TheMGPremium
join:2007-09-04
Canada
kudos:2 | reply to La Luna
Re: said by La Luna:Stellar idea....ugly, broiling hot, dangerous lights on a PLASTIC tree. 
Still much safer than a dried out real tree. |
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 John GaltForward, MarchPremium
join:2004-09-30
Happy Camp
kudos:5 | reply to Dude111
Re: [Rant] LED lights are ugly crap I use candles... |
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 La LunaSurvived AshrafulPremium
join:2001-07-12
Warwick, NY
kudos:3 | reply to TheMG
Re: said by TheMG:said by La Luna:Stellar idea....ugly, broiling hot, dangerous lights on a PLASTIC tree.
Still much safer than a dried out real tree. They aren't safe on ANY tree unless it's outside. And even then, they're still ugly compared to LEDS. |
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 TOPDAWGPremium
join:2005-04-27
Midland, ON
kudos:3 | reply to Dustyn
Re: [Rant] LED lights are ugly crap those are the lights I got to bad the stings ever hardly last year to year. cheap made in china shit. I hate the color and brightness the LED stuff gives off when I've seen it in the stores. |
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 ArchivisYour DaddyPremium
join:2001-11-26
Earth
kudos:18 | reply to Dude111
Dude, you have spent your entire DSLR career posting about how everything was better in the 80's and there has not been a single great thing to come out of this planet in the last decade.
I want to know what traumatizing effect you went through that caused you to hate everything that is new and better than before.
I also want you to write a list of ten items of things that are better now than they were in the 80's.
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A government big enough to give you everything you want, is strong enough to take everything you have. -MLK |
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| reply to CompUser
Re: said by CompUser:To be honest, I'd love to get an aluminum tree with a color wheel, but my wife wants no part of that. 
This is what we had when I was a kid. 
I have that now!!! I so wanted one like I had in the 70s as a kid and found it on eBay a couple of years ago.
No color wheel yet but I remember the one as a kid that got hot as hell and we were warned every year not to touch it.
Of course me and my sibs dared each other.
Lick your finger and touch it.
Obviously something was wrong with it because we would get a tiny shock every time. LOL!
Ah memories! I am surprised that thin wrapping paper did not go up in flames the amount of heat that wheel put out.
BTW I hate LEDs too. My husband replaced most of the lights in our home where he could with LEDs and I hate the color of the light.
He makes custom light bars for ambulances and such so I should be lucky they are not red and blue and flash in a pattern.
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Expecting the world to treat you fairly because you are good is like expecting the bull not to charge because you are a vegetarian. |
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 Anonymous_AnonymousPremium
join:2004-06-21
127.0.0.1
kudos:2
·RoadRunner Cable
| reply to NormanS
said by NormanS:said by Dude111:PEOPLE REPLACING GOOD THINGS WITH PURE TRASH AND THINKING THE TRASH IS BETTER!!!!!!
Indeed. I replaced my c. 1980 Hayes Smartmodem 300 dial-up modem for a newer ZTE ZXDSL 831II ADSL2+ modem. And it definitely is better; much better!  Just like how cable companies say Fiber optic Internet is bad thing, yet most of their network is fiber optic. On that same ad they say Verizon is A BAD company for having faster internet. . then a few minutes later another ad will run, you can bundle Verizon cellphone service with your cable and yes I know Verizon wireless is partially owned by Verizon. |
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kruserPremium
join:2002-06-01
Eastern MO
1 edit | reply to Anonymous_
Re: [Rant] LED lights are ugly crap said by Anonymous_:LED lights suck for Christmas lights... 99% of them have a shitty refresh rate of 59.8hz. The ghosting or flickering effect is what bothers me the most.
You do not get that "flicker" with incandescent bulbs.
The flicker is because they only use half wave rectification for the dc supply. Remember, LED's run on DC and not AC. This allows them to flicker at 30 Hz and not 59.8 Hz like you stated. It is not a refresh rate either. That is something that maintains the contents of ram or an image on a display screen. Xmas lights (LED or incandescent) do not have refresh rates.
Some people (woman and children) see the flicker more than others and it can actually cause some to have seizures.
There is a very easy cure for this that I tried on entire trees at work. I simply built full wave rectifier boxes and plugged the lights into those. Flicker was gone and all the complaints about flicker also ended.
The one thing I could not fix was the color temp used for the "white" or "clear" LED lights.
They run more at a Cool white color temp which makes them appear blue to many people. They are actually closer too true white than the old incandescent mini clear Xmas tree lamps. Those tungsten type lamps burn with more of a warm white or lower color temp than most LED mini Xmas lights do.
I've seen some manufacturers claim theirs burn with a warmer color temp to look more like the older incandescent mini lights but I never tried them as they were simply too expensive when I'd need to purchase 10's of thousands of them.
The flicker is an easy fix and a nice hour or two project that is very easy to do. The color temp is another story and one that cannot be fixed. Sometimes dimming the lamps along with using full wave rectification does help with the color temp by reducing the overall lumen output which just makes them not stand out as bad.
Then you have some of the colored led lights where the blue bulbs look purple! Those suck as purple is an Easter color and not a XMAS color if you ask me. The other colors in LED Xmas lights are not bad but sometimes they seem "too" colorful when compared to the old incandescent.
