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Don Klipstein

In , wrote:
On Mon, 11 Dec 2006 01:38:21 +0000 (UTC), (Don
Klipstein) wrote:

In article . com,
wrote:
the manufacturers are trying to figure out how to make them fail sooner
so you keep buying more.....

just think of it light sets that last forever? sales just STOP

currently there working on a tiny bomb to go off after a year or two to
discourage reuse. just part of the set will quit.......

And we'll buy from someone who does not timebomb them! Sales throughout
the entire industry will plummet once ones that don't have burnout
problems hit the market. However, manufacturers of ones that do not burn
out will have continued sales from population growth and from people who
add more lights every year and from replacement of units mangled by
children, pets, accidents and lost during moves. Smart consumers should
cause burnout-ones to be the ones whose sales drop to zero!

Remember "Forever Bright"? It appears to me they're still around, only
with their lights now having the Philips name! Whether or not the
Philips ones are actually what was made under the "Forever Bright"
brand, you can get those at Target!
And if Philips starts timebombing them (I expect they have too much to
lose in sales of other goods if they would stoop to doing that, so I
expect they won't), someone else will find a profit motive to sell
non-timebombed replacements!

- Don Klipstein )

Don, I doubt anyone thinks that much about a product that costs about
the same as a large coke from McDonalds.
Target had 100 lights for $1.89 before Christmas. If you go back there
the day after Christmas they are less than a buck. It is not worth
taking them off the tree you are throwing out. They are disposable.

I use a plastic tree. So I would rather not get disposable lights.

Heck, I have better use of my time than disassembling and reassembling a
Christmas tree every year! I stuff the darn thing into a closet and pull
it back out and fluff it back up every December! And I want the %$#*&^%#%
lights to work at that time and at the same time 4 years later!

What about lights used in heavy-usage displays where electricity
consumption may be considerable? Use an LED string instead of an
incandescent one and reduce power consumption by maybe 20 watts per
string for perhaps 400 hours per year (depending on the strings in
question) (assuming 12 hours/day for a bit over a month), in 10 years
that saves 40 KWH of electricity worth maybe $8-$9 based on average USA
"residential rate", maybe $11 in the metropolitan areas of Philadelphia,
NYC and Chicago.
OK, that does not sound to me like a rate of return quite as good as
that expectable from a decent stock index mutual fund, but I would add
some value to elimination of frustration with burnouts and buying
replacement strings and (for those who store the tree non-disassembled)
restringing the tree!

- Don Klipstein )