100% LED lights LOR... bright enough.... anyone doing 100%

[Guest guest]

Ok I've searched the database... not many messages with LED in them.

From reading what I did I would like to know if I buy 100% LED lights and LOR products then is there anything i WON'T be able to use. (Eg Led lights wont dim or fade.. i dunno if this is true just an example)



Second , anyone here using 100% Led show... are they bright enough? what are some concerns? Do you have videos of your 100% LED show with LOR



Third reading The crazy womens' website she suggests that LOR is not the best for LED lights because you can't set on and off points... dunno.. any help?



Lastly, what LED's are you all buying?



Thank-you in advance

First timer, DetroitDR

[Guest guest]

First welcome to PC, Second Please update your profile with you city and state.

Third, I have about 900 led's for next year, I dont think that the LED give enough light out so I am only using them on my fence.

[Guest guest]

I believe the Latest firmware update from LOR fixes all problems with LEDs. I plan on flashing my firmware in the next few days and testing the leds. So I'll let you know...

I just bought regular A/C LEDs from Rona...

-Evan

[Guest guest]

I have switched many of my lights to LED this year. I am not 100% led because some of the wireframes I have are minis, net lights are minis and my mini trees are minis.



That being said, I had some strings of LED C-3's that I put on the roof and used as stripes. I did not have any problems using LOR to fade, flash, twinkle or other.



Videos are located on the website http://www.mslight.org/ourlights.html you can either download them or check them out on the youtube links that are posted.



I had 3200 LED lights on the mega tree and they performed perfectly.




edit: Picked them up at Home Depot

[Guest guest]

I'm not fully LED, but used about 12,000 this year. The stranded light sets from Creative Displays are what I used most of (c6s). These were great, and are very bright. The are considered "full wave" lights, so that don't have the annoying flicker that I could detect in other sets.

Yes, it is true that some LEDs do not dim/fade well. The sets identified above were great with LOR and the latest upgrades to firmware. They also seemed to work best of the "blue board" models of LOR, not the older Green boards.

The so-called "replacement" bulbs C9LED replacements particularly did not work with fading. You had either "all on or all off". They were great looking, but did not perform as expected.

So, where I want C9s I use the regular C9 bulbs for now. I will likely increase my LED investment this year. But will be interested in other colors and sizes, namely: in the size category I'm interested in M5's (similar to regular Mini lights in shape); as for colors there is a Candlelight color, more of the Blue, and maybe purple.

Of the current colors I used:

• 
  
• The Red (C6's from Creative Displays) is vibrant, but not as bright as the other colors, so I had to use it sparingly, in combinations with other colors, or when the other parts of the display were not too bright.
  
• The Green is very bright (C6's from Creative Displays as well) ...
  
• The Blue is an awesome color, and also very bright (C6's from Creative as well) ... really liked this color.
  
• And Winter White ... this is a color that just takes some getting used to. And be warned it does not match the color from your clear Minis. So, don't expect a monochromatic look to your color scheme if you mix LEDs with Clear Minis.

There are many long discussions on this topic in the LED section. I'm not sure that the search function goes very far back. But, I'm sure this topic will get started up again as the winter progresses.

Hope this helps. Oh, and just incase you have noticed, this topic, like many others have strong advocates with varying opinions. My suggestion is before you order you clearly know what look you want then post your idea here, to see if anyone has tried it first -- we'll be happy to advise you. Trust me, you don't want to find out on the eve of lighting your display that your light investment will not work.

All the best,

T.

[Guest guest]

I found over 6 pages doing a search on "LED lights" so there is a lot of info out there for LED lights.


[align=right] 1 2 3 4 5 6 ...

Parts of this bulletin board may not function unless you enable JavaScript (also called Active Scripting) in your browser.
[/align]

I'll add my part too. I used C6s LED and the replaceable C7s LEDs and was very pleased with the C6s. The C7s are junk. They don't dim up or down (I realize it's probably a firmware problem), they are .80 to .96 watts per bulb (which can add up fast) and when snow or water gets in the sockets, then problems start to occure with the controllers/GFCIs. My suggestion, stay away from the screw in/replaceable LED bulbs.

Hope that helps.

Tom

Edit: re-wording

[Guest guest]

The videos below are 2/3 LED, 1/3 regular mini.

Can you tell which is which?

[align=left]
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lfp8QNfPM94[/align]


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Eaze3NwQqBY

[Guest guest]

GS wrote:

The videos below are 2/3 LED, 1/3 regular mini.

Can you tell which is which?

