Which led lights?

[Barrett1179]

Hello all I am new to the idea of a light show and would like to know which LED lights to use with the 16 Channel controller. The lights should be able to handle the effects like shimmer dimming fading. I can not find led light with a 120 volt plug they all seem to have a controller or a dc adapter. Please help

[zvacman]

There are a lot of vendors that deal with 110v LED lights of the commercial quality variety. Check the vendor marketplace toward the bottom of the forum home page.  That being said, I have bought all of my LED light strings from the local box stores primarily for two reasons. 1. I acquired my lights before I  knew this insane hobby even existed. 2. I use a large amount if strings (over 50,000 LED's) and I buy them after Christmas for pennies on the dollar.  I know there is something to be said for buying high quality strings, and for the person using a smaller amount that would be fine. I have been extremely lucky and have only had two strings fail in the last five years. I don't know if it still the case, but I've heard of people using Martha Stewart lights with unfavorable results (unfavorable meaning catching on fire). I have started with RGB's and pixels this year so my regular LED's are probably going to start getting phased out over the next several years.

Z

[Dcroc]

Yup...all my LED lights are from Walmart and such.  Usually buy them after Christmas.  Went out 2 days after Christmas this year, spent $30, and filled a shopping cart.  Some were as low as $0.16 a box. Wife was screaming "We can't afford all this!!!", but when the total was rung up, she was like "oh, do you need any more?".  Only thing I could not find is white LEDs.  Not sure why, but they seem to pull them off the shelf, and not discount them.  Have yet to have a set fail in a display, but if one does....I have totes full of replacements.

[Barrett1179]

Thanks for the info.

[Roxxxtar]

2 hours ago, Dcroc said:

Yup...all my LED lights are from Walmart and such.  Usually buy them after Christmas.  Went out 2 days after Christmas this year, spent $30, and filled a shopping cart.  Some were as low as $0.16 a box. Wife was screaming "We can't afford all this!!!", but when the total was rung up, she was like "oh, do you need any more?".  Only thing I could not find is white LEDs.  Not sure why, but they seem to pull them off the shelf, and not discount them.  Have yet to have a set fail in a display, but if one does....I have totes full of replacements.

I went to Wal-Mart 2 days after Christmas, and the majority of lights were gone. I guess you got them all.

[lstewartff]

Last year I hit every Walmart around me and also went to Hobby Lobby and got lights cheap after Christmas. Really wish I had bought a lot more than I did. I didn't buy any LEDs though. I am going to try and look for those this year.

[oilmoney]

The one thing that nobody has mentioned yet is " full wave ". If you want your light strings to be dimmable over a larger range then you need to buy full wave strings. Most of the vendors we buy from sell full wave, usually you'll see them advertising it on their front page. Most of the big box store lights run at 60hz ( half wave ). Full wave run at 120hz. The vendor I get my lights from is http://www.holiday-light-express.com/.  Their stuff is full wave. You can dim them right down to 10-20% intensity and they are stable. Lights I bought from Canadian tire and Rona usually shut off around 70-80% intensity although the use of a snubber can help extend that range a bit. Search full wave in the forums, you'll see quite a discussion about it, snubbers as well...

Edited September 3, 2016 by oilmoney

[lightzilla]

21 minutes ago, oilmoney said:

Lights I bought from Canadian tire and Rona usually shut off around 70-80% intensity although the use of a snubber can help extend that range a bit. Search full wave in the forums, you'll see quite a discussion about it, snubbers as well...

That sucks. My Can Tire lights dime very well.  The highest I had was 60% ( Home Depot I think ) but mostly my C.T. lights dime around 20%  (some 30% some 10% ). I like my Canadian Costco full wave Leds. They have been very good to me. They dime between 10 & 20% for me on regular V1 & V2 controllers.

[Orville]

Odd you folks have issues with the dimming percentages on LED strands from the Big Box/Discount Retail stores.

