Author Topic: Christmas Lights (Read 3675 times)

wooferhound · « **on:** December 22, 2005, 12:52:34 AM »

I have been having a real delima in the last few Christmases. On the one side I love Christmas lighting and would almost like to do my yard like the guy across the street with 25,000 lights. On the other side, burning 25,000 lights pull a lotta power and goes completely against my self training to conserve and reduce whenever possable.

This year I have put up 7 strings of lights totaling about 175 watts. Nice looking hanging down outta the tree in the front yard. I have these lights on a timer to run them about 5 hours at night and a little more than an hour in the early morning.

LED christmas lights are hard to find in retail stores around here, but it doese'nt stop me from looking every time I see some. I see those blow up dolls in everybodys yard with incandescents beaming through them, Why don't they use Compact Flourescents on those horrable looking things.

So , any good ideas for Christmas lighting on limited power ?

Woof -(

halfcrazy · « **Reply #1 on:** December 21, 2005, 07:19:15 PM »

kmart has the led lights we have about 12 strings of them outside using about 3 watts a string christmas lights where always my weekness but once going offgrid had to find a better solution.

Happy Holidays

BrianK · « **Reply #2 on:** December 21, 2005, 07:40:15 PM »

yeap I know what ya mean i used to put up lights but i dont anymore

didnt take to long to figure out that in the month of december the light bill

jumped so for now the only lights that are in our house are on the tree and they

wont get turned on until christmas eve

dont get me wrong i love the holiday!!!!!!!!!!

.

willib · « **Reply #3 on:** December 21, 2005, 07:45:01 PM »

in my travels during the christmas season , i have seen a cf spotlight.but not at night.

it was pretty cool , picture a basic spotlight with a cf inside , it had very thin glass on the outside and the inside was all reflector.

halfcrazy · « **Reply #4 on:** December 21, 2005, 07:53:44 PM »

yeah home depot has the commercial electric brand of the cf flood lights. i have 3 around here and they are plenty bright very impressive.

Norm · « **Reply #5 on:** December 21, 2005, 09:30:21 PM »

So , any good ideas for Christmas lighting on limited power ?

How about a few stepper motor windmills each

lighting up a few leds or replacing the amber leds in cheap solar lights with green, red, blue leds etc.

Merry Christmas

Happy New Year

( :>) Norm.

nothing to lose · « **Reply #6 on:** December 22, 2005, 02:43:41 AM »

Norm has an Idea and maybe you could start a trend

Build a few smaller gennies that will run the light strings, decorate trees with lights, then instead of the angel on top put the small genny

Just consider it part of the decorations and put it away at end of season like everything else if you want.

Build some yard stuff yourself? You can get that colored film for theater lights in more colors than you'll know what to do with. Make a box with reflective backing and cover front with plywood. Paint up a really nice design on the front then drill lots of holes around detail lines. Cover holes from inside with little pieces of the color film and light from inside with bright CFL.

You could buy a few hundred LEDS of various colors, make yard figures, drill holes, poke in LEDS and wire it up. Depending how many Leds you actually use it should run all season on one small battery on one charge perhaps. You'd have nice painted shaped figures durring the day and lights at night.

Same basic idea but maybe cheaper and easier than LED, buy allot of those plastic colored lightbrite pegs and poke into holes, light from behind with bright CFL. This would use more power than leds also I think though.

Along the same idea, take used beer/soda cans and make ornaments with the shiney insides, holes and leds and a few Nicad batteries for lighted ornaments around the yard.

Turn them on/off with a light sensor. I think I have a mofset and sensor for my 12V led string. Something Ghurd gave me early this year, works great only 2 parts, plus the battery and leds.

RedJoker · « **Reply #7 on:** December 22, 2005, 05:59:35 AM »

Actually, I use RE only to power my LED Christmas lights. This has been my pet project for learning and applying RE concepts. (You can buy LED lights online or at Lowe's) Last year, I built an Ebay solar panel to power them. (Long story short, I dropped the panel while working on it this summer and shattered it.

