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Where Have You Found LED Holiday Lights?
glassware asks: "Perhaps you know that LED holiday Lights last hundreds of times longer than regular lights. Perhaps you know that your local utility company recommends them for drastically lowering your electricity bill. But my real problem is, where can you find them? I've found lousy battery-operated LED lights in some department stores; but even in the best stores I give up after a half hour of searching, and so far I see only one vendor making them. Surely there must be alternatives. Where do you get your LED holiday lights?"
Here...Ya lazy bastard
I mean really. This isn't very askslashdot....it's more like AskGoogle -> "led holiday lights".
Duh.
Mordor...a magical, mythical land where women are more rare than dragons--but where every man would rather find a dragon
and so far I see only one vendor making them
Hmmm... I wonder who might have posted the question...
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
As taken from http://www.es.wapa.gov/pubs/files/2001_holiday_lig hts_fs_es.pdf:
http://www.foreverbright.com/
http://www.ccl-light.com/
Nope, ain't a lot out there.
I think many rope lights use LEDs. You should look into those.
I've been trying to decorate a bicycle with christmas lights for some time now. An LED String would be ideal, given knowledge of the power requirements of these bulbs. Sadly, it sounds like the Everbrights have the AC-DC conversion at the base of each bulb, but maybe with one of the so-called inferior brands with the transformer at a more inconvienient location would be easier to hack.
Anyone tried this?
-C
This Sig is a mnemonic device designed to allow you to recognize this author in the future.
I found mine in my neighbour's garden.
(I was too lazy to use Google and buy my own, so I stole them.)
root@aio:~# nmap -sX -iR -p1- # Ho, ho, ho! Merry Xmas, everyone!
They also drastically reduce the chance of fire.
Who knew, a dried up dead tree strapped full of extension cords pumping mad current could be a fire hazard?!?!
Why stick up for big business?
Since I do not support countries which are de jure repressive regimes, forced infanticide, who long ignored an AIDS crisis, and who believe that their people are State property, I do not buy products made in China. Where can you get holiday lights made elsewhere?
I want to delete my account but Slashdot doesn't allow it.
The Foreverbright site (linked from "holiday" in the intro) has a "Where to Buy" link offering a lengthy list of retailers. I haven't checked the shelves yet, but it seems you should look at those little hardware stores and drugstores rather than random department stores if you want to buy them in person.
I hate call waitin`~+~~~
NO CARRIER
I called a few distributors, hoping that I'd be able to get a better price if I bought more LED lights at once.
Short answer is, HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA.
In any quantity that a regular person would buy (as opposed to, say, someone in charge of site purchases for Disney World), you're not going to get a discount, is the long answer. (I'd like to hear contrary evidence, but that is the received wisdom so far.)
I'm not going to buy more than 10 boxes, though. I figure 10 boxes (at $20 a pop) is already really pushing it, but I don't want them for "Christmas lights" exactly -- I want them as general string lights which I might happen to use during the winter holidays borrowed from the No. European pagans, but will also set up in my room etc.
timothy
jrnl: http://tinyurl.com/c2l8yr / foes: http://tinyurl.com/ckjno5
Yes, he's saying he's only found one vendor that makes them,
BUT HE'S ASKING IF ANYONE KNOWS OF ANY OTHERS!!!
That's NOT advertising. Now if the article were a review of these Forever Lights, it would be a Slashvertisement. But he has pointed out the one vendor he's found, but is asking if anyone knows of other sources. (Some pages, such as the LED Museum, mention, "inferior" lights, but give no details on where to find such lights if you WANT LED lights with a transformer at the base.)
As to the Ask Google trolls - I've asked Google and 90% of the links are pages that happen to have LED, Christmas, and light on the same page but do NOT have any content related to LED Christmas lights. The only Google links that came up in my search that were actually relevant were the links posted at the beginning of the article.
retrorocket.o not found, launch anyway?
Here's their page on LED xmas lights.
"Suggested Retail" is $11.95 per string. Case-lot discounts begin at 24 strings.
Just FYI, of course. I'm not trying to advertise here, just inform. Many electrical supply houses (where the real electricians buy stuff) are National Specialty Lighting dealers. You might try one of them.
NetInfo connection failed for server 127.0.0.1/local
Mononoke:
:))
Can you clairify whether those strings need a wall wart, or if (like the foreverbright ones) they just plug into a wall directly?
