LED not fading correctly

[jonstacey1]

I Bought some Walmart brand of LED's thinking they all were the same, well as I read some of these forums, I have learned they are not. I am having this particular problem with my LED not fading correctly. I have 8 strands of C9;s tied together, and well i think like 3 strand fade correctly, while the next 2 dont, then 1 does, and then the other 2 dont. Does this make sense to anyone? Also, Do I want full wave, or 1/2 wave, I think those are the terms, I cannot seem to find this information on the boxes, for the the lights. I have read that I may need a "snubber", and I was wondering How to make this Item.


Thank
Jon

[Ponddude]

You have a bunch of questions here so lets start at the beginning.

Full wave and half wave LED's will work with LOR. The difference between the two basically is in the brightness. Full wave LED's are much brighter. Also, half wave LED's have a flicker that a lot of people see...I'm one of them and it drives me up a wall!!

If the box doesn't say whether they are full or half, you can really just tell by how bright they are. Another way I use is by taking a group of the lights in my hand with them on. Then I give them a shake and if the lights stay "smooth" they are most likely full wave...i know, I am weird.

It is interesting to me that the some of the strands work correctly and others don't. Basically with LED's, there is so little power draw from the strands that the triac that LOR uses doesn't know there is a load on the channel. So it begins to not function properly. However, the more strings you put on, the more load that is created, so you should have no problems. The strand of lights you are talking about probably draws about .03 amps each. So 8 of them should draw .24 amps. That should be enough to work correctly with LOR, but for some reason it isn't working.

The snubber you are talking about is made in a few different ways. One of the easiest ways is to take a short length of SPT 1 or 2 and put a single C7 or C9 bulb on that strand. That will create the load and help the strand function correctly. Another way is doing what the Crazy Light Lady did by building these terminators.

http://crazylightlady.us/TerminatorsHow-To.html

Either way will work.

Hope this helps.