) Now I have a wind genny up. As was pointed out earlier, 70 light LED strands use <4 watts / strand. Very easy to generate that kind of power, even I can do it!

I know it sounds cheesy but I just somehow think using RE for Christmas lights is appropriate. Besides, we've had storms that knock out grid power for several days but I still have Christmas lights!

ghurd · « **Reply #8 on:** December 22, 2005, 07:04:16 AM »

My Christmas lights running during a power outage would make my day!

G-

nothing to lose · « **Reply #9 on:** December 22, 2005, 07:32:02 AM »

Mine too (if I put some up)

Everyone here has seen at least one post where I have said how crappy the power is here. When I first got this place we would come down for Christmas and we had no grid connected, about 2yr old kid so lights were a must you know. I had my battery and inverter running a strand, watching people occasionally drive by sometimes looking funny. Neighbor (only one then) came from across the road and told me my lights were not supposed to be on.

They were all confused, "the power is off, the grid is down, why are your lights on"?

Hmmm

They were a power hog though, but then again I did not need a yard light either when they were on and that was before CFL bulbs so it probably equaled out some.

Hmm, CFL, I saw somewhere long ago you could buy a type of colored clear paint for glass and light bulbs, never tried it though, perhaps use alot of small CFLs and paint them red blue and green, or make colored plastic covers for them.

How many watts do the smallest CFLs use and how expensive are they? I never thought of this before, but might also make nice driveway or yard lights for limited use.

Norm · « **Reply #10 on:** December 22, 2005, 08:36:55 AM »

Some people here in town used to run water

on their roof made their own icicles hanging

from their front porch....then colored flood

lights to light em up!

Kinda hard on the edge of the roof tho'

I suppose a guy could make special temporary

reinforcement for the roof.

Did look pretty and with CFL floodlights...

Now you guys don't go ruining your roofs

and blaming me. LOL

Have Fun Guys

Have a Merry Christmas

and a Happy New Year!

( :>) Norm.

finnsawyer · « **Reply #11 on:** December 22, 2005, 08:39:24 AM »

So, put up the lights, enjoy the season, but monitor the power they use and then make a New Year's Resolution to replace that much power by RE power in the new year. Merry Christmas to all!

Gary D · « **Reply #12 on:** December 22, 2005, 08:40:02 AM »

Is anyone else old enough to remember the year the president asked all Americans NOT to run Christmas lights? Not sure if it was related to towns needing to outen their natural gas street lights due to low pressure in the pipelines, but I think it was....( only a few natural gas powerplants then) Gary D.

Norm · « **Reply #13 on:** December 22, 2005, 08:40:52 AM »

Forgot to rename the subject.

Gordy · « **Reply #14 on:** December 22, 2005, 11:58:36 AM »

Norm,

Rather an replacing the LED's in the solar lights just wrap them in colored plastic? Should a be cheaper and reversable option, when the season is over.

Gordy

georgeodjungle · « **Reply #15 on:** December 25, 2005, 01:17:05 AM »

tis the season for bad weather, ie.. wind.

strings "2 long ones outside 3 inside" of lights on a timmers is no problem.
k of lights i'd have to feed the gas genny.

and lil much for the 2 or 3 cars that pass by every week or so.

not to many at night.

8 of my closest neighbors run no lights at all.

it must be some child hood thing inprinted in my coconut that needs them lights

or it just don't seem like christmas.

most of the famly fills the same way.

got to kill a tree to.

we still go to town just to drive around to look at all them lights.

them blow up things seem to be popular this year.

my uncle was like your guy across the street.

and you should see him when he got the power bill.

not vary mary then.

any ways, hope santa finds your house with or with out lights.

