# Blue Philips LED icicle lights! (pictures)



## Redhook6

I've always liked the idea of putting lights on my house during the holidays, but I haven't gotten around to it until this year. I love LED technology, and I was in Target a few days ago and found that they now carry blue LED icicle lights. Each strand uses 4 watts of power and has 70 LEDs, and costs $15. Yes, that's a little high, but they are LEDs - they will last for many seasons and I don't need to worry about bulbs going out! 

Nine strands (630 LEDs) later... 


















I'm quite happy with how they come out, and once Thanksgiving Day passes, I'll run them off a "dusk to dawn" photocell through the new year.

--Redhook 6

p.s. Thanks to xs.to for the free image hosting!

p.p.s. don't worry, I don't plan to turn them on again until after Thanksgiving. But yesterday was a nice day for stringing them up and testing them...


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## WildRice

Looks REALLY sharp. I love the idea of LEDs for Christmas lighting, because of the vivid, non fading colors. The only thing I don't really like is the use of non-diffused and the effect they can cause, ie the blue spots all over your house. but thats just me. Your house will really stand out especially if your neighbors use regular lights.

Jeff


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## wallyrulz

Very nice!

I like the way the blue lights cast on the house, gives it a very festive look.

We put leds on our tree last year, and EVERYONE said something about it. We even had people driving by to see the brilliant lights through the window. No heat, fake tree, we just left them on all the time. No worries.

BTW, I have a buddy in Col Springs and his house looks exactly like yours. Very interesting.


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## yuandrew

I've been looking for LED icicles as well. Prefer to get white ones this year but blue is fine as well.

I found some white Forever Bright brand LED lights at LOWES and I might give them a try this year. Haven't bought any yet though, Traditionally, I start decorating right after Turkey Day (Thanksgiving).


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## CroMAGnet

Very nice! I have the awesome looking C7 strawberries from Costco for around $15 a box. Eac box has a strand about 50ft long! Very economical and very brilliant. They only have Multi color and Red. (I got 4 boxes of Red last year and 3 more this year)

I'd like to try those blue ones. Can you tell me how long across can you stretch one strand?


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## MacGyver

Redhook, so that's 36W lighting up your whole house...that's awsome!!


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## Redhook6

According to the box, each strand is 11.5 feet, with the lighted portion being 9.5 feet. That sounds about right, as it took me nine strands to do my house. I am quite happy with how it came out, and that all nine strands will only use 36 watts.


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## PhotonWrangler

Very nice, Redhook! I'm sure they look even more dramatic in person.


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## Erasmus

Very nice! Can anyone tell me what the Philips part number is? Or can anyone take a photo of the box? Then I can call Philips Europe to ask where these are for sale. I even don't find 'em on the Philips website.


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## Redhook6

Erasmus, here you go:











I hope you are able to track them down...


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## PhotonWrangler

I believe Target has those in both blue and white.


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## hotbeam

Great lights! Are these 12VAC, DC or ?


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## Erasmus

Redhook6 said:


> Erasmus, here you go:
> 
> 
> 
> [img]
> 
> I hope you are able to track them down...[/QUOTE]
> Thank you very much :)


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## IsaacHayes

Hmm. white leds would look cool with thier bluish tint to them anyways. Perfect match!


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## yuandrew

hotbeam said:


> Great lights! Are these 12VAC, DC or ?



120volts AC without a transformer I think. My ForeverBright sets run like that as well with all the LEDs in series. Each socket gets around 2.2 volts when I measured it with my multimeter.


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## hotbeam

hmm, 70 lights in series. If one goes, they all go. And I was planning on getting 2 strings of 70 leds in series so it would run from 240-250VAC here. Too risky from a power perspective?


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## PhotonWrangler

hotbeam said:


> hmm, 70 lights in series. If one goes, they all go. And I was planning on getting 2 strings of 70 leds in series so it would run from 240-250VAC here. Too risky from a power perspective?


 
There is always a chance of lamp (and thus string) failure with series lamps, but it's less likely to happen with LEDs than with miniature incandescent lamps. I have at least one dead string of incandescents every year.


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## hotbeam

PW, true. At the end of the 60/70 LED string of lights, are there plugs/connectors that allow you to join another string of 60/70 LED string so you can theoretically go for hundreds of meters? Or do you have to plug each string into its own 110VAC supply. Thanks


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## Redhook6

Yes, they plug into each other. I have nine strings plugged together in series. Technically the box said not to plug more than three strings together, but it is my understanding that that is due to an old UL requirement, and they haven't updated their requirements to accomodate low-power LEDs.


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## hotbeam

Thanks Redhook!