[align=left]
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lfp8QNfPM94[/align]


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Eaze3NwQqBY

I can't tell but, your yard and display is fantastic. I especially like the effect you get when you go from red to blue and get that wicked fuscia purple colour.

-Evan

[Guest guest]

My main reservations, other than cost, is the look. It's a unique work and very colorful, but it hasn't quite grown on me to the point where I"m willing to throw out my warm-looking (albeat energy-gobbling) mini lights. I'll phase them in, but until they start looking more like mini's, I won't be doing a 100% replacement any time soon, especially since the price is something like ten-times higher, at least.

-Tim

[Guest guest]

GS, very nice. How many channels are you running?

and no I can not tell.

The reason I'm asking about brightness on LED's is because I live in a "tight" home community where my neighbours are only 6 feet between us.. so there is a lot of SPILL from them and street lights...

[Guest guest]

I only searched the LOR board for LED, not all as I want to ensure there are no issues with LOR equipment.

Thank-you

[Guest guest]

GS wrote:

The videos below are 2/3 LED, 1/3 regular mini.

Can you tell which is which?

Not sure I'd be 100% but I can sure tell some of them are. Not that it's bad, it's just a completely different look. And I think video tends to blur the distinction -- in "real life" I can always tell.

-Tim

[Guest guest]

tfischer wrote:

GS wrote:

The videos below are 2/3 LED, 1/3 regular mini.

Can you tell which is which?

Not sure I'd be 100% but I can sure tell some of them are. Not that it's bad, it's just a completely different look. And I think video tends to blur the distinction -- in "real life" I can always tell.

-Tim

Tim, I agree, LEDs are a different look (more neon looking). The rope in the foreground is LED red at 20% power. The 18 spiral rope trees (joy to the world vocals) are regular rope. Again, those spiral trees are courtesy of Tim's web site.

Glenn

[Guest guest]

Of course to see LEDs in full action you must see the Lindsay Lights video:

http://www.lindsaylights.com/Videos/index.html

[Guest guest]

UPDATE::

OK Just in case anyone cares, I updated my firmware from 3.0 to 4.01 and tested my recently purchased LEDs and there is no problems. They fade lovely.....

Can't wait for 07's display.

-Evan

[Guest guest]

We have found the C6 LED sets generally fade just fine if only a few sets are connected together. HOWEVER, all of our wrapped trees that have a minimum of 20 sets DO NOT FADE PROPERLY with LOR...this is using the latest/greatest firmware available.

I'm not sure at what point (i.e. how many sets) the dimming is affected, but on average, 2 or 3 sets connected together work fine. Our bushes and wrapped trees etc. needed help. We made resistive terminators which plug into each of the circuits that have 20 or more LED sets. This imitates a 5W resistive bulb.

What happens without the resistive load? Well the dimming just doesn't happen.....when the dimming should happen, the LEDs just flicker on and off.

Hope this helps.

Martin

[Guest guest]

lindsaylights wrote:

We have found the C6 LED sets generally fade just fine if only a few sets are connected together. HOWEVER, all of our wrapped trees that have a minimum of 20 sets DO NOT FADE PROPERLY with LOR...this is using the latest/greatest firmware available.

I'm not sure at what point (i.e. how many sets) the dimming is affected, but on average, 2 or 3 sets connected together work fine. Our bushes and wrapped trees etc. needed help. We made resistive terminators which plug into each of the circuits that have 20 or more LED sets. This imitates a 5W resistive bulb.

What happens without the resistive load? Well the dimming just doesn't happen.....when the dimming should happen, the LEDs just flicker on and off.

Hope this helps.

Martin

I have also found this to be true on HCs blue and white LEDs (red and green work fine???). A few strings are fine, but put many in a row and they loss their dimming. I resolved the problem by putting a set of mini lights on the channel.

Glenn

[Guest guest]

Hi Glen & Martin,

I have noticed that some of what you have said as well. Although I do not have more than 8 sets plugged end to end. (Again I'm using C6s from Creative Displays ... the Fullwave kind sold in 2006.)

Here are a couple other issues I've noted during the season:

• 
  
• When it has rained and the lights are still damp ... the flicker or fade problems seem to be worse --- (Note: I'm the only person who notices ... casual viewers don't notice ... even when I point it out.)
  
• Using Green Board LORs from 2005, I found that the older version of the Firm ware worked better on the fades.
  
• Mixing different colors end to end also seemed to affect the fades.

Under normal operating conditions (dry), aside from some timing issues between the LED and Non-LED lights all the C6s function as expected. None of the above lights required a resistive load.

T.