cost $10 ($7 USD) RETAIL. The lights had no regulatory certifications (eg: the mandatory RCM mark), and RF emissions are quite detectable on an AM radio within a few metres. The cost of the set was probably a dollar or two out of China. I suspect the people who manufactured this were prisoners or slaves; but one thing is for sure - those who buy them do not spare a thought for the people who put them together. Today, Christmas is more about jing jing jingling of the cash register, hoarding more stuff and gluttony - not too much goodwill and almost no thought about the Christ in Christmas. I don't want to sound like one of those big note look-at-me celebrity, but this year we decided to give no-one in the family gifts, but have sent a sum of money to a local food bank to help mainly foreign students who are stuck here due to COVID to get a Christmas hamper. I won't know who they go to. But it would be nice to know who actually put the Christmas lights together, and send them something in appreciation. At least when you turn on your Christmas lights, or pop some bonbons, spare a thought for those who assembled them. |
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