Author Topic: LED Christmas lights - love 'em or hate 'em?  (Read 9892 times)

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Offline AlbertLTopic starter

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LED Christmas lights - love 'em or hate 'em?
« on: November 17, 2020, 02:05:14 am »
I think that with many of us who decorate for Christmas, our tastes are most influenced by what we saw as children.  I was born in 1957, so I grew up with incandescent Christmas lights, mostly C7 and C9 bulbs, and the miniature bulbs which came along later.

A few years ago, trying to be "green" and modern, I bought some multicolored LED light strings for the evergreen hedge along my front sidewalk, replacing the multicolored translucent C7 incandescents I'd been using.  But right from the start, they seemed cold and not very "Christmas-y".  It was several things: the highly-saturated colors, the purple which isn't a traditional Christmas light color, the odd light distribution, and their overall dimness.

I tolerated the LEDs for a couple of years, hoping I'd get used to them, but I finally realized they just weren't going to work.  I replaced them with incandescent strings that I custom-configured with alternating clear and transparent red 5W C7 lamps spaced at 12".  The difference was amazing - the cheerful, warm and bright Christmas lights that I'd loved since childhood were back!   
 
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Offline Cerebus

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Re: LED Christmas lights - love 'em or hate 'em?
« Reply #1 on: November 17, 2020, 02:15:13 am »
I'm a traditionalist, it doesn't feel like Christmas unless I've spent at least half an hour trying to find which bulb on the string is bust, and another half hour trying to find where I left the spare bulbs.
Anybody got a syringe I can use to squeeze the magic smoke back into this?
 

Offline Alex Eisenhut

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Re: LED Christmas lights - love 'em or hate 'em?
« Reply #2 on: November 17, 2020, 03:13:37 am »
Funny, the City is at this very moment installing super bright LED Christmas lights on a pole right outside my window...  :palm:
Hoarder of 8-bit Commodore relics and 1960s Tektronix 500-series stuff. Unconventional interior decorator.
 

Offline james_s

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Re: LED Christmas lights - love 'em or hate 'em?
« Reply #3 on: November 17, 2020, 03:25:30 am »
I've been an early adopter of most LED lighting and have been pleased with it but LED Christmas lights just have not lived up and I went completely back to incandescent, vintage C9 outside, C6 on the tree and miniature for other things. The LED lights are almost all too dim, the colors are bland and not the most pleasant, some are downright sickly looking. there is a wide variation in brightness from color to color, and the worst part is that they almost all are half wave self rectified and flicker very noticeably, at least to my eyes. On top of all that they don't last worth a crap. One of the big advantages of LED lighting is normally the long life, but out of the maybe 2 dozen strings of LED holiday lights I've had most of them started getting dead bulbs within a couple of seasons, some after just a week or so of use. I have incandescent lights that are ~30-70 years old that still works, on the indoor stuff it's rare that more than a lamp or two burns out in a season, they last longer than the LEDs which I think are just overdriven in attempt to get reasonable brightness out of cheap crap 20mA LEDs. Given the relatively low amount of use and the fact that they're used in the winter when the extra heat in the house is usually welcome I'll just stick to the warm, classic, flicker free glow of incandescent lamps.
 

Offline Homer J Simpson

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Re: LED Christmas lights - love 'em or hate 'em?
« Reply #4 on: November 17, 2020, 04:38:09 am »

Christmas Vacation scene.



https://youtu.be/iXaw70X7wb4
« Last Edit: November 17, 2020, 04:42:35 am by Homer J Simpson »
 
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Offline Red Squirrel

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Re: LED Christmas lights - love 'em or hate 'em?
« Reply #5 on: November 17, 2020, 04:54:30 am »
I like them for the efficiency, and bulbs not burning out much... but I hate that most of them use crap LED modules that are not very bright, and lot of them are not even smoothed DC so they flicker at 60hz.  For those I have a bridge rectifier box that brings them to 120hz so it's slightly less bad on the eyes.  I don't want to put a capacitor too as it would maybe exceed their spec at that point as they would be doing continuous duty.  But they should be designing and speccing them this way!  I hate that they don't.

That said, some sets are better than others.  I like when they have them on display at the store since I can quickly tell which ones are actually being fed proper DC and once that are just straight AC.  I finally retired my C9 sets a few years ago and got a LED set that I actually like.

