Color changing LED light sets

[Tim]

Just curious to know if anyone has messed around with color changing LED Christmas lights?? Seems like a neat idea but I’m not seeing a large variety of these lights available.? I came across a few sets on Bronner’s website (http://www.bronners.com/) that look interesting.? Since Bronner’s is fairly close to me, I may check them out in person soon before the mad Christmas rush.? Comments?

[jonathan cassiday]

there are a few websites that deal with LED lights for retrofitting current C-7 light strands, and a few discussing collor changing light bulbs They are as followed

http://www.carpenterdecorating.com/intellashine/IntellashineWebPresence.htm
http://torchreviews.net/ledc7.htm
http://www.holidaylightsandmagic.com/product1.aspx?Product_ID=591
http://www.holidaycreations.com/

there are plenty more that i have not found yet, but they are something i am looking forwad to seeing in use in dispays in municipalities and such. hopefully someday these will be avaliable to the public market.

[Chris W. Millinship]

Hmm, that Torch Reviews Site page looks familiar....

So far, asides home made ones (the first I produced in around 1996 from a magazine article) the only experience I have with colour changing LED lights is with the Carpenter "Intellishine" C7 style, as per my TRS review. They are entirely self contained and cycle through their colours all by themselves, and are not synchronised with the others. The seemingly random shimmering rainbow effect is very eye-catching and distinctive. See my Displays Archive Site`s 2004 section for a video showing 15 of them around the front door, apologies for the large file size but if you`re on anything approaching T1 speeds it should be just about manageable . Sorry, I don`t know where regular consumers can purchase Intellishine, I was sent them for evaluation with no dealer/pricing info...

There are a few colour changing LED lights appearing here and there this season. New to me are the colour-changing versions of Forever Bright (see here for details). I have a set of the yellow/blue on back-order but am told they won`t be available until mid November so don`t know what form the colour effect will take or whether they have a controller of some kind or just use self contained bi-colour LEDs.

My lights display this year will entirely consist of LED lights. Mostly blue and white but some patches of colour here and there, so I would also be keen to see what colour changing LED options there are.

Season`s Greetings!

[Tim]

Jonathan & Chris,

Thanks for the response.  I did in fact find Chris’ article when I was searching around the net for these lights.  The Carpenter Intellishine lamps look interesting and I would love to buy some, but they aren't easily found.  According to their website, Bronners here in Michigan is the closest distributor of these lights, but I couldn't find them on their website.  Also, I didn't see any way to contact someone directly at Carpenter through their website.  It looks like this is an emerging technology still in its infancy 

Chris: I also found the Forever Bright color changing LED sets when searching.  Please give us a review of this product after you have had a chance to evaluate them in your own displays.  I'm curious to know more about them.

[Chris W. Millinship]

... Forever Bright color changing LED sets when searching.  Please give us a review of this product...

Will do, if they arrive. I was told mid Nov, but when I ordered them the site said late summer (and it was late summer when I ordered) so it could be one of these products that gets pushed back and back and....

-

I did find another colour change LED set recently. They are a UK set but running from a 4 volt DC power supply so could be on sale worldwide with the appropriate transformer. Eight groovy sputnik-looking stars that hang in seperate drops at different lengths, intended to go in a window, each one has a self contained LED with red, blue and (unusually) yellow-green dies and a sequencer chip. Here is a *very* small resolution video (the larger res one was a huge file size, this one is still ~700KB) showing them in action:

http://homepage.ntlworld.com/c.millinship/MOV03047.MPG

Found here: http://festive-lights.com/product_select.asp?product=605 but I don`t know if this Lancashire company will ship internationally.

[Tim]

Hey Chris,

We did some shopping this afternoon at one of our local retail chain stores.  I checked out the Christmas stuff on display, mainly the lights, and was surprised to see some LED sets on the shelf made by Forever Bright.  I immediately started looking for the color changing sets but no luck! Arrrrg!  They must not be in production yet, or there's a holdup somewhere in the production.

I’ll check out the sputnik stars - sounds funky 

[Tim]

For anyone still interested in this, Menards (the giant home improvement store) is selling several styles of color changing LED Christmas lights.? I picked up a few sets over the weekend to satisfy my need for a while ? They are reminiscent of the old Sylvania fluorescent Christmas lights in appearance and color tone.? The effect is cool and I'm looking forward to seeing them on the tree this season.? They are also selling sets of figural neon glow lights with different holiday themed electrodes that glow in neon and argon colors.? These bulbs are about 2 1/2" diameter and I ended up with a set in the shopping cart as well.? They have a big light selection this year - check them out if you're in the US.

[oldbulb]

Just received my Canadian Tire catalogue and they list 35 bulb sets of colour changing LED's for $19.99 Cdn. Some change from red through to  blue, and others from red through to green. You can check them out at canadiantire.ca.  Catalogue No. is 51-2314X. Canadian tire is a very large hardware chain in Canada. Hope this will be of some use to you!

[Chris W. Millinship]

Colour-changing ForeverBrights arrived recently and here are some details.

They use an electronic control box and what appear to be LEDs with the blue and yellow dies connected in inverse-paralell. There are only three wires that come out of the controller and two of those are the hot/neutral going to the first LED and the female end connector. I can only guess that the AC voltage is selectively PWM-chopped first cutting the "positive" half of the cycle down to almost zero and back, then the "negative" half and vice versa.