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## shiftd

Anyone of you with one box of this and a weighing tool can help me weight one box?
I planned to ship couple boxes overseas and weight is a very important issue.

Thanks much.


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## jmccorm

I just bought as many as my local Target stores had. Which was nine of the blue ones. They were on sale, too, Currently $11.99 each instead of the regular $14.99.... so if you're looking to buy these, this weekend is a good time. (I got a raincheck for up to eight more in case the nine don't do the trick.)

What I like the best about these is the purity of the blue, which really stands out, especially compared to standard christmas lights. Such a vivid blue really is an attention grabber.

The spotlight effect is kind of interesting... the LEDs are not full brightness at 180 degrees, but rather, have more intensity coming out in a forward arc. Kind of good, kind of bad. The effect will be that ones that are pointed at your house will paint blue light on the walls (see picture in first message). The ones pointed at the street will appear brighter than the surrounding bulbs, which I think adds interest. (If you see in the picture, some spots look a bit brighter than others.)

I've also got four of the regular string ones (not icicle) with diffused bulbs draped around some miniature evergreens I have in the front yard (about 3-4 feet tall). The really are a quite vivid blue. Model # is "051 04 1536". Says "60 L.E.D. LIGHTS" on the front package that otherwise looks similar to the icicle package shown towards the top of this thread.

A big THANK YOU for the encouragement to pull the trigger and to get these. I always kind of wanted LED sets for the long-term energy saving aspect and lifespan, but I had no idea the appearance was so unique. You just don't see that detail in the stores.

*SHIFTD: *I weighed the 70 LED icicle package, as shown in the picture above, model #051 04 1529. I put it on my food scale and I'm happy to say it isn't TOO heavy. Very close to 14oz or 400 grams.

BTW.... the set appears to be split in two halves of 35 bulbs each. If a bulb goes bad or gets loose, half of the set will go dark, not the entire site The reason I'm told, put in basic terms, is that one half feeds off of the + A/C cycle, and the other half feeds off of the - cycle. So they flicker @ 30hz which I can notice if they are indoors and moving... but normal people don't readily observe. And I don't notice it at all when they are outside and on the house. If you are trying to run this on a 50hz system, the flicker is likely to be noticable... it'll be flickering at 25hz.

A small shock/surprise that they go ahead and include some bonus replacement bulbs in the set. That's probably to help meet customer expectations more than anything. Kind of for the same reason that the blue bulbs are painted with a light blue coating. More for the customer's peace of mind than for functionality. Perhaps for easy identification so that customers don't go... WTF? "The box said it was a BLUE set, but these lights are CLEAR!"

Again, thank you for this thread. This will be golden for next year when I go to a nice computer controlled and music synchronized light display. This year's fun consists of reprogramming an animatronic Santa Claus. :huh:


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## yuandrew

I just bought some Philips Icicles in white LEDs to go with my red green yellow first generation Forever Brights. Although they are brighter than the colored LEDs, they do make them stand out a little more.

The white leds have a strange "grey" cool look to them when compared to the incandescant icicles my neighbor has. The cool white color does draw some attention though.

I spent the afternoon hanging them up.

Edit: Pics







No Flash





Side. You can see my neighbor's incandescant icicles in the background





Closeup


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## hotbeam

Nice pics. Looks like this is the default the thread for Xmas lights. I guess I'll do the same when I get my lights


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## jmccorm

*
"LET IT SNOW"
*1000+ LEDs

I couldn't convince my camera to give a realistic rendering, but this is as close as I got. Unfortunately, this picture minimizes the impact of the blue glow cast on everything (not saturated enough with blue), and the lights themselves looked more washed out and white in the eye of the camera. Almost the opposite of what I wanted to show.

The theme is "Let It Snow". My first attempt at Christmas lighting. I've got the 60 count Philips blue lights on the four small topiary trees in front. The 70 count Philips blue icicles everywhere else. There is a giant snow globe with a snowman in it (and fake snow is pouring down inside of the globe). Behind the snow globe, which also didn't get captured well in the picture, are white snowflakes falling down the house via a projector. Those are the white blobs on the wall.

The carport was lined with two strings across. Bay window was only one string across. Above the bay window was three strings slightly compressed together (two didn't cover it, and three was too much, so I had to scrunch it together a bit). I have five on the upstairs roof line. (It also wraps around the corner.)

I'd say the "blue effect" is much like in Redhook6's last picture. But for the life of me, I can't get my camera to capture something close to what the eyes see.

ADD'L INFO: The white light that is just under the snow globe is a 25 watt blue party bulb. Which, even in this picture, absolutely looks white compared to the LEDs.