For some other lights I've opted to just use the bridge rectifier box.
 

Offline CatalinaWOW

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Re: LED Christmas lights - love 'em or hate 'em?
« Reply #6 on: November 17, 2020, 06:05:34 am »
I like the larger C7 and C9 bulbs too, but I haven't found them durable.  I lose a dozen or more each season that I decorate (less and less as time goes on) and they have always been a bit hard to find.  I have seen C7 or C9 LED bulbs advertised, but as I recall filling a string with them would make a rich man cry.  I am sure they share the same problem as the incandescent replacements.  Only a limited range of replacement colors were ever stocked for some reason, and they are getting harder to find.  I have never like long mono-color strings or short repeat patterns of two or three colors.
 

Offline james_s

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Re: LED Christmas lights - love 'em or hate 'em?
« Reply #7 on: November 17, 2020, 06:13:42 am »
The C9s don't last nearly as long as the miniature lights, I think they get a lot of abuse, clinking around putting them up, moving in the wind, etc. The local McLendons hardware usually has a good stock of C9 bulbs around the season, and I've ordered cases of them from Action Lighting a few times too.
 

Offline AlbertLTopic starter

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Re: LED Christmas lights - love 'em or hate 'em?
« Reply #8 on: November 17, 2020, 01:07:07 pm »
I'm a traditionalist, it doesn't feel like Christmas unless I've spent at least half an hour trying to find which bulb on the string is bust, and another half hour trying to find where I left the spare bulbs.

I remember the series-wired strings, and Dad changing the lamps one by one to find a bad one.  One brand of parallel-wired lights had a slogan on the box: "When one goes out, the rest stay lit".
 

Offline madires

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Re: LED Christmas lights - love 'em or hate 'em?
« Reply #9 on: November 17, 2020, 03:16:04 pm »
I've converted an old cheap string of fairy lights with miniature bulbs to color-changing LEDs (the variant with slowly changing colors). Looks very pleasant. And it never becomes boring because the LEDs have slightly different delays. From my experience a lot of LED fairy lights are too bright. So I add diodes or resistors to adjust the brightness. If you like larger lights you could buy strings with transparent (also colored) plug-on thingies, like stars, snow flakes and so on. You get the plug-on thingies also separately in packs. Grinding paper can be quite helpful for a less beamy light. Buy only LED light strings which are powered by DC (usually by a SMPSU), and choose the color temperature carefully. In most cases it's going to be 2700K (warm white), but 4000 or 6000K can work great in some environments too. Don't expect LEDs to be a direct replacement for bulbs. It's a different light source and the fairy lights need to be designed accordingly.
 

Offline AndyC_772

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Re: LED Christmas lights - love 'em or hate 'em?
« Reply #10 on: November 17, 2020, 04:47:31 pm »
Now I have LED lights, which don't seem to die just because they've been stored in the loft for a while, I miss the game of "what ridiculous overkill test equipment can I use to find out which bulbs have died this year?".

String of fairy lights, £12.99.
Keysight 34465A to find the dead bulbs, £1252.

I'm sure there are plenty of more amusingly costly ways to do it... over to you!

Offline Cerebus

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Re: LED Christmas lights - love 'em or hate 'em?
« Reply #11 on: November 17, 2020, 05:01:45 pm »
Well, a TDR is the obvious first point of call. On an older one, like one of the old Tek ones, the trace is possibly even going to look a bit like a string of Christmas lights with a little vertical blip of discontinuity as the impedance changes as you go though each bulb.

However, I'm sure we can come up with something a bit more exotic than that.

Why yes, you all should consider that a challenge.  :)
Anybody got a syringe I can use to squeeze the magic smoke back into this?
 

