On Sun, 26 Nov 2006 16:03:48 -0600,
wrote:
On Sun, 26 Nov 2006 13:52:09 -0500, "Gary Brown"
wrote:
Hi and Happy Holidays,
I've had it with series Christmas lights. Are there outdoor trees
with lights not in series?
For clarification, when lights are in series if one goes out they all
go out. I want some where only the burned out bulb goes out.
Thanks,
Gary
You make it sounds like your trees should include lights.
THEY DONT.....
You have to add the lights....
(unless you are talking about pre-lighted plastic trees).
If you want parallel wired lights, use the old C9 strings. Those are
the traditional outdoor lights that have been around since the 1950s
(or maybe the 40's). The disadvantage of these, they use lots of
power. The 9 means 9 watts.
That was just discussed here. They use 7 watts.
Ten bulbs in 90W, so 100 would be 900W.
6A (720W).
Thst could cost you several bucks a day to operate.
And those bulbs have to be replaced a lot.
The C7 (7 watt) types are made for indoor use only (or at least used
ot be).
I haven't seen any "indoor only" in a long time. C7 lights can be used
outside, and consume 5 watts. So do G40 (globe shaped).
Maybe there is an outdoor variety (not sure). There are also
some 5 watt ones, but I believe they are also called C7 (I think).
All C7 are 5 watt.
The latest thing are the LED lights. I have not tried them, but I
have seen em in stores and they look like the mini bulbs without all
the hassles.
Here's a picture
(http://notstupid.laughingsquid.com/g.../xmas2005k.jpg) of some I
had last year. They're all over the big bush. I had some red, green,
blue, and yellow. The yellow didn't look very good. I guess others
thought so too, since I didn't see any for sale this year. The other
bushes have regular miniature lights.
I should have some pictures of this year's lights online soon. They
will be at
http://notstupid.laughingsquid.com/winter.html .
Unless you cut or break a wire or a dog chews them up,
they should last forever, and they wont eat huge watts of power....
Just a guess, (maybe someone can give an exact figure), but 100 LEDs
probably use 10 watts at most......
I measure about .015A (2 watts) for a string of 70 LEDs. Ten of these
strings (700 lights) use .15A (18W), about the same as ONE string of
35 miniature lights.
At that rate you could leave them on 24/7 for the whole month of
December and only add a few dollars to your electric bill.
I expect a significantly lower electric bill this December, even
though I'm still using some incandescent lights.
It would take 200 70-light strings (14,000 lights) to use 3 amps (the
fuse rating).
This is the year I will probably buy a few strings of them.
Good. BTW, one Wal-Mart I know has LED icicle lights. I put those on
the sides of the house.
Mark
--
29 days until the winter solstice celebration
Mark Lloyd
http://notstupid.laughingsquid.com
"Unlike biological evolution. 'intelligent design' is
not a genuine scientific theory and, therefore, has
no place in the curriculum of our nation's public
school classes." -- Ted Kennedy