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## hotbeam

Welcome to the CPF jmccorm. Nice Xmas light decoration indeed. :thumbsup:


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## BuddTX

YEA!!!

Before finding this post, I found the Phillips LED lights at Target. I put them up on Sunday 11-27. 

BTW, I found a device that ALMOST made hanging Christmas lights enjoyable, it was an 11 foot adjustable pole with specially designed gutter clips, that screw on to the pole, and one end clips onto the gutter, and the other clip holds the light string. I installed all my lights WITHOUT USING A LADDER this year!

Back to the lights, They look FANTASTIC! Vibrant blue, and supposedly they will not scratch or fade. My incandecent blue lights always "lost the blue tint" and became almost white by New Years. The incandecent BLUE color only lasted for one season.

Some observations:

Why is the LED acrylic colored blue? arent all LED "protective acrylic" clear, and the LED itself generates the blue (or whatever) color?

The LED is directional (as others have said). So, when viewing the lights, a few seem to be very bright, (because they are pointed directly at you) where others appear to be less bright. As you walk or move, different lights become bright, and the bright ones go dim. It is actually pretty cool.

Some people have noticed a flickering, and I see it, when I first turn on the lights, and am looking closely, but from a foot or two away, I see no flickering.

Check out this review:
http://led.linear1.org/led-christmas-lights-from-philips/

Even with the shortcomings, I give these lights TWO THUMBS UP! VERY HAPPY, and I can re-use them next year!!!


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## jmccorm

BuddTX said:


> Why is the LED acrylic colored blue? arent all LED "protective acrylic" clear, and the LED itself generates the blue (or whatever) color?


Humans.

It is the same reason that the marketing department will have a dry dog food manufacturer make the different pieces of dog food have different colors. Or even shapes.

It is not for the dog. Not for the nutrition. It certainly isn't to make manufacturing easier. Rather, it is so humans will look at it and say, "Oh! This has a variety of different things in here. This will be better for my dog than just this box of brown dog food over there."

The reason, of course, is slightly different in this case. It isn't for the quality of the light. It likely isn't for the manufacturing process. It is for when you get them home, and you pick up the set, you don't see clear bulbs and wonder... what the heck is this? Wasn't this supposed to be a blue set? So you return it.

Or next year, someone thinking that they're a clear set and hangs them up in the wrong place, etc etc.

I think the LED christmas lights kind of have an inferiority complex. It seems that Philips did just about everything that they could (except for the focused lenses and slight up-close indoor flicker) to make this at least equal to a regular light set in all respects except cost. Tinting the bulbs blue is just another disadvantage of LEDs that they decided to address.

Minor, but a nice little touch.

BTW... about the flicker... these don't have the _30hz flicker_ that I would expect out of them. I think this may have something to do with Philips "advanced LED technology" that they trumpet but don't go into any detail about.

I'm tempted to hook one of the spares up to a microcontroller I have here, right next to an RGB LED I have, and see if it'll perform (flicker or not flicker) differently under different square-wave duty cycles.


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## yuandrew

When I first got the LED icicles, I plugged them in while they were still bundled up (as I took them out of the box and the bag) and the flicker was very noticeable with them all grouped together.

It was less noticeable after I hung them. The only time I noticed the flicker when they were installed was when I was viewing them up close while installing another string of lights above them.


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## jkuo13

jmccorm said:


> BTW... about the flicker... these don't have the _30hz flicker_ that I would expect out of them. I think this may have something to do with Philips "advanced LED technology" that they trumpet but don't go into any detail about.



Umm... I wouldn't expect 30 Hz flicker. I'm pretty sure it's 60 Hz flicker. AC voltage should go through both the positive and negative phases of the sine wave 60 times a second. If you could find a rectifier, you could bump the flicker up to 120 Hz at which point the flicker should be hardly noticeable. Of course, it would also double the duty cycle of the LEDs, but it probably wouldn't be enough to significantly heat up the LEDs.


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## jmccorm

jkuo13 said:


> Umm... I wouldn't expect 30 Hz flicker. I'm pretty sure it's 60 Hz flicker.



Got my physics/electronics wrong. You're right. Even if half of the set is operating on the + cycle, and the other half on the - cycle, it'd be 60hz for both halves.


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## Redhook6

I only noticed the flicker when I held them in my hand. When the lights are in motion (say, you move your hand as you hold them), they have a noticeable flicker - actually, "strobe" might be a better term. When they are mounted on my house, I can't see any flicker.


