Stripped down props due to failed LEDs

[ItsMeBobO]

Stripped down the tomato cage trees today and dumped over $400 in the trash. It was sad and irritating that this 2010 season purchase did not last longer. The LED strings were not sealed well and a number of them failed last season. Never could get them to work again. The failed strings had cable ties every foot to a few strings which still worked but I dumped them all.

My display now has zero regular LED strings. Three mini incan props from 2008 are still working fine, are repairable, and were much cheaper.

Replacing the LED strings with LOR pixels this year. Sure hoping this expensive purchase lasts more than one season.

[Dennis Cherry]

Get them out of the trash, your LED Tester will be available to help fix them for this year. Look for the tester this fall or PM me.

[Max-Paul]

Bob, where did you get these strings. Was it a vendor or a big box store? Sorry to hear that the strings where made poorly.

[Orville]

I got some sealed strings at no cost to test, just to see if I really wanted to go that route, put them outside for testing as lighting in my garden area, both strands FAILED in different ways, the Orange C6 {I believe was 100 ct} type now barely illuminate and have been removed, many of the LED's won't even light, the ones that do, light up at about 4-5% brightness, extremely dim.

The Warm White C6 set still in the garden, been out there for "rain/weather" testing since March 2012, I believe it is a 200ct string, it has many failed LED's that don't even light, leaving dark spots along the strand. Some areas have 2 to 3 bulbs out in succession, other areas have 1 or 2 bulbs out with 1 or 2 bulbs that still light between them.

I have a lot of older REPLACABLE LED strands from different big box department, discount and close-out stores that are still going strong, just replace a non-working LED here or there.

So after my testing the LED sealed strands as opposed to LED replacable strands, the replacable ones have outlasted and continue to work 100% with a LED change out from time to time. And yes, I have had the replacable strands go bad, but not within a few months of testing, they lasted for 4-5+ years {I started with the replacables long before I got into LOR in very late 2009, very early 2010}.

So for me and my opinion, I'm sticking with REPLACABLE strings, they have literally been more cost effective and more reliable than the sealed strings I got to check out and see how well they'd work for me, the sealed strands just couldn't hold up to long term exposure outdoors. I've used replaceable strands in my garden outdoors for landscape lighting for quite a few years, and those strands are still functional.

So I'll keep going to the big box retail, discount and close-out stores for my replacable LED strands, they have, as said earlier, just been a lot more cost effective and longer lasting.

Again, just MY experience and opinion between sealed and replacable LED strands. Your usage and milage may differ.

[plasmadrive]

I bought a few hundred strings from Target on line last year. I used about 60-70 strings for my 2011 display. I had 4 strings go bad and Target credited me back for them since they had no replacements. The rest work just fine. They are the ones that have replaceable LEDs.. I bought a few hundred sealed strings this year from one of the vendors that we all use. We shall see how they do this year.

[rainyoregonchristmas]

I bought over 100 strings of the Depot's "Black Friday" sale LED's over the last two years. They are super cheap, only 1.99 the first year, $2.50 the next. They have replaceable LED's and steel leads, but even with Oregon's weather I have only had three strings fail. It took me about 30 minutes per string to find and replace the bad LED. But after changing the LEDs they were back up and running. My perspective is if I loose the string after a year of use I'm still ahead of the game replacing them for the first 4-5 years.

[Surfing4Dough]

I got some sealed strings at no cost to test, just to see if I really wanted to go that route, put them outside for testing as lighting in my garden area, both strands FAILED in different ways, the Orange C6 {I believe was 100 ct} type now barely illuminate and have been removed, many of the LED's won't even light, the ones that do, light up at about 4-5% brightness, extremely dim.

Maybe they gave them to you for "no cost" since they were defective to begin with.

Plus it probably depends where you buy such lights since quality may differ between various vendors (just as we know it does amongst big box stores). Curious where you got the "no-cost" ones that you tested?

[Orville]

Maybe they gave them to you for "no cost" since they were defective to begin with.

Plus it probably depends where you buy such lights since quality may differ between various vendors (just as we know it does amongst big box stores). Curious where you got the "no-cost" ones that you tested?

Unfortunately I don't recall who sent them off hand as that old account where that info was located in PM's is no more. But these were brand new strands, not used, sent for me to evaluate to see how well they would work out for me, sadly, they did not. And I do believe they came from vendors, but I don't honestly do not recall. Actually created a video of some issues with flickering during very slow fades in both directions, 0 to full and full to 0. The video is still somewhere on my vimeo account, but is marked as private so not everyone would be able to even view the vid or read the info about them, but that was about the fading issue.