Don Cackleberrycreations · « **Reply #16 on:** December 29, 2005, 08:30:42 PM »

slightly off topic

Has anyone considered mounting a single or possibly two small coils near the base of each prop blade and mounting small magnets on a stationary plate just behind the blade mount.

route a very thin grove on the back side of the blade and mount spaced LEDS along the blade.

might seem a lot of trouble but It would look nice at night any time of year.

hotwired · « **Reply #17 on:** December 30, 2005, 03:45:39 AM »

Sounds like a good idea,i bought a wind powered garden light from loowes made in china has 9 leds spaced on the blades worked to a point, the blade diameter was too small took too much wind to turn it did work in a very stiff wind took and extended blades by 6 inches it then turned in a small breeze next problem the power plant is a small permanent magnet genny after a very short time it quit working problem poor quality the distance from shaft to bearings was too great it ground the magnet off got another shimmed up the bearings to shaft for tight fit have been running it for over 6 months so far so good,the store that sold them does not sell them any more , it is pretty impressive lighting all the leds at very small wind speed .I the shaft is stationary and the stator turns around it have an idea on using a printing machine pm motor hooked to a multiple blade prop having the shaft stationary so can hook up leds on blades only problem so far cant figure out a u joint to hook motor to blade so it will be inline the store boght one was hooked solid to prop, any ideas from any one these old rattle trap wind mill that are sold have about the right sized prop if only could figure out some alignment scheme. open to any suggestions THANKS

ghurd · « **Reply #18 on:** January 01, 2006, 10:25:34 PM »

Malco,

A stepper (printer) motor can be driven with a belt from the hub of rattle trap windmills. Lights up LEDs easy.

Don,

Same idea... I mounted PVC blades to a stepper motor body, LEDs to the blades, motor shaft to the yaw assembly. Cost me about $5 total. It worked fine.

Reverse connected pairs of LEDs light faster and easier. Rectifing AC to DC uses as much voltage as lighting the LEDs.

This is for 3 phase, but each pair of LEDs could be connected to a stepper and work very well. A stepper motor has 2 sets of single phase outputs, meaning the pairs of LEDs will be seperated electricially. The resistor value may need adjusted (higher) depending on the stepper.

The number of LEDs could be increased, like instead of 1 facing each way, maybe 3, 4, or 5. Maybe in series, maybe parrellel. It all depends on the stepper motor.

From this post...

http://www.fieldlines.com/story/2005/11/25/204242/17

Big fun!

G-

hotwired · « **Reply #19 on:** January 03, 2006, 04:32:55 AM »

Placing pvc blades on pm motor can you give us an idea on this also would the bearings last very long supporting the genny also would the prop ever turn fast enough to burn out the leds not using the resistors you seem to have come up with a very good idea, the mill i have working has drawn untold amount of interest from passerbys especially women and children this is sort of a rarity among yard ornaments.any info from you will be appreciated,THANK YOU.

ghurd · « **Reply #20 on:** January 03, 2006, 10:08:09 AM »

The LEDs will burn out without a resistor. Many stepper motors can burn out LEDs at 100 RPM or less. The resistor is needed.

The stepper motors with bearings last longer than I expected. They rust inside before they wear out. Keep the bearings oiled.

I honestly never let one fly long enough to wear out the bearings, but later the bearings were badly rusted.

The extra weight will certainly wear out the bearings faster.

I would not put a large amount of time or money into something like this, unless I had several identical spare stepper motors.

hotwired · « **Reply #21 on:** January 09, 2006, 04:37:38 AM »

Reply the printing machine motors i have are not steppers they have only 2 leads out of motor + - they will light 9 leds spinning the shaft by hand i still cannot igure out a shaft alignment so bearings dont beat out.

bj · « **Reply #22 on:** April 08, 2006, 08:38:40 PM »

Suprizingly enough I found some decent sets at Canadian Tire this

fall. My display was just about popping a 15 amp breaker. Breaker more

than just warm. The LEDs and a bit of conservatism, dropped the load to

just 8 watts. Not as bright, unless viewed from straight on. O.K. for

the neighbors, not as good for us. (but then, who do we do it for?)

I have one of those watt miser, that has been accurate on everything else, so I kind of trust this info.

I think some of the success of these is in the diffuser.

Bye the bye, the power bill backed this up. Way cheaper -x10

of help I hope

BJ

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Author Topic: Christmas Lights (Read 3675 times)