Rookie Mistake.

[JeffF]

Such a simple mistake.

We are doing our roof lines in three colors using C-7 bulbs this year and today I did a little test. Clear and Gold look beautiful but Red is a bit too dim. I ordered 5w bulbs all around without thinking and now I just got done ordering 300 7w Red C-7 bulbs to replace all the Red bulbs on the front of the house(I'm leaving 5w Red C-7s on the sides).

Oh well... live and learn.

-Jeff

[markrvp]

You can also run your brighter bulbs at 75-80% brightness to even things out.

[JeffF]

That's a great idea! If I didn't already press the "buy" button on the 7w C-7s I probably would give that a try first to see how it looked.

I started stringing the roof lights today btw. It feels weird putting up lights in September but with everything we are doing this year, I just don't want to wait and be crunched for time.

Thanks again for the tip!

-Jeff

[JR V]

Don't forget to recalculate your amp usage. You are going to see a spike in amp usage with the higher light wattage.

[JeffF]

Yep, going to be close on a couple strings.

It is funny though... I just got done putting another "gutter" run up on the roof and then measured the wattage of the three different colored runs. All runs have forty-nine 5w bulbs. Gold came in at ~180w. Clear was at ~215w. And red came in at ~225w. All below(gold well below) the calculated 235w I was assuming.

Nothing alarming I guess but the geek side of me just has to share these things.

-Jeff

[Richard Hamilton]

Just an fyi for other folks reading this thread who use LEDs... you are going to see the same effect. Example, red LEDs are going to appear brighter (because that is the most efficient wavelength of an led).

Also at the low end of the fading, red will start to appear first, then it takes a little more voltage for green, and then blue. Like Markrvp implied, it is easy to compensate by having different ramp limits or intensitiy limits.