While I deff like the old C9 Christmas lights (they are to me true classic Christmas lights), I don't use the sets I have much anymore because they take too much power...
I've always liked mini lights & thats what i used mostly.

I love LEDs for their intense colors and cool whites, and ofcourse the very minimal power useage is awesome!

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This year my outside lights are normal incandescent mini's, and cool-white LEDs ... basically I'm treating them as 2 different colors I can change colors/do patterns with my setup LOL when I 'flash all' on the mini's, it dims/flickers everything just a bit, 'flash all' on the LEDs caused no dimming at all.


Inside I've gone almost 100% LED.

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I'm not a big fan of "half-wave" sets (even tho most of mine are such) - I can easily see the 60hz flicker
I don't care too much for warm-white, its too ordinary/boring - especially those new LED sets that look just like standard mini's

when I 'flash all' on the mini's, it dims/flickers everything just a bit

Looks like you have WAY thin and long ext ension cable or bad connection somewhere, if the load of few A at most (i guess way less ?) makes so noticable volt drop

The usual is a single diode goes open circuit, and none of the others work. Sometimes the open circuit voltage is enough to arc the open circuit die into being a short, or they flicker from thermal stress. Often they just go dim, or change colour.

I noticed it to be the case in many cheapish LED products (even 1 LED ones which are battery powered), but LED strings seem to hold up ok here

Quote from: xmaslightguy

when I 'flash all' on the mini's, it dims/flickers everything just a bit

Looks like you have WAY thin and long ext ension cable or bad connection somewhere, if the load of few A at most (i guess way less ?) makes so noticable volt drop

Nope, the cords & such are fine (I even checked amps to make sure nothing is overloaded)..
I by 'everything' I meant it dims the entire house just a bit :shock: LOL (not nearly as much as some past wears when I had way more lights, all incandescent)

And what power do you install? To cause visible "effects" it would have to be in kW range, what is for me hard to imagine with Christmas lights...

I'm not a big fan of "half-wave" sets (even tho most of mine are such) - I can easily see the 60hz flicker

Now imagine how they look on 50 Hz

Particularly "nice" is the stroboscopic effect when looking around. Fortunately the canteen I regularly visit has retired the old, cheap LED sets they used to put in the windows during the last decade. The flickering, yellow LEDs (indeed ordinary yellow ones) were pretty nasty.

I got my Edison bill today, 6% higher then last month and 43% higher then last year. (Last year I went out of town, so we did not do Christmas lights) So my incandescent Christmas lights are expensive to use but they look so nice

And what power do you install? To cause visible "effects" it would have to be in kW range, what is for me hard to imagine with Christmas lights...

The incandescents are a little over 7,500 bulbs - which runs a bit over 28a / 3,404w
LEDs show less than 3a for alittle over 6,000 bulbs

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Now imagine how they look on 50 Hz

Since I can see the 60hz fairly easily ... I bet I could pick up 50hz clear as daylight LOL I'd deff want 'full wave' sets there

Most of the LED sets here are half wave sets, the only full wave sets I see are those with a chase pattern in them, as they often are run at 12V or so with a small microcontroller doing the switching via some power switches.

Quote from: Medved

And what power do you install? To cause visible "effects" it would have to be in kW range, what is for me hard to imagine with Christmas lights...

The incandescents are a little over 7,500 bulbs - which runs a bit over 28a / 3,404w
LEDs show less than 3a for alittle over 6,000 bulbs

8-) May you post a photo? I thought "normal" installation is few 100' of bulbs, not 1000's. Then indeed, the related electricity bill might be noticeable...
Well, here such lighting is not a tradition, so I have no guess...

8-) May you post a photo? I thought "normal" installation is few 100' of bulbs, not 1000's. Then indeed, the related electricity bill might be noticeable...
Well, here such lighting is not a tradition, so I have no guess...

Yep, cost of power is one of the reasons I have all those lights hooked up so I can flash 'em with the computer. Running that many lights 'steady on' would not only be boring, but the cost would be
Around here maybe 10% of the houses decorate outside for Christmas (and thats with a few strands on lights), then  there's maybe 1 house in every neighborhood that really decorates

I don't have any photos ready yet, but plan to work on it this weekend (they're gonna go on a somewhat hidden section of my website).
I'll PM (& anyone else who wants to see) you the link once its ready.

Around here maybe 10% of the houses decorate outside for Christmas (and thats with a few strands on lights), then  there's maybe 1 house in every neighborhood that really decorates

I don't have any photos ready yet, but plan to work on it this weekend (they're gonna go on a somewhat hidden section of my website).
I'll PM (& anyone else who wants to see) you the link once its ready.

So yours is the "1 house in your neighborhood"? :-)

LinearSLI/H - What failure happened to the LED string ?

Ash, I think I pulled a wire out somewhere, constantly wrapping them up, then unwrapping them.
I wish I would have put them up and left them now!

When wrapping them loosely that won't happen

Better, just throw them in a big cardboard box, and take back out next time so that they wont tangle