Mixing Brands of LED lights

[JoelSturman]

I am debating what to order from CDI. I currently have about 20 sets of Philips 60 ct C6 LED lights (Target). I am already planning to purchase more than I can afford. I am trying to save some money and not replace all of these lights. However, my new display will require 30 sets. I know the Philips are half wave rectified and the CDI are full wave. The trees (simple flat triangle) are all right next to each other. How much difference will there be in the lights if I mix them?

I am not a *complete* perfectionist, but do not want the display to look stupid either. I guess what I am really asking is an artistic question. My display will be on a hill about 300 ft from the viewers. At this distance will there be a noticeable difference in brightness? What about color? Anyone tried this or have pictures?

Thanks!

[jimswinder]

JoelSturman wrote:

How much difference will there be in the lights if I mix them?

If you mix them as in, one tree (or every tree you have) has the same amount of Phillips and CDI, then I would imagine people would think they were just different colors on the tree.

I.E. If all the trees had 2 strings of Phillips Blue and 1 string of CDI Blue, and the Blues weren't exactly the same color or brightness, they might think you were using two different colors, especially from 300 feet.

But to pull this off I think you would need to do it for ALL your Mini Trees, as opposed to one tree with just Phillip blue and then the next tree with just CDI Blue which would be a noticeably difference.

Guess you really won't know what to do until you can do a side by side comparison.

[JoelSturman]

Thanks for that input. I would love to do a side by side comparison. Anyone close to Springville, Utah have some CDI lights?

I have thought of mixing them, but I am already shorthanded. If I had enough to cover all 15 trees, I would probably do this anyway, to fill in the trees. My dilema is that I need to cover 15 trees and they come in cases of 12!

[jimswinder]

JoelSturman wrote:

Anyone close to Springville, Utah have some CDI lights?

Is Seattle close??

Were you looking for any specific color (s), because all my LED lights are from CDI?

I could mail you down a few sets, (if you pay postage to and back) but don't know if it would get there in time before their sale ends.

I would imagine if you called Paul at CDI, he might be able to send you out some samples also.

EDIT:

Depending on what size strings you are looking for, I may have some extra I could sell you so you don't have to buy a second full case.

[rstately]

The biggest problem with mixing LED's is in the whites.
I bought out the leftover sale LED's from a place here called OSH (Orchard Supply Hardware).
75% off, I spent about 300.00 next season I started plugging them in and I had about 10 different color temps from Green to blue.

I am currently replacing them with CDI. Phillips is one brand I trust to be consistent, but they may not match CDI. all the other colors are not to noticeable in my opinion.

[cmoore60]

At 300 feet from the location where people will be viewing. I really doubt people will say...hey look that string of lights is different. Consistantly mix and you should not have a big issue...such as 2 cdi 1 phillps, 2 cdi....or how ever the numbers work out.

Chuck

[rstately]

cmoore60 wrote:

At 300 feet from the location where people will be viewing. I really doubt people will say...hey look that string of lights is different. Consistantly mix and you should not have a big issue...such as 2 cdi 1 phillps, 2 cdi....or how ever the numbers work out.

Chuck

Wow, That would be nice to have a 300' set back from the street!.
My house is right up close, so they see everything.
I think I would buy a golf cart to get the mail, if my front yard was that big!

[JoelSturman]

Good feedback guys, thank you! (And yes I may be interested in buying some of your spares!)

I knew I would leave some important detail, such as color. The Philips LEDs I have are Blue, both C6 and G20. You cannot distingish a difference at this distance. I cannot string as many lights as I want, and I need to manufacture 15 trees. I am using 2 peices of electrical conduit to form the frame (sitting on ground stakes). I have bolts going through the conduit to create pegs for the strings to rest on. I decided to run the lights in sort of a diagonal patterns back and forth down the tree. One pass works out to be 35.5'.

Now imagine horizontal rows of trees with 5 in the back row, 4 in the next and so on, coming down the hill to form a triangle. 15 trees in all. There could be a slight amount of overlap between rows. I plan on putting Red, Blue, Green, and White on every tree. It is the blue that I hope to save money on. I currently have an estimated 21 sets of 60 lights (19.6' each set). I need 2 sets of these to fill 1 tree. So I would need another 10 sets of blue 50-70 light sets to finish off the color. However, as you can see, this is not like a megatree. It is not many strands going around a tree. If there are more than one, a set would make the top another the bottom. This is why I am so concerned. Since most of my sequencing involves patterns that go all over this triangle, I am not convinced I can get away with changing just a row or a column. The best I could do is put the older lights near the bottom of several of the trees.

[JoelSturman]

If only it was the front yard! I live on a ridge. The nice part is that I have some height over the viewers. But it is the back yard that looks over a field (if only I could take the field over! >:-> The feild puts 300 ft between a street and my hill.