I've been holding onto my incandescent string lights because the 60hz flicker of LEDs are annoying. Is the tech better now? My bulb strings are slowly burning out and without knowing which bulb is dead, it would take me all day to go through each one
LED flicker is caused by low quality drivers.it's a solved problem but you're still going to get shitty drivers in cheap fairy lights.also you're going to want to find white LEDs in colored glass bulbs because raw colored diodes look like ass.
>>2872737Is there a way of knowing which string light sets would have the better drivers? I assume all bigbox stores (lowes, walmart, home depot. etc) are out?
Thank
>>2872732>Is the tech better now?no. Nothing beats incandescent for those bright star-like points of light. LED are inherently directional so they will look like shit no matter what.
>>2873331Do they still sell incandescents though? I thought everything is LED now
>>2873335I don't know where you live but every home depot and lowes still has a selection of basic white incandescent lights. Same with most department stores and even amazon.
>>2873336well i'll be damned youre right. ill pick up a few boxes, sure they use more watts but i prefer the way they look over leds
>>2873337Consider this: a 100 count string of Christmas lights takes about 40 watts, if it's LED, it only takes around 5 watts. So the incandescent ones are an order of magnitude more energy hungry than LED. Assuming you aren't a retard and only have them out for the socially acceptable period of the weekend after thanksgiving until the weekend after new years day, you probably have them up for about 45 days. I'm also assuming you have them on a cheap dusk sensor that turns them on for about 8 hours, since it gets dark around 5, they'll run from 5pm until 1am before turning off. So 8 hours a day for 45 days. For that 100 count string of incandescent lights run as above, it will cost you a total of $1.35, if your electricity cost is the same as mine (10 cents/kwh). Multiply this number by the number of 100 light sections you have. For LED, it will only be about 15 cents. That's way less, of course, but we're talking about saving pennies.The only reason, IMO, to go to LED lights that look worse on every account is if you're the kind of person who has thousands upon thousands of lights, like the people who are in the news because it takes them an entire week to set up all their lights. Excessive amounts of lights. IF you only have a few strings around your eves and maybe one around a tree out front, plus the ones on your tree itself, you'll probably spend a total of 10-15 dollars in electricity to run them for the entire season. These are lights that are going to be up for a holiday- Obviously you want LED for your every day lights that you use all the time, that's a no-brainier, but I never understand the whole "I must save a dollar even if it means my decorations look like shit." attitude.
Where on a commercial string of Christmas lights is the driver? In the plug? I I haven’t seen them with large power bricks. Is the voltage on the string DC? It must be, so put a capacitor in where a led should go and you’ll be good.
>>2873341excellent post thanks anon.I'm only planning on 2-3 strings max across my balcony rail (live in a condo right now) and they are only on from dusk till 12am. So I will eat the extra few $ for the next two months to have incandescent
>>2873346It's usually a power brick with outlets on it, see picrel.
>>2873346the strands I have there is a 2" thin cylinder along the wire near the back end of the string, it gets hot when the LEDs are plugged in so im assuming its there
