full wave half wave

[kingfish]

how can one tell the difference looking on the box under specs i see no mention of this. i have noticed some lights are just strings and some have some type of block for lack of a better term inline

[Steven]

You can't tell by reading the specs on the box, because there is no standard for what they say there.

However, if you can open the box, you can make some good guesses based on the blobs on the wires.

 

A half-wave set will be wired the same as incandescent mini lights, with a small plug with 2 wires, and 3 wires from the first light.

 

There are several ways that full-wave strings are wired, but the easiest to ID is 3 wires from the plug, and 3 wires to the socket on the end. (These plugs and sockets are bigger because they have diodes in them.) A variation is 2 wires from a small plug that goes into a blob that has 2 wires in, and 3 wires out. There will be another one at the end of the string, and there may be one or more in the middle of the string that has 3 wires in and 3 wires out.

 

Another full-wave variety is a blob after the plug with 2 wires in and 2 wires out. This will pass the rectified voltage all the way to the socket on the end.

 

If you can pull enough of the plug out of the box and can find somewhere to plug it in, you can tell for certain by applying power, then moving the lights (maybe in the whole box) rapidly. Half-wave strings will show as shorter dashes and longer spaces than full-wave strings.

 

All that being said, I bought over 6000 LEDs in 2008 in red, green, and blue in half-wave strings that I have been using on my display every year. They look fine, and can be dimmed with LOR as long as a put a "snubber" (small incandescent 120v bulb, Glade plug, or resistor) on the channel. You will only notice the flicker if you see them in your peripheral vision, and they still look good.