(Also, white would be nice
timothy
jrnl: http://tinyurl.com/c2l8yr / foes: http://tinyurl.com/ckjno5
Now I know that LED holiday lights may seem all hi-tech and geeky, but regular ones are so cheap and readily available, the LED ones just don't seem worth it.
The 80 light LED set linked to above costs about US$20 and come only in red. I can go to my local supermarket and get a regular 100 light set for $US1.47 in a variety of colors or multi-colored. For the cost of one LED string, I can buy 13 regular ones, and still have change left over. Thats 1300 lights vs 80 LEDs!! Sure the LEDs are more effiecient and sure, they will last longer, but not enough to come anywhere close to making up the cost difference.
I think a better "Ask Slashdot" would be: Gee, holiday lights are so darn cheap these days, what other uses can we find for them?" (and no, they won't run Linux, and no, you can't turn them into a web server....or can you?)
Hey, who else could go for some flapjacks right now?
Raley's (Supermarket) Placerville (Calif) 'bout eleven dollars a string. red, amber & multi(?) color. (Just thought a straight-up, non-hostile reply might be novel.) Cheers!
It was a good deal too at half-price. I forget exactly what price though; maybe $6 or 7? And I only found one string; the rest had sold out already. They are shaped like stars, run on 120V and seem to work well but I haven't put them on anything yet. This was the day after Christmas at a Kmart in Scottsdale, AZ.
Nothing sucks more than trying to figure out which light in a series burned out -- and the LEDs last 20 times as long. And they don't go out on impact.
Every year, I plug in the lights and "debug" the strings, figuring out which lights are dead. It'd be a lot easier to just have them work.
May we never see th
Better idea, go to Target and grab a few coils of their electroluminescent wire, in the car-pimping department.
...
Send me an RFQ. Spec the desired length, spacing, colors, diffuse or water-clear, and pattern. I will reply with a quote for manufacture. LED terminals protected with heatshrink tubing. Blue LEDs will cost approximately ten times more, a bipolar set with alternate LEDs blinking from red to green will be about twice cost of steady-glow or alternate-blink.
...
And grab a tape pinstripe while you're at it. It'll make your christmas tree go faster!
(on-topic: personally, i have an assload of the 2$-a-string lights from wally world, which i have strung from the ceiling with fishing line to give a nice soft light in the living room)
1) China
2) North Korea
3) Iraq
4) Iran
5) The United States of America
If all this should have a reason, we would be the last to know.
Maplin has blue LED Xmas lights. They're £29.99 and that gets you 120 blue LEDs. Thats 25p each! They say theyre discontinued but a friend has seen them still in stock.
Mouse powered Chips, Open source Processors and Lego
Forever Bright is really the only way to go.
They have a patent on the system they use that
doesn't require a transformer and can be strung
end to end. Here's the response I got from
sales@foreverbright.com
All of the retailers listed on our Website
carry our product line, but they did not stock
all locations. This left retail availability
very poor in some areas and many consumers
frustrated.
We're trying hard to convince them to stock all locations as consumer demand for our products
is very high. It often helps when consumers
tell retail store managers they're looking for
a particular product or brand. The managers
report the requests to corporate offices for
future inventory considerations.
Raley's Drugs stocked the Forever Bright line
in all of their locations and we believe they
may have stores in your area. American home
hardware may also be worth a try. Sorry, we
can't sell direct.
Thank you for taking the time to write us.
Happy holidays,
Dave at Forever Bright
...for this purpose.
Yes, he's saying he's only found one vendor that makes them, BUT HE'S ASKING IF ANYONE KNOWS OF ANY OTHERS!!!
I don't know of any others. And I can't imagine that, for the moment, there will be too many of them.
Listen, here's the problem. I love LEDs, but with current technology, they're not really appropriate for this application.
First off, let me state that, for Christmas lights, tungsten bulbs - especially parallel-wired with 120V bulbs - are a huge improvement over the previous tradition of candles in the Christmas tree. But they're still not a great idea:
An alternative would be gas discharge lamps, like those little flicker-flame neons. But they're not without their flaws:
LEDs are a great idea, since they run cool. They're commonly available in a bunch of colors, and with triple-die LEDs, the lights could literally be any color and could change on-the-fly. But there's a downside:
Sure, LEDs are cheap, but they're still an order of magnitude more expensive that the little miniature lights on those cheap Made In Bangladesh light strings. Most people won't pay the extra, will they? (If in doubt about whether consumers know or appreciate quality, consider again VHS versus Betamax, or Microsoft versus Apple.)