I was curious to see what the insides were like. Not one to let anti-tamper screws get in my way (I laugh at your triangular heads! Try to keep *me* out? Never!) I undid the lid, and.....potted with resin! Now resin *does* keep me out, I havn`t found a solvent that will dissolve it yet and doubt such a thing exists.

Now for the best bit, what do they look like when running? Well, it`s quite unusual. The AC/PWM alternating effect make the blue and yellow colours seperate when you turn your head, very eye catching if a bit distracting if they`re on in the background. This long exposure shot shows what I mean...

The whole set slowly changes colour in unison, but I find that they don`t ever hit "true blue" and "true yellow/orange" at either end of the cycle, the controller doesn`t reduce the AC halves enough to fully extinguish either half. Blue goes pretty much all-blue with just the slightest orange glow...

But the blue dominates the "yellow" (orange really) half giving a strange almost high-pressure-sodium-pink hue...

And in between the colour is an unusual but quite attractive purply pinky sort of colour. Note that the colour saturation in these photos is poor, it`s hard to take accurate photos of LED colours I find. In reality the colours are strong and deep as LEDs are known for

Now I do wonder if my AC frequency (50Hz not 60) or my transformer`s output voltage (nearer 120v than 110) has anything to do with the halves not turning out completely, or maybe it`s normal. Still, it`s very distinctive and certainly interesting technically from a collector`s point of view too.

Also avaliable in red/green and red/blue, both which might give more normal colours.

-

Off topic, but is it me or is *everything* known to the State of California bad for you in some way or another? The amount of tags hanging off USA light sets these days is ridiculous, made worse by this new Proposition 65 thing. Surely it would save them a lot of hassle to just erect large signs by the interstate highways at the CA state borders giving a big statement "Warning - this state contains materials and substances that are, or may be, hazardous to your health in some way. Enter at your own risk". That way, among other things, decoration lights would not have to be adorned with big white labels that stand out like a sore thumb on the average christmas tree.     

[Christmas Lamp]

Interesting Light Set you have there Chris
Thanks For Posting
 

[jonathan cassiday]

I found a set of the same type at Lowes today. Well not exactly the same, mine are the c-6 type bulbs, but they change from blue to yellow. They are relly great, and i love the fact that if they move slightly you can see both teh yellow-orange and the blue at the same time. Although a bit pricy for 35 lites, I am quite pleased. I have also found strings of same color led strings at both Lowes and target. The sets at target were made by/for phillips and are available in solid blue, red and white along with multi color in mini and c-6 sizes. The bulbs in this type are not permanent and are easily reversed if one comes out. They are in a string of 60 and are a little less than the forever bright lites. Lowes carries the foreve4r lites that have already been described along with some other store branded sets that look to use leftover stock of the first generation of led christmas lights and are very low priced, but not of the quality of the new generation. I have also seen some led lights at Kroger in the shapes of candycanes, trees and wreaths. Its great to see that led chgristmas lights are catching on, but i still think that the incandecent light strings will dominate the market due to the throw away nature of our society( although i am not one to throw away a light string, i have mini light strings that are going on 10 years and still look good, secrect to logivety is to replace the burned out bulbs every year) Though i might share some of my local findings concering the led lights. By the way , i live out side Atlanta Georgia, so some of the store mentioned may not be in othe regions.

Jonathan Cassiday

[Tim]

Great info Chris!  Thanks for taking the time to review them for us.  Jonathan - thanks for the Lowes tip.  I haven't been there yet but I also heard that they have some bubble lights in stock too.  I need to make a trip before the mad Christmas rush this weekend.  Speaking of Target, I bought some of those Philips LED strings about a month ago and found the quality to be excellent.  I really like the blue string and plan on using them outside this year.  I was at Target again tonight and found these sets discounted until this weekend at $9.59 for the 60 count strings.  A good excuse to buy more

[starbug]

just got these today from the UK

Premier 20 Multi Action Colour Changing LED Xmas Lights? Ref: PREMLV053654
http://www.grovelands.com/acatalog/Low_Voltage_LED_Christmas_Lights.html







video clip of 5. slo-glo? ,, the speed of this goes up and down taking from around 10 seconds the fastest and about 1.30 min the slowest to cylce from red to blue to green to off
http://www.rippin.f2s.com/MVI_2647.avi


Merry Xmas
Ant

[Chris W. Millinship]

Welcome to the Bulb Forums!

Intriguing, thanks for the information. Looks like they took a variation of the standard six-effect controller that you get on chaser sets and used it to control the R/G/B sections of the LEDs individually. First colour change set I`ve seen with a controller on.

And the link.....now look what you made me go and do! I had to get one of those myself, then I noticed they had lots of other colour changing LED sets too.......

[starbug]

i have looked for LEDs like this before and could never find them just did a search last monday and found that web site with all sorts of colour changing LED's but the one with the controller caught my eye ,,, it's ashame tht they dont explain on the web site what all the functions of the controller are  , i took a gamble that it would change the colour mix effects , and it does 7 different effects ,,, ok so the LEDs dont blend together that well but its still very eye catching ,,,

if any one wants more info or photos just ask , i did the other photos in a bit of a rush last night just to get the info out as i was very impressed with them ... and wanted to give you a chance to buy them for this years display

so Chris is the 2006 display going to be all colour changing LEDs all contollerd by one controller box

Merry Xmas
Ant