effect of Light-O-Rama special effects on lights

[TreHammer]

Does the use of Light-O-Rama special effects have a negative effect on the longevity of the lights being used?  Is it better to use LED's instead of standard bulbs?

[jimswinder]

Does the use of Light-O-Rama special effects have a negative effect on the longevity of the lights being used? 

 

**No**

 

Is it better to use LED's instead of standard bulbs?

 

**Define better...less electric bill equals better...higher cost to buy LED's equals not better...if you will need to have an electrician come in and update your service box due to higher amp usage for "standard bulbs" equals not better.

 

I would figure out your display using Incans vs LED's and go from there and see which one will fit YOUR budget...

Edited February 6, 2013 by jimswinder

[George Simmons]

More impressive shimmer effect with LEDs equals better.  Having to re-calibrate dimming rates for LEDs equals not better.

 

LEDs lasting longer, being more sturdy, and not losing any of their color equals better.

[plasmadrive]

Easier to repair incan equals not better. 

Nice warm glow from incans which is hard to match equals not better. 

Bright vivid colors for the life of the LEDs equals better.  (if you don't get the painted LEDs...yes.. I actually have some..unfortunately)

Much faster control equals better. 

Less power for LEDs equals better, especially if you have to put very high light counts on a single channel ie... large trees.

 

Other items as others have listed.

 

[scubado]

More led choices of White = better

led blue rocks!

incads = cheap to buy, but kills the electric bill unless used on items that don't stay on for long.

[plasmadrive]

More led choices of White = better

led blue rocks!

incads = cheap to buy, but kills the electric bill unless used on items that don't stay on for long.

YES... LED BLUE ROCKS!!!! 

[magish01]

YES... LED BLUE ROCKS!!!!

;

Gee plasma, in what quarry DID you get your LED "BLUE ROCKS"?

Edited February 7, 2013 by magish01

[plasmadrive]

;

Gee plasma, in what quarry DID you get your LED "BLUE ROCKS"?

aaahhh... let me rephrase.. Yes... LED Blue, Rocks!   LOL

Edited February 7, 2013 by plasmadrive

[avsphan]

Led blue makes my head hurt...just the blue and only in straight lines.

 

Have yet to see a blue that doesn't.

 

My two cents on the rest, I strung 6 mini trees with 400 mini incans this year, and looking at them when I took them down; pretty sure I'll be paying again this year to get LEDs. The fade is pretty bad even with only one season on them. Probably unnoticeable to everyone but me, but I do see it... 

[edvas69]

Using effects like shimmer and twinkle or lots of fast switching on and of will in fact reduce the life of incands because of the constant temperature fluctuations put apon the filiment as far as how much of an effect in the life span this has, i cant say. Using LEDs will not give you this issue. LEDs are the way to go, even though the up front cost will be more, the fact that you can run many more lights without having to upgrade your services or having to use more controllers to split up the load or the extra cost in electricity makes LEDs not a bad choice in the long run

[ClydeL]

In many instances I have mini incan's that have been used for 5 years with LOR.  Some of those strings are 8 years old.  I also have begun to switch to LED (and the Blue LED's ROCK!!!!).  This will be the 4th year for my C9 LED on the roof line.  1 string had a bad bulb but used the LED keeper to fix it in a few minutes.   

I have not seen any evidence that support any claim that an LOR controller could cause damage to a light string.  I would say from personal experience that I have longer lasting string due to the intermitten use thanks to "blinky-flashy" effects.  A static display runs "all on" and wears on the life of the bulbs.  

 

I will be 90-95% LED next year and have decided to set up a small display with LOR controllers at my mom's house.  I'll be using my old minis and some trees I no longer will be using.

[edvas69]

Not all lights are similar, so a cheap brand may have a less amount of average hours before failing compared to a more reputable brand. The fact that the lights are not on all the time helps increase the life of the filiment but the time measured is not actually measuring the hours the filiment is actually used but instead how long its been in a display.

A couple of things that help prolong the life of incands is to run at 90% instead or 100% and to also use small ramp ups, what this does is reduces the thermal shock. remember that most times a filiment in a light fails is when its turned on and breaks due to the thermal stress. So the frequency at which an incandescent light is turned off and on also has an effect on the life of an incandescent light just like the amount of hours that the filiment is actually being used.

Stated life times on filiment globes are just an average time before failure, so some will blow significantly earlier than the rated hours and other will last significantly longer than the rated hours.