Offline asmi

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Re: LED Christmas lights - love 'em or hate 'em?
« Reply #12 on: November 17, 2020, 09:07:21 pm »
When I was a kid, my father explained to me what the binary search is and demonstrated it as he was searching for a burnt out bulb. Still remember what it is 8)
 
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Online TheSteve

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Re: LED Christmas lights - love 'em or hate 'em?
« Reply #13 on: November 17, 2020, 09:23:47 pm »
Indoor mini lights I use LED. Outdoor on the front of the house we switched back to incandescent and haven't regretted it for a second. Every time we come home from a walk or a drive etc and see the bright warm glow along the front of the house it makes us smile no end.
VE7FM
 

Offline Refrigerator

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Re: LED Christmas lights - love 'em or hate 'em?
« Reply #14 on: November 17, 2020, 09:51:29 pm »
I hate, hate, HATE flashing LED christmas lights. Especially the real cheap ones that flash rapidly, who the hell enjoys looking at these?
They all have all these rapid, constantly changing flashy patterns but none of them have a nice slow fade. One of my favorite modes in the old lights that i have is the slow fade-in and fade-out into different colors. I actually used those lights in my uni dorm room as ambient lighting (nanoleaf eat your heart out).
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Offline 25 CPS

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Re: LED Christmas lights - love 'em or hate 'em?
« Reply #15 on: November 17, 2020, 11:09:27 pm »
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.
 
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Offline Ed.Kloonk

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Re: LED Christmas lights - love 'em or hate 'em?
« Reply #16 on: November 17, 2020, 11:54:16 pm »
Bah humbug.
iratus parum formica
 
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Offline Mr.B

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Re: LED Christmas lights - love 'em or hate 'em?
« Reply #17 on: November 18, 2020, 12:18:56 am »
Bah humbug.

May the tin whiskers of a thousand circuit boards infest your lab…
 :o
Where are we going, and why are we in a handbasket?
 
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Offline themadhippy

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Re: LED Christmas lights - love 'em or hate 'em?
« Reply #18 on: November 18, 2020, 12:30:02 am »
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
 

Offline Ed.Kloonk

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Re: LED Christmas lights - love 'em or hate 'em?
« Reply #19 on: November 18, 2020, 12:35:57 am »
Bah humbug.

May the tin whiskers of a thousand circuit boards infest your lab…
 :o

I wonder what Clark Griswald would do with these fancy new LED xmas lights.

iratus parum formica
 

Offline aargee

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Re: LED Christmas lights - love 'em or hate 'em?
« Reply #20 on: November 18, 2020, 01:28:51 am »
I bought a hundred of those 'candle' flickering LEDs (the type they use in electric tea lights), I'm about to retrofit an old set of lights with them - they are warm white and have a very pleasing visual look.
Not easy, not hard, just need to be incentivised.
 

Offline S. Petrukhin

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Re: LED Christmas lights - love 'em or hate 'em?
« Reply #21 on: November 19, 2020, 10:47:34 pm »
I'm a traditionalist, it doesn't feel like Christmas unless I've spent at least half an hour trying to find which bulb on the string is bust, and another half hour trying to find where I left the spare bulbs.
And another hour to untangle the string. :)
And sorry for my English.
 

Offline AlbertLTopic starter

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Re: LED Christmas lights - love 'em or hate 'em?
« Reply #22 on: November 27, 2020, 05:38:22 pm »
The photos in this article illustrate the hideousness of "warm white" LED Christmas lights: https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/2020/11/24/christmas-lights-early-decorations/ .  Note especially the third photo from the top, of the house with all of its windows outlined in that sickly, green-tinged LED light.

Not that I'm criticizing the homeowners - I'm always glad to see someone go to the effort of decorating - but the public has really been misled about LEDs being aesthetically equal to incandescents.
 

Offline S. Petrukhin

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Re: LED Christmas lights - love 'em or hate 'em?
« Reply #23 on: November 27, 2020, 06:03:14 pm »
The photos in this article illustrate the hideousness of "warm white" LED Christmas lights: https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/2020/11/24/christmas-lights-early-decorations/ .  Note especially the third photo from the top, of the house with all of its windows outlined in that sickly, green-tinged LED light.

Not that I'm criticizing the homeowners - I'm always glad to see someone go to the effort of decorating - but the public has really been misled about LEDs being aesthetically equal to incandescents.

It's a matter of taste, I think. Someone likes bright and juicy colors, and someone likes pastel and soft.  :)

Excuse me, is this a link to the legendary Washingtonpost? The site is 3/4 full of ads and an intrusive offer to buy a subscription?
This is the first newspaper I read in English when I was studying at the institute...
And sorry for my English.
 

Offline AlbertLTopic starter

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Re: LED Christmas lights - love 'em or hate 'em?
« Reply #24 on: November 27, 2020, 06:25:32 pm »
Yup, that's the Washington Post all right - owned by Jeff Bezos of Amazon!
 


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