The great thing about LED light strands is that you could hook thousands together (in theory) without worry of blowing the tiny cheap ass Chinese fuses in the first set or two of the string.
When you are talking hundreds of thousands of lamps, there is a very significant savings in electrical energy used to power the things.
As far as rectification goes, you can build a small box with a low current bridge rectifier that will power several sets or you can build one with a higher current handling ability and plug entire trees (or sets of trees) into the one bridge rectifier.
Some manufacturers are also selling sets that do have full wave rectification now as well but I've never bought any so can't speak for the quality. |
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TheMGPremium
join:2007-09-04
Canada
kudos:2 | said by kruser:said by Anonymous_:LED lights suck for Christmas lights... 99% of them have a shitty refresh rate of 59.8hz. The ghosting or flickering effect is what bothers me the most.
You do not get that "flicker" with incandescent bulbs.
The flicker is because they only use half wave rectification for the dc supply. Remember, LED's run on DC and not AC. This allows them to flicker at 30 Hz and not 59.8 Hz like you stated. Actually, half-wave rectified LEDs will "flicker" at 60Hz.
Full-wave rectified LEDs will also "flicker", but at 120Hz, which makes it much less noticeable.
Toss in a capacitor and now you've eliminated the flickering entirely.
Unfortunately, it seems that manufacturers of LED light strings don't find the cost-benefit ratio worth it, even though we're talking about pennies worth of extra parts. |
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kruserPremium
join:2002-06-01
Eastern MO | said by TheMG:Actually, half-wave rectified LEDs will "flicker" at 60Hz.
Full-wave rectified LEDs will also "flicker", but at 120Hz, which makes it much less noticeable.
Toss in a capacitor and now you've eliminated the flickering entirely.
Unfortunately, it seems that manufacturers of LED light strings don't find the cost-benefit ratio worth it, even though we're talking about pennies worth of extra parts.
Not sure what I was thinking on the frequency. I'd just finished getting zapped by a phone ringer circuit that I think is 20 Hz so maybe that confused me as it did hurt a little bit!
I was talking about building a filtered rectifier circuit but failed to mention the need for a cap or two depending on what you have laying around.
I used lytics pulled from switching power supplies such as the kind found in today's HDTV power supplies. Those usually have a decent voltage rating as well as a high enough capacitance value so they filter very well. I could fit the assembly into a extra deep handy box along with a duplex receptacle.
The cap(s) and rectifier and fuse(s) would fit under the receptacle as long as I found the right caps.
Some of the caps rated for 350 volts or higher can get pretty large in physical size depending on how they were designed to fit the application they were used in! |
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 Dude111An Awesome DudePremium
join:2003-08-04
USA
kudos:11 | reply to Dude111
said by Burntone :
Be sure use the eighties as your starting point.
Indeed bud,the 80s was the peak of what was good in this world!!!! (Everything started going downhill in 1987 (Slowly but surely)) |
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Host:
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| said by Dude111: said by Burntone :
Be sure use the eighties as your starting point.
Indeed bud,the 80s was the peak of what was good in this world!!!! (Everything started going downhill in 1987 (Slowly but surely)) Keep in mind I am well into a nice bottle of wine but I agree. 
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Expecting the world to treat you fairly because you are good is like expecting the bull not to charge because you are a vegetarian. |
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 NormanSPremium,MVM
join:2001-02-14
San Jose, CA
kudos:9 | reply to Dude111
said by Dude111:Indeed bud,the 80s was the peak of what was good in this world!!!!
Except for Winchester rifles. They started their downhill slide in 1964, and went completely to pot in 1981!
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Norman
~Oh Lord, why have you come
~To Konnyu, with the Lion and the Drum |
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 JohkalCool CatPremium,MVM
join:2002-11-13
Happy Valley
kudos:5 | In addition, from around 1975 up to the entire 80s saw the worst American cars ever made. |
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| reply to Dude111
said by Dude111: said by Burntone :
Be sure use the eighties as your starting point.
Indeed bud,the 80s was the peak of what was good in this world!!!! (Everything started going downhill in 1987 (Slowly but surely)) I think 87 and beyond was a pretty good, I lived on my own, had a good job, had loads of fun. |
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| reply to sivran
Re: [Rant] LED lights are ugly crap said by sivran:Sometimes, during the winter, I can heat my computer room with just the exhaust from my computers and the heat generated by a couple strings of christmas lights. Makes it festive and warm at the same time.
The building I work in doesn't run any heat to the second floor -- all the heat comes from the bodies that work there and the computers they use. |
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| reply to Santa Fe
said by Santa Fe:I like the late 60's early 70's when you had to rant with either Punch Cards or Paper Tape! Those were the rants!
You had punch cards and tape?!?
I had to rant by carrier pigeon! |
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| reply to ebgbjo
said by ebgbjo:I agree. First time I am in agreement with Dude. I think the new LED lights just look too fake- the colors are too bright and vivid, which may be great to some of you, but I don't need lights so bright it burns my eyes to enjoy Christmas.
Now there's a concept for you -- fake light. |
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 sivranOpera ex-patPremium
join:2003-09-15
Arlington, TX
kudos:1 | reply to Dude111
Re: [Rant] LED lights are ugly crap I recently drove around my neighborhood and...either everyone's using LED, nobody's using LED, or I just can't tell the difference.
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Think Outside the Fox. |
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