Retail Lights

[HVACR]

Hello, Just asking if anyone else has seen this. The local walmart  has only about 25% of the christmas decorations and lights as last year. I bought more lights at the end of last season that they have on the shelf (Holiday Time LED's). The local ACE's didn't order any strings of LED's like they did last year. They only have the 150 light rolls of lights. Also green is a hard color to find. I bought 30 box's of red and walmart pulled the shelf label down. I guess that means I bought them out? Only 30 box and that was last week. I am putting up all my lights for my first show tomorrow. Thanks. HVACR.

[Jaynee]

I've found green is hard to find in my area as well.  Isn't green/red the traditional Christmas color duo?!  Don't know why it's so hard to find this year!

[FirstClassPro]

I have noticed Walmart having a much smaller selection this year from previous years as well.

[Psjoe]

Home Depot has limited lights also. All the fancy crap now. Haven't checked LOWES yet. Iv'e been looking for a norange small LED string.

 

Try these websites, I used them last year:

Novelty lights .com

christmaslightsetc.com

 

GL

[Roxxxtar]

I needed green and could not find them. I ordered 3 reels/ 150 lights each, of green C9s off of Walmart's website.

[paralegalnc]

Lowes online.... got a bunch.

[Psjoe]

Went to 4 stores today to check local inventory. All pretty disappointing. Noticed the whole Xmas sections were smaller.

Ended up ordering some strings online. LED Warehouse.

Im pretty much set for this year but wanted more strings to make my mega tree bigger. 

[Gary N]

Green LEDS are the most expensive to make I believe.  Some good sites for LEDs I found are, The christmas light emporeum, Christmas designers, Just a note, I have found big box store LEDs will fail in a few seasons. Water and road salt(if you have that problem), will rust the diode very fast. The waterproof, full wave lenght are more expensive but they will last, at least I hope.  I bought around 150 sets this year because big box store LEDS crapped out on me last year.

 

Good luck with set up

 

GARY

[danbeveridge]

I have also had a hard time finding solid color lights; and have to work on a tight budget, that being in mind, this may be helpful at least next year to some(I know we are mainly worried about this year, but always have to look ahead!).  Lowes had tons of ge multis at the end of the year last year seventy-five percent off so I bought out all the local stores.  My kids and I pulled out all the bulbs in the corresponding amount of strands to colors and replaced them to make solid strings.  You would be surprised just how fast you can actually do a whole set of them(key is to keep them wound up and goes much easier).  It was fun for the kids--at least the first fifty or so--and cheap for dad.   Just a thought to pass on.  Hope everyone's lights go great this year!  And God bless!

[TonyD]

I have also had a hard time finding solid color lights; and have to work on a tight budget, that being in mind, this may be helpful at least next year to some(I know we are mainly worried about this year, but always have to look ahead!).  Lowes had tons of ge multis at the end of the year last year seventy-five percent off so I bought out all the local stores.  My kids and I pulled out all the bulbs in the corresponding amount of strands to colors and replaced them to make solid strings.  You would be surprised just how fast you can actually do a whole set of them(key is to keep them wound up and goes much easier).  It was fun for the kids--at least the first fifty or so--and cheap for dad.   Just a thought to pass on.  Hope everyone's lights go great this year!  And God bless!

 

Have you tried to use those strings you've converted? There's been lots of discussion on here about doing that (swapping colors) and then having to change the resistance built into the string. I'm definitely not the expert on it but you may want to test out those strings for extended time periods to make sure they don't fail prematurely.

[danbeveridge]

I would like to know to save future frustration if anyone has had trouble; but myself, I have had no trouble.  I ran them for probably about five weeks or so five hours a night with no troubles at all.  I don't know how anything would change considering the lights themselves are the same--just the color is different.  But I have been ignorant to facts I have blindly overlooked before, so if anyone knows of any issues I'd love to know--and certainly wouldn't want to pass on something that could be a problem.

[TonyD]

I would like to know to save future frustration if anyone has had trouble; but myself, I have had no trouble.  I ran them for probably about five weeks or so five hours a night with no troubles at all.  I don't know how anything would change considering the lights themselves are the same--just the color is different.  But I have been ignorant to facts I have blindly overlooked before, so if anyone knows of any issues I'd love to know--and certainly wouldn't want to pass on something that could be a problem.

 

Sorry I should have asked - are these LED or incandescent? I think only the LEDs would be a problem (I think the different colors require a different voltage). Still if you ran them as much as you have without a problem then i think that a pretty good test.

[1983ss454]

I would like to know to save future frustration if anyone has had trouble; but myself, I have had no trouble.  I ran them for probably about five weeks or so five hours a night with no troubles at all.  I don't know how anything would change considering the lights themselves are the same--just the color is different.  But I have been ignorant to facts I have blindly overlooked before, so if anyone knows of any issues I'd love to know--and certainly wouldn't want to pass on something that could be a problem.

Different color LED's have different voltage requirements, if I remember correctly red LED's use the most. I've seen people change the multi Walmart lights to single strings and they work. Others I've heard all the LED's blow after lighting for a short period

[mcha]

I have gone down this road and lost a couple of strings by switching multi to single color.  Red and green are the ones affected the most. You can toast every light in the strand quite easily.  Look at the rating on the tag of different strings and you'll notice the different power req., you can also test them out with the kill-o-watt meter and see the difference.  

[Orville]

Not only can you "toast" the LED's, but feel the ends of the strand as well as any rectifiers{bumps} in the strands, if these are TOO HOT to hold, then you're setting yourself up for a possible fire hazard!    I have changed out strands like this as well, some worked, some didn't.  Some stayed cool or just got very slightly warm to the touch, others got fiery hot and blew every LED in the strand, some blew the rectifiers, and one blew the fuses in the plug, and one actually melted the wiring coming from the male/female pass through plug at the start of the strand.

 

Any testing should be done outside, away from any structures and preferably on a slab of concrete so that of something does go awry, you don't burn your home down or set fire to your lawn or trees!

 

And it is because each color LED does have different voltage ratings and specifications.

 

Definitely better off and safer to buy solid color LED strands than attempting to convert other LED strands to a solid color.   The converted strands WILL fail within a year or two.    I know, I tried doing this when i first got into this hobby in late 2009 early 2010.  

 

I actually have 2 strands that I converted to green back then that still work today, 98% of the others that were converted have actually gone belly up, been scrapped and those strands thrown out.