I can dim my LED Strands I bought at the Big Box and even the discount type stores like Odd-Lots and every one of those BB stores and Big Lots LED strands dim down to 20% and hold steady.   And all my LED Strands came from Wal-Mart, Target, Walgreen's, K-Mart, and Big Lots, all have dimmed fine, shimmered, all the effects using an older version of LOR software {3.8.2 which I'm still using} and 4 CTB16PC V2 Controllers.

And I have been able to dim them down to 10%, but at 10-20% it's so dim, it's not worth using because it's hardly visible anyway.  Unless you are lucky enough not to have extraneous lighting from other houses or street lamps, and your display is in an area when all lights out it's pitch black, I've found dimming to no less than 40% to be sufficient for the majority of cases in my display.

I only use the extreme lower intensity 10-20% to use as a keep alive if I don't want the lights going completely off in parts of a sequence that has fast moving parts in the song, and mainly the 10-20% are used more for incandescent strands or C7 bulbs {like in my Styrofoam Jack-O'-Lantern's} because it's a little easier on their filaments.  And I don't often replace incandescent bulbs using this method, matter of fact I've got some incandescent bulbs, especially C7's that have been in my blow molds going on 6 years now that I have yet to replace!  But LED's I don't really need to keep them alive as they are faster to turn on and off than incandescent bulbs, so 40% for LED's seems to be the lowest intensity I use on mine, with some exceptions here and there.

 

[EdNetman]

Yup...all my LED lights are from Walmart and such.  Usually buy them after Christmas.  Went out 2 days after Christmas this year, spent $30, and filled a shopping cart.  Some were as low as $0.16 a box. Wife was screaming "We can't afford all this!!!", but when the total was rung up, she was like "oh, do you need any more?".  Only thing I could not find is white LEDs.  Not sure why, but they seem to pull them off the shelf, and not discount them.  Have yet to have a set fail in a display, but if one does....I have totes full of replacements.

I hit up Walmart, Home Depot, and Lowes after Christmas last year. All they had was white LEDs, and a handful of multi color strings.

My mother-in-law was on a quest for clearance blue LED strings. She hit 8 times as many stores as I did and came back empty handed.

The cheapest I found them was still in the $3, range. I obviously need to hit up your area next time, I'll trade you some white for red and green strings. [emoji2]

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[zvacman]

The box stores have really started getting their inventory dialed in. The first year I started with LEDs the only limit to the after Christmas sale on them was your wallet. Last year I only scored 32 strings of red, and two white nets.

Z

[Dcroc]

10 hours ago, EdNetman said:

 

 

I hit up Walmart, Home Depot, and Lowes after Christmas last year. All they had was white LEDs, and a handful of multi color strings.

 

My mother-in-law was on a quest for clearance blue LED strings. She hit 8 times as many stores as I did and came back empty handed.

 

The cheapest I found them was still in the $3, range. I obviously need to hit up your area next time, I'll trade you some white for red and green strings.

 

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I have a ton of blue LED's.  Would gladly swap blue for white.  I need like 20 strings of white for my mega tree.

[EdNetman]

I'll ask my mother-in-law how many strings she needs then send you a message.

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[BryanZ]

I've had great luck with Holiday Lights Express. Granted, you spend more but the warranty and quality is worth it.

My only recommendations when buying from the big box stores are to avoid the Martha Stewart line of lights and plan on how many you will need to pick up at once as things may fade or go out over time. Nothing quite like having mismatched colors in a display. 4 shades of red, one of which is now pink, 3 shades of green, 5 shades of white, etc. Try to avoid that at all cost.

[Sctiger]

One other thing I thought of while I was shopping online. You can gain Skymiles (2miles/$1) through Skymiles shopping when you buy anything online from Lowes. After Halloween I'm sure you'll be able to use the pick up in store feature too.  Since I'm going to be buying them anyway, I might as well help pay for another trip lol.  A LOR gathering in Vegas has a nice ring to it! haha!