The transformer or switching supply would absolutely constitute a benefit to consumers, in that it would virtually eliminate the possibility of getting a shock off the string. But try to explain it to consumers: "Point the mouse at the little picture of a computer on your screen. Click twice quickly." "Stop it! You're being too technical!" Therefore, it would really only become an extra burden to manufacturers.
Dim. LEDs are a hell of a lot brighter than they were a few years ago, and while they throw out a lot of light, it's over a fairly small viewing angle (typically under 45 degrees). The net output is miniscule compared to a tungsten bulb. Most LEDs can't even be seen to be lit in direct sunlight - but even my miniature light set is clearly visibly on.
Viewing angle is small. Readily available high-intensity LEDs are generally meant for automotive taillight and traffic signalling duty. They usually only have a viewing angle of 12.5 degrees. Your tree will look pretty dark if each light is only visible for 12.5 degrees of a walkaround.
How could this be solved? Maybe clear LEDs with frosted housings in order to make the light diffuse over the entire surface of the LED? Good idea, but it's still not bright enough to be satisfactory for that purpose. Nor does the frosting, in practice, diffuse light as evenly as you would want.
My perspective? I love LEDs. They're my favorite modern electronic component. (Second is probably the MOSFET. Overall favorite is vacuum tubes.)
I've got a 1960s or early 1970s Sound A-5000 power amplifier (try doing a Google search for that! Anyone got any info on the amp, e-mail me) which blew its tungsten pilot light. The light was a GE #47 - 6V, 150mA pilot light. Consumes 0.9W off the amp's low voltage supply to light up a dim red indicator on the front panel.
So I took a traffic duty red LED that I had kicking around. Clusters of these are used to make brake lights and traffic lights. The LED is rated for 3,000MCD at 12.5 degrees with a forward voltage drop of 2.1V and a peak current of 30mA.
The resistor was calculated as follows: Vin-Vdrop = 6.3V - 2.1V = 4.2V. R = E/I = 4.2V/0.03A = 140 ohms. Next standard value is 150 ohms, and I used that. When I measured the current through the LED, it was (unsurprisingly) 28mA, 93% of the LED's rated maximum. The forward voltage drop was 2.1 volts. The LED is being driven harder than I would like, and it gets warm after a few minutes.
Even so, the dim red indicator on the front panel is still dim. Right on axis, it'll blind you, but from any other angle, the indicator is still too dim to be useful. Improvements were made by actually grinding down the end of the LED and using clear hot-melt glue to attach it to the back of the bezel, but it would still be unacceptably dim on a finished product. Certainly dimmer than the old GE #47 was, not even as bright as the panel LED on the front of my Viewsonic. And that's with a traffic duty LED, pushed hard.
In summary, naked LEDs are great when viewed on axis, used as indicators or when a fine shaft of light is required. But trying to diffuse them or expect behavior similar to an incandescent bulb is still pushing things... for the moment.
Fire and Meat. Yummy.
Ehh, try this Vendor List instead, since the link doesn't format correctly when I post it as plain text. *hint hint*
Ouch! The truth hurts!
Don't know how many of you are still interested, but here's my last update. I finally found Forever Bright lights for sale at a local Ace Hardware. $24.99 for the blue lights, $14.99 for the red/green lights. Pricey, but worth it if they reduce my electric bill noticeably.
So, I brought them home. The red/green lights are dim. Not very bright at all. The individual lights are small, although the colors are evenly bright throughout the entire string of lights. My first impression was so-so.
The blue lights were spectacular. Blazingly deep blues, the larger plastic around the LEDs make them seem much bigger than usual, and the color is just wonderfully satisfying. I plugged them in immediately and left them on all night. My first impression was extremely positive.
Now, one thing I noticed is that the lights appear to have a 60-hz cycle. If you wave the lights back and forth in the dark, you get a strobe effect. It seems strange to me, but I got used to it. You can only notice it strongly when you are close to the lights and/or moving past them quickly.
So, next morning I plugged my lights back in, and you know what? Both strings of lights were broken. The red/green string burnt out half its length. The blue string was completely dead. I've tried replacing dozens of individual lights, but without much success.
It seems to matter which direction the lights go in. If they go in the sockets backwards, it seems like they don't work. But then sometimes I'll plug the same light back in the same socket and everything will work again. It doesn't make much sense.
So, I'll probably return the whole set and wait for the lights to get better for another year. Sorry to disappoint.
--Glassware