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## shiftd

thanks Jmccorm for weighing the weight


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## Brlux

I have several of the white icycle strings and several different styles of the regular Phillips LED strands. I have put them on a full wave rectafier to test howmuch it cuts down on the flicker and it does quite a bit. All the strands I have checked had bolth series strings in phase with each other meaning that all the lights are on or off at the same time. It also means that you can hook up a rectafier and have all the lights on the string on at the same time. I have a pair of the forever brights from last season and they have half the string 180 degrees out of phase with eachother. After running my lights for several hours (conected to the regular outlet) I have had one led go out already. They seem to dimm substantually untill they are compleatly out. They still function as a closed circuit and the rest of the lights stay on. I have not checked the voltage drop acrost the dead led but I would suspect that Philips has forseen this happening and that is why they include some spares. There is a similar thread discussing these lights hear.

Brlux


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## hotbeam

Hi there. Are these things rain resistant? Of course the AC plug must be kept under cover. What about the LED packages at the end of the wires? It looks like water can get in


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## LEDMaster2003

I just got 2 sets of Forever Brights today, one all-blue and the other red/amber/yellow/green/blue. 

Putting them up now. Pics forthcoming.


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## LED Master

hotbeam said:


> Hi there. Are these things rain resistant? Of course the AC plug must be kept under cover. What about the LED packages at the end of the wires? It looks like water can get in


In the states, water is permitted to get into the AC plug and lampholders, as they are tested that way, with various conductivity tests run after the rain test.


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## LEDMaster2003

Here we go.




My tree with the multicolor lights




The tree with the lights and the classic incans.




My Blue FB's around my TV center.


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## hotbeam

LED Master said:


> In the states, water is permitted to get into the AC plug and lampholders, as they are tested that way, with various conductivity tests run after the rain test.




If water gets into the 120VAC plugs, won't it cause a short? How can that be safe? We're using 120VAC here, not 12 volt. :huh2:


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## LED Master

hotbeam said:


> If water gets into the 120VAC plugs, won't it cause a short? How can that be safe? We're using 120VAC here, not 12 volt. :huh2:


Yes, it is safe, has been allowed for over 20 years on Christmas lights without incident. Yes, 120VAC systems.


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## PhotonWrangler

It causes a short but then the water boils away. It's the same principle behind some home humidifiers, which stick a couple of electrodes directly into a plastic bowl of water.

Having said that, water, electricity and people DON'T mix! Always de-energize a 120v outdoor lighting circuit before working on it when there's moisture or snow around.


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## hotbeam

Here's my simple setup  8 sets of the Philips icicle lights


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## jtice

Looks great Howard !

I am hoping to see some on sale after the holidays,
I was thinking of using them as room lighting. 

~John


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## jbknight81

Happy Holidays everyone. I hope everyone had a good thanksgiving and is ready for a great holiday season. I have a few questions you guys. This is my first x-mas season in my own place and me and my other half decided we would go big or go home so we got the Philips LED Icicle Lights (White). Well i have a few installation questions. I got some Plastic clips from target that go directly onto the shingles on the house. they seem to work just fine, any one have any suggestions on what they use. Secondly How do you guys over come the gap between sets? Right now i just kind of neatly flop the extra up and tie it with a white zip tie. anyone else have a better suggestion? I cant wait to get them all up and show you guys. Any help would be greatly accepted from this lighting virgin


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## Ken_McE

RedHook, Pull those incan. bulbs from the front porch and either side of the garage. Replace them with blue light bulbs, or at least some of those new nature view lights. CPF'er will come and bow down before you... (G)


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## Gryloc

jtice said:

I am hoping to see some on sale after the holidays,
I was thinking of using them as room lighting. 
----------------------------------------------

Sorry I don't use the quote feature. That would be cool to use as room lighting. I would take the while strands and find a way to mount them on a strip of plastic and fasten them so they are all pointing the same direction (wont work for the icicle lights). That way you can have a semi-solid white line thrown onto the ceiling or the wall or the floor. It would look nice when they are all uniform. Hmmmm...

-Tony


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## PhotonWrangler

Ken_McE said:


> RedHook, Pull those incan. bulbs from the front porch and either side of the garage. Replace them with blue light bulbs, or at least some of those new nature view lights. CPF'er will come and bow down before you... (G)



What are Nature View lights?


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## jayaway

On my string of 70 or so Phillips LED blue icicle lights on a string I bought at Target, 8 have failed within a week. They are inside, along a window, not being bumped or in extreme temps. Anybody else having this problem? I love how they look but I wonder if they're going to keep failing, and I'm tempted to take the string back to Target without the box (which I discarded) and say "this is junk, I want my money back." Is the technology ahead of the practicality? Regular icicle lights don't have a 10% failure rate....