[Orville]

Bright vivid colors for the life of the LEDs equals better.  (if you don't get the painted LEDs...yes.. I actually have some..unfortunately)

Where did you buy "painted L.E.D.'s"?     I have been using and installing L.E.D.'s in many different things for many years, and to be quoite honest I have never seen or even come across a painted L.E.D. anywhere in my travels.   This is the first I have ever heard of anyone or any entity actually painting an L.E.D.!   So I'd be very interested to know where you got them and who made them, just so I can do a little research on them just for my own curiosity, again, since I had never seen or even heard of a painted L.E.D. until now.   So I'm fascinated as to who did.

[plasmadrive]

Bright vivid colors for the life of the LEDs equals better.  (if you don't get the painted LEDs...yes.. I actually have some..unfortunately)

Where did you buy "painted L.E.D.'s"?     I have been using and installing L.E.D.'s in many different things for many years, and to be quoite honest I have never seen or even come across a painted L.E.D. anywhere in my travels.   This is the first I have ever heard of anyone or any entity actually painting an L.E.D.!   So I'd be very interested to know where you got them and who made them, just so I can do a little research on them just for my own curiosity, again, since I had never seen or even heard of a painted L.E.D. until now.   So I'm fascinated as to who did.

They are multi colored and I am not sure where they came from.  I have had them for a few years and when I was taking them down this time I noticed some of the paint was coming off of some of the LEDs.  I am sure I bought them at either Lowes or HD or a drug store 3-4 years back.. I was just as surprised.. I had never seen painted ones either. 

[Orville]

They are multi colored and I am not sure where they came from.  I have had them for a few years and when I was taking them down this time I noticed some of the paint was coming off of some of the LEDs.  I am sure I bought them at either Lowes or HD or a drug store 3-4 years back.. I was just as surprised.. I had never seen painted ones either. 

That's really intriguing and very interesting as I bought my L.E.D. strands from Wal-Mart, Lowes, Target, Home Depot, Walgreen's, K-Mart and CVS, and all mine are anywhere from 6-8 years old with a few as young as 2-4 years.  And none have any indication of fading or painting.  

 

Again, none of mine are painted, however, the encapsulant on some that may have rubbed along something have scratches in them, which could make them appear to have been painted because the scratches will actually dull the L.E.D.'s encapsulant color and could make one think they had been painted. 

 

As the encapsulant over the actual diode is nothing but a hard plastic {usually UV protected for outdoor applications} and a diffuser to help spread the light from the diode, so when the top or encapsulant gets damaged, or dulled, the light of the L.E.D. will also be dull and not as bright.  Which could very well make the L.E.D. appear to have been painted.     

 

Or another option and one I'm more apt to believe has occurred, could be that some encapsulants were not sealed with any type of UV protection for outside use, L.E.D.'s were initially designed for indoor control panel inidcations or some type of indoor indication usage and therefore were not protected with any type of UV protection, so it could be very possible some manufacturer{s} of outdoor L.E.D. strands got hold of some of these older NON-UV protected L.E.D.'s real cheap, used them on some outdoor strands thinking they'd hold up under those conditions, but didn't.   And unfortunately now the sun has washed out {faded} the coloring in the encapsulant over the light emitter, and this fading could look erratic, that is, just a small area may appear to be dull and another area of the L.E.D. that was in the shadows still may look very vivid, again, making it look as though it was painted and that paint had faded from the L.E.D. in spots.  This is what I would strongly suspect has happened.  

 

But without actually seeing the physical L.E.D.'s, it's really a hard call whether they were actually painted or if it just happened to be NON-UV protected ones were utilized in the strands.  A stated, I'd never seen a "painted" L.E.D. in my years of working with them and installing them, but do know the original L.E.D.'s were not UV protected and would definitely dull if used outdoors for any length of time.

 

All the newer L.E.D.'s designed for outdoor use should, by all rights, all have some type of outdoor UV protection in the encapsulant over the light emitter of the diode to prevent this.  But old surplus L.E.D.'s are still out there, unfortunately their is no way to see any real difference between an L.E.D. that is UV protected as opposed to one that isn't, at least not to my knowledge.    So it's a hit and miss situation in some cases when buying L.E.D. strands for outdoor use.

 

If there is a way to tell the difference between an UV protected L.E.D. and one that isn't, I sure hope someone will post that info or the tool used so I can either buy the tool and put it to good use or know how to identify each when I go to buy some new L.E.D. strands for this upcoming 2013 season from the Big Box stores. {I just prefer replacable L.E.D. bulbs as opposed to sealed ones, won't go into details on that, but I have my reason for my personal preference on that score.}