On Sat, 23 Dec 2006 00:56:07 GMT, Tony Hwang wrote:
buffalobill wrote:
pretest them at home. somehow get them on dimmers so the replacing of
all the burnouts won't make you crazy: you just dim them a bit from
full. and protect them from theft.
gus wrote:
We are putting light bulbs on a large outside tree in a city park. We
have six 100 foot strings of 100 C-9 lights. We have two 20 amp GFI
circuits available. I plan to put 300 lights on each circuit. My math
shows 2300 watts available and C-9 bulbs use 7 watts. This comes to
2100 watts. I will use 12 guage extension cords. The light strings
and bulbs are commercial grade. This all looks good on paper, but I am
worried because there is not much room for real world error. Does
anybody have experience with this many lights? Wasn't there a movie
about a guy causing a large scale blackout when he threw the switch on
his house decorations? I don't want to be that guy. Any help you can
give me would be appreciated.
Thanks,
Gus
Hmmm,
As of this year I switched to LED 100%. Older bulbs are all retired.
This year I had a lot of LED lights (with pictures online at
http://notstupid.laughingsquid.com/winter.html , click to see a
fullsize picture), with more expected next year. There's still a few
things I don't have LED versions of, like the lighted, animated deer.
Nicer sparkling colors
Yes. The colors shouldn't fade in 2-3 years like the incandescents do.
and WAY, WAY less energy consumption.
I haven't gotten to 100% LED yet, but do expect to use less than half
as much electricity as last year (when I had very few LED strings).
When I used bulb I used flip-flop circuit to make lights
scintillate(looks nicer) and lessen the power usage.
My setup is similar, with 2 out-of-phase flashing circuits, so one
(and only one) is on at a time (except the particular time I changed
the wires to take pictures). I do have a fancier flash, using an old
computer to flash them according to Morse code.
--
2 days until the winter solstice celebration
Mark Lloyd
http://notstupid.laughingsquid.com
"Never underestimate the power of stupid
people in large groups"