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## PhotonWrangler

Are the failed LEDs completely off or really dim? Just wondering.


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## Canuke

I strongly suspect that it has to do with manufacturing batches.

I have one of two strings of 2004 Foreverbright whites, which already have 8 dead ones even with light use. The dead ones include a few that are just *barely* illuminating, and I can tell that they are doing so only on the very tip-top of the sinewave.

A friend of mine has a set of blues from the same year, and it also has about 8-10 dead ones, including one or two that are also barely illuminating off the tips of the sinewave. ... and are color-shifted towards the cyan as well. IT seems to me that this failure mode involves a significantly increased Vf or something... but how that happens without affecting the others in the string is beyond me.

But my second white string, which consists mostly of much bluer and brighter LED's than the first one, and has been run in series with the first one for its whole life, has no dead ones at all.

That sort of thing is why I like the fact that the Philips bulbs can be replaced.


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## NewBie

I'm looking at these strings, and realize that the power often has surges in it, and wondering why there is no surge protection...

Has anyone measured draw on these during the peaks of the sinewave (or half sinewave...)?


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## jtr1962

jayaway said:


> Is the technology ahead of the practicality? Regular icicle lights don't have a 10% failure rate....


Nothing wrong with the technology. It's improperly applied in the name of saving a few pennies. You really need a filter cap and some form of current limiting (even a series capacitor will do) in order to drive a string of LEDs off 120 VAC. A bridge rectifier only just doesn't cut it.

I'm thinking of making a box which has filtering and surge protection for my LED lights. They should run just as well off of the proper voltage DC and with no flicker.


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## cloud

nice lighting effects redhook 6.. looking very festive & no worries with your utility bill at the end of the season.


nice work, thanks for sharing :rock: 

thanks people, for the other pictures posted... am off out to my local home store to see what the shops have in stock...
These pictures was just what i needed to convince the wife that incand lights are old tech!.. no more bulbs replacement and cheaper to run..


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## NewBie

Philips 70 LED Icicle Lights, Lighting POG 051 04 1779 UPC 89720 09043

Well, I put a one ohm current sense resistor in-line, and it looks like the LEDs are just half cycle rectified (accounts for the 60 cycle flicker), and they are being pulsed at 79mA.

This is the current waveform:


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## Canuke

Newbie's scope reading confirms something I've suspected about the Philips -- they only seem to light up when the voltage is above one half the peak voltage, resulting in a duty cycle of about 25% on. That becomes 50% on rectified/unfiltered DC.

This is as compared to the Home Depot lights, who seem to trigger at about a third of rectified Vpeak (70% on). I wonder if that means the peak current is even higher on the HD lights... and if so, does it mean the latter won't last?


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## Brlux

I put mine on a scope last year and got a slightly higher but similar reading.

https://www.candlepowerforums.com/threads/94298&page=1

So do my mathematical assumptions make sense?


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## Huffer

Greeting, all. I would like to share my experience and ask a couple of questions. First, I bought blue Forever Bright LED Christmas lights two years ago. I had several failures, maybe 10%, and I spliced in replacements from an extra string for 2005. After more failures I gave up and threw them away.

This year I bought 4 strings of the Phillips blue LED's from Target. The bulbs are replaceable and they come with two spare bulbs. It's a good thing. I have replaced 6 and there are more not working. It's on top of the house so I haven't bothered to replace them.

I have a problem with one-half of the lights with one string. After a couple of hours of playing with the lights I figured out that the problem is located with the cylindrical thing located near the plug. The wire is either loose or shorting. I bent the wire back along the cylinder and taped it in place and it's fragile but working, at least when I last checked it. There are more sets connected to the end of the bad string and they work Ok.

I presume the cylibder is some kind of electronic component but I don't know exactly what it is or what it does. It has one wire in and two out. If I just cut the thing out would the lights still work?

In spite of the problem I like the lights and want to stay with them. I'd like to purchase spare bulbs and maybe a replacement string for the one I am having trouble with. I have not been able to find them on the web, and of course Target is sold out. Does anyone know of a site online?

Finally, does anyone have an e-mail address for Phillips? I would like to talk with them about their 100,000 hour lights, not to mention the problem with the string.

Huffer


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## yuandrew

I think that cylinder near the plugs is some type of resistor. Mine felt slightly warm to the touch after being plugged in for a while.

I haven't tested to see what it actually is or measured the resistance of it yet and the lights are still up but I'll play with the set after I take the lights down in January.

I've also had a few blue LEDs fail myself; one on my "custom" blue and white set and maybe four blue LEDs that I've added to an older Forever Bright set from 2001.


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