Where Have You Found LED Holiday Lights?

glassware asks: "Perhaps you know that LED holiday Lights last hundreds of times longer than regular lights. Perhaps you know that your local utility company recommends them for drastically lowering your electricity bill. But my real problem is, where can you find them? I've found lousy battery-operated LED lights in some department stores; but even in the best stores I give up after a half hour of searching, and so far I see only one vendor making them. Surely there must be alternatives. Where do you get your LED holiday lights?"

Askslashdot, not AskGoogle...geez

Here...Ya lazy bastard [efi.org]

I mean really. This isn't very askslashdot....it's more like AskGoogle -> "led holiday lights".

Duh.

Um, no?

Yes, he's saying he's only found one vendor that makes them,

BUT HE'S ASKING IF ANYONE KNOWS OF ANY OTHERS!!!

That's NOT advertising. Now if the article were a review of these Forever Lights, it would be a Slashvertisement. But he has pointed out the one vendor he's found, but is asking if anyone knows of other sources. (Some pages, such as the LED Museum, mention, "inferior" lights, but give no details on where to find such lights if you WANT LED lights with a transformer at the base.)

As to the Ask Google trolls - I've asked Google and 90% of the links are pages that happen to have LED, Christmas, and light on the same page but do NOT have any content related to LED Christmas lights. The only Google links that came up in my search that were actually relevant were the links posted at the beginning of the article.

Re:Askslashdot, not AskGoogle...geez

Lesson Learned - never ask a question on slashdot without answering all possible snide replies.

I have bought, tried, and returned many LED light sets. I have hunted at all the stores listed on the ForeverBright where-to-buy page. I have been searching regularly for three weeks now. I have seen the online ordering pages; but somehow I just don't feel comfortable buying mail order when there's only a few more weeks till Christmas, and seeing as how I'll probably have to return them anyway.

Not quite there yet

As taken from http://www.es.wapa.gov/pubs/files/2001_holiday_lig hts_fs_es.pdf [wapa.gov]:

http://www.foreverbright.com/ [foreverbright.com]
http://www.ccl-light.com/ [ccl-light.com]

Nope, ain't a lot out there.

I think many rope lights use LEDs. You should look into those.

Perfect... Maybe

I've been trying to decorate a bicycle with christmas lights for some time now. An LED String would be ideal, given knowledge of the power requirements of these bulbs. Sadly, it sounds like the Everