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#1
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Outdoor Christmas Tree With Lights Not In Series?
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 |
#2
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Outdoor Christmas Tree With Lights Not In Series?
You mean parallel. All the ones sold now (IMO) are parallel.
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#3
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Outdoor Christmas Tree With Lights Not In Series?
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. Ten bulbs in 90W, so 100 would be 900W. Thst could cost you several bucks a day to operate. The C7 (7 watt) types are made for indoor use only (or at least used ot be). 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). 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. 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...... 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. This is the year I will probably buy a few strings of them. Mark |
#4
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Outdoor Christmas Tree With Lights Not In Series?
In article ,
"Gary Brown" wrote: 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. You are pretty much relegated to C7 or C9 intermediate base lamps - something that requires ~125VAC to operate. There is a price to pay for this sort of reliability: Your electric bill will be the FIRST thing to notice the change. One string of 25 outdoor lights will consume at least 175 watts. I gave up on miniature (at al) lights YEARS ago, at least in any area where an entire circuit (outage) would be particularly noticeable and a PAIN to service, such as a run along the top eave of a two-story home. Minis are cheap enough to consider them disposable. Many users do. -- JR |
#5
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Outdoor Christmas Tree With Lights Not In Series?
On 26 Nov 2006 13:03:52 -0800, wrote:
You mean parallel. All the ones sold now (IMO) are parallel. Miniature lights are nearly always in series (usually series of 50, but sometimes 35). That's what comes on the pre-lit trees. -- 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 |
#6
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Outdoor Christmas Tree With Lights Not In Series?
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 How about LED lights? Those are in series too, but less likely to burn out. -- 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 |
#7
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Outdoor Christmas Tree With Lights Not In Series?
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 |
#8
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Outdoor Christmas Tree With Lights Not In Series?
On Sun, 26 Nov 2006 16:24:55 -0600, Jim Redelfs
wrote: In article , "Gary Brown" wrote: 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. You are pretty much relegated to C7 or C9 intermediate base lamps - something that requires ~125VAC to operate. There is a price to pay for this sort of reliability: Your electric bill will be the FIRST thing to notice the change. One string of 25 outdoor lights will consume at least 175 watts. I gave up on miniature (at al) lights YEARS ago, at least in any area where an entire circuit (outage) would be particularly noticeable and a PAIN to service, such as a run along the top eave of a two-story home. I know someone who had that problem with miniature lights a couple of years ago. He hasn't put them on his roof since. Minis are cheap enough to consider them disposable. Many users do. Regularly less than $2 (string of 100) some places. I saw a sale this year for 99 cents. I have one which I put a new plug on. That's an old one. I'd never do that now. -- 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 |
#9
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Outdoor Christmas Tree With Lights Not In Series?
In article , Mark Lloyd wrote:
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. I can surely purchase C7 bulbs that consume 7 watts as well as going as low as 4 watts. I think that 6 to 7 watts is most common for C7 (bulb diameter 7/8 inch). As for C9 - it was a fair number of years back when I checked specifications to extent of actual power consumption, but when I did the power consumption was 10 watts. 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). Keep in mind that most LED strings have a low power factor, due to high ratio of RMS amps to watts/volts. Most ameters read the "average" amps (typically a bit less than watts/volts). Many LED strings have ratio of RMS current to average current in the range of 1.5-2. The fuse is sensitive to RMS rather than average current, and so is wire heating. However, I do advocate LED strings to greatly reduce power consumption and to greatly reduce bulb burnouts! Keep in mind that some colors will be different! (with LED green being either a dim yucky dimmish chartreuse-olive shade or a too-bright-to-be-emerald "kelly green" shade, and blue being an eye-catching "deep turquoise" shade, and yellow looking dim compared to orange, red, and the brighter non-yellowish version of green) I advise seeing the string working before purchase, and Target largely/somewhat provides that! 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. I saw plenty of various good LED strings at Target! Even down to a few various bulb cover styles and color schemes! - Don Klipstein ) |
#10
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Outdoor Christmas Tree With Lights Not In Series?
In article , Mark Lloyd wrote:
On Sun, 26 Nov 2006 16:24:55 -0600, Jim Redelfs wrote: In article , "Gary Brown" wrote: 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. You are pretty much relegated to C7 or C9 intermediate base lamps - something that requires ~125VAC to operate. There is a price to pay for this sort of reliability: Your electric bill will be the FIRST thing to notice the change. One string of 25 outdoor lights will consume at least 175 watts. I gave up on miniature (at al) lights YEARS ago, at least in any area where an entire circuit (outage) would be particularly noticeable and a PAIN to service, such as a run along the top eave of a two-story home. I know someone who had that problem with miniature lights a couple of years ago. He hasn't put them on his roof since. Some strings of miniature incandescents have bulbs failing short rather than open due to add-on devices. When failures not responded to by bulb replacements accumulate to the point of rapid cascade failure, you only then blow all bulbs or the fuse. If you insist on incandescent rather than LED, look for strings that have and boast about this feature. - Don Klipstein ) |
#12
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Outdoor Christmas Tree With Lights Not In Series?
wrote:
On Mon, 27 Nov 2006 13:42:36 GMT, Art Todesco wrote: wrote: On Mon, 27 Nov 2006 03:12:02 +0000 (UTC), (Don Klipstein) wrote: Some strings of miniature incandescents have bulbs failing short rather than open due to add-on devices. Usually these things fail because of a bad connection in the socket. All that fail/short stuff doesn't help then. Actually, not my experience at all, in recent years, anyway. Most of the failures have been caused by lamp failures where shunts not shorting out to keep the entire string going. Then why does straightening out the leads on the lamp and replugging the lamp in the socket fix it? Just giggling the lamp and socket can "activate" the shunt. Once the shunt burns through, it will usually stay that way. Yesterday, I installed icicle lights on the house. There are 12 strings, each with 3 series circuits of 35 lamps. Out of the 36 series circuit, about 10 didn't light, initially. Most of those did light when the string was shaken. And, most importantly, never failed after continuing to shake the string, looking for a "bad connection". Only conclusion, the lamp shunt. BTW, some didn't come back to life when shaken. I did use a high voltage unit (Lightkeeper) to zap the shunt. I replace about 5 or 6 lamps in each of the 12 strings. I know, it's cheaper to dump them ............ I have seen bad connections, however, most are in very old strings. The new stuff is cheaper and better as far as connection issues are concerned. As usually, your results may be different. |
#13
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Outdoor Christmas Tree With Lights Not In Series?
On Mon, 27 Nov 2006 03:07:23 +0000 (UTC), (Don
Klipstein) wrote: In article , Mark Lloyd wrote: 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. I can surely purchase C7 bulbs that consume 7 watts as well as going as low as 4 watts. I think that 6 to 7 watts is most common for C7 (bulb diameter 7/8 inch). Every one I've measured (both old and use) used close to 5W. As for C9 - it was a fair number of years back when I checked specifications to extent of actual power consumption, but when I did the power consumption was 10 watts. I suppose the made them like that once. People always want things that save energy. 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). Keep in mind that most LED strings have a low power factor, I just checked that on one LED string, and got about .6 due to high ratio of RMS amps to watts/volts. And I forgot about the loading not being a pure sine wave. Most ameters read the "average" amps (typically a bit less than watts/volts). Many LED strings have ratio of RMS current to average current in the range of 1.5-2. The fuse is sensitive to RMS rather than average current, and so is wire heating. However, I do advocate LED strings to greatly reduce power consumption and to greatly reduce bulb burnouts! Keep in mind that some colors will be different! (with LED green being either a dim yucky dimmish chartreuse-olive shade or a too-bright-to-be-emerald "kelly green" shade, and blue being an eye-catching "deep turquoise" shade, and yellow looking dim compared to orange, red, and the brighter non-yellowish version of green) I advise seeing the string working before purchase, and Target largely/somewhat provides that! 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. I saw plenty of various good LED strings at Target! Even down to a few various bulb cover styles and color schemes! I'll look there. - Don Klipstein ) -- 28 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 |
#14
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Outdoor Christmas Tree With Lights Not In Series?
On Mon, 27 Nov 2006 00:14:39 -0500, wrote:
On Mon, 27 Nov 2006 03:12:02 +0000 (UTC), (Don Klipstein) wrote: Some strings of miniature incandescents have bulbs failing short rather than open due to add-on devices. Usually these things fail because of a bad connection in the socket. All that fail/short stuff doesn't help then. Right. I do have a tester that indicates electric fields and does help with some of those. On other strings, it gives confusing results. Then it's time to replace the whole string. -- 28 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 |
#15
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Outdoor Christmas Tree With Lights Not In Series?
On Mon, 27 Nov 2006 11:31:25 -0500, wrote:
On Mon, 27 Nov 2006 13:42:36 GMT, Art Todesco wrote: wrote: On Mon, 27 Nov 2006 03:12:02 +0000 (UTC), (Don Klipstein) wrote: Some strings of miniature incandescents have bulbs failing short rather than open due to add-on devices. Usually these things fail because of a bad connection in the socket. All that fail/short stuff doesn't help then. Actually, not my experience at all, in recent years, anyway. Most of the failures have been caused by lamp failures where shunts not shorting out to keep the entire string going. Then why does straightening out the leads on the lamp and replugging the lamp in the socket fix it? If the string didn't light, you'd have to straighten (on average) 25 lamps to fix it. The tester I mentioned allows you to just straighten the right one. -- 28 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 |
#16
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Outdoor Christmas Tree With Lights Not In Series?
In , Mark Lloyd wrote in part:
On Mon, 27 Nov 2006 03:07:23 +0000 (UTC), (Don Klipstein) wrote: In article , Mark Lloyd wrote: All C7 are 5 watt. I can surely purchase C7 bulbs that consume 7 watts as well as going as low as 4 watts. I think that 6 to 7 watts is most common for C7 (bulb diameter 7/8 inch). Every one I've measured (both old and use) used close to 5W. With what? And if they all measured the same, did the bulbs all state the same consumed wattage among the ones that stated that? If all with wattage statements stated 7 watts and you have a wattmeter reading them all as 5 watts, especially if the wattmeter is good for a thousand watts or more, I suspect the explanation is that the wattmeter reads loads in the ballpark of 7 watts low by 2 watts. As for C9 - it was a fair number of years back when I checked specifications to extent of actual power consumption, but when I did the power consumption was 10 watts. I suppose the made them like that once. People always want things that save energy. I don't see much in claims of "new improved more-energy-efficient version" or anything similar in the area of colored C7's and less than that in the area of C9's. I see that more for series strings and especially LEDs. Keep in mind that most LED strings have a low power factor, I just checked that on one LED string, and got about .6 Maybe not much out of the ballpark - I figure that if the LEDs have any conduction at all half the time then the power factor should be close to ..7. The relationship is roughly a square root one - power factor in a resistive-current-limited LED string without capacitors is roughly square root of fraction of a cycle that has current flowing. Accordingly, .6 translates to conducting 36% of the time - ROUGH BALLPARK! I consider this roughly true. However, I would rather allow for .5 or maybe .4 power factor when it comes to not blowing fuses or overheating wires. due to high ratio of RMS amps to watts/volts. And I forgot about the loading not being a pure sine wave. Main reason for RMS amps to exceed ratio of volts to watts in most LED holiday light strings. Harmonic content in the current waveform does mainly heat wiring and fuse elements and little else when the voltage waveform is a sinewave or close to a sinewave. Most ameters read the "average" amps (typically a bit less than watts/volts). Many LED strings have ratio of RMS current to average current in the range of 1.5-2. The fuse is sensitive to RMS rather than average current, and so is wire heating. However, I do advocate LED strings to greatly reduce power consumption and to greatly reduce bulb burnouts! Keep in mind that some colors will be different! (with LED green being either a dim yucky dimmish chartreuse-olive shade or a too-bright-to-be-emerald "kelly green" shade, and blue being an eye-catching "deep turquoise" shade, and yellow looking dim compared to orange, red, and the brighter non-yellowish version of green) I advise seeing the string working before purchase, and Target largely/somewhat provides that! 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. I saw plenty of various good LED strings at Target! Even down to a few various bulb cover styles and color schemes! I'll look there. - Don Klipstein ) -- Mark Lloyd -- - Don Klipstein ) |
#17
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Outdoor Christmas Tree With Lights Not In Series?
On Tue, 28 Nov 2006 02:39:12 +0000 (UTC), (Don
Klipstein) wrote: In , Mark Lloyd wrote in part: On Mon, 27 Nov 2006 03:07:23 +0000 (UTC), (Don Klipstein) wrote: In article , Mark Lloyd wrote: All C7 are 5 watt. I can surely purchase C7 bulbs that consume 7 watts as well as going as low as 4 watts. I think that 6 to 7 watts is most common for C7 (bulb diameter 7/8 inch). Every one I've measured (both old and use) used close to 5W. With what? Several different meters, both analog and digital. And if they all measured the same, did the bulbs all state the same consumed wattage among the ones that stated that? State?? These are actual measurements, on strings to old for any markings to survive. If all with wattage statements stated 7 watts and you have a wattmeter reading them all as 5 watts, especially if the wattmeter is good for a thousand watts or more, I suspect the explanation is that the wattmeter reads loads in the ballpark of 7 watts low by 2 watts. As for C9 - it was a fair number of years back when I checked specifications to extent of actual power consumption, but when I did the power consumption was 10 watts. I suppose the made them like that once. People always want things that save energy. I don't see much in claims of "new improved more-energy-efficient version" or anything similar in the area of colored C7's and less than that in the area of C9's. I see that more for series strings and especially LEDs. I haven't seen any in awhile, but then I don't buy many C7 & C9. More miniature and LED. I do remember energy efficiency claims several years ago, and they're not going the wrong way. Keep in mind that most LED strings have a low power factor, I just checked that on one LED string, and got about .6 Maybe not much out of the ballpark - I figure that if the LEDs have any conduction at all half the time then the power factor should be close to .7. The relationship is roughly a square root one - power factor in a resistive-current-limited LED string without capacitors is roughly square root of fraction of a cycle that has current flowing. Accordingly, .6 translates to conducting 36% of the time - ROUGH BALLPARK! I consider this roughly true. However, I would rather allow for .5 or maybe .4 power factor when it comes to not blowing fuses or overheating wires. However, the STRING won't be conducting just half the time. I have done some tests on that. I found 2 types: One is actually 2 strings in parallel, on opposite polarities. Plug one of these into DC and only half the string lights. Change polarity for the other half. The other type has an internal full wave rectifier, so the LEDs light on both half cycles. Polarity does not affect these. The waveform will still differ somewhat from a sine wave, considering that diodes won't conduct in either direction unless the breakdown voltage is exceeded. What I'm saying here is that it will conduct more like 96% of the time than 48%. due to high ratio of RMS amps to watts/volts. And I forgot about the loading not being a pure sine wave. Main reason for RMS amps to exceed ratio of volts to watts in most LED holiday light strings. Harmonic content in the current waveform does mainly heat wiring and fuse elements and little else when the voltage waveform is a sinewave or close to a sinewave. Yes, it will. I never really expected to be able to connect 200 strings together. For one thing, I don't put 14,000 lights on one tree. Most ameters read the "average" amps (typically a bit less than watts/volts). Many LED strings have ratio of RMS current to average current in the range of 1.5-2. The fuse is sensitive to RMS rather than average current, and so is wire heating. However, I do advocate LED strings to greatly reduce power consumption and to greatly reduce bulb burnouts! Keep in mind that some colors will be different! (with LED green being either a dim yucky dimmish chartreuse-olive shade or a too-bright-to-be-emerald "kelly green" shade, and blue being an eye-catching "deep turquoise" shade, and yellow looking dim compared to orange, red, and the brighter non-yellowish version of green) I advise seeing the string working before purchase, and Target largely/somewhat provides that! 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. I saw plenty of various good LED strings at Target! Even down to a few various bulb cover styles and color schemes! I'll look there. - Don Klipstein ) -- Mark Lloyd -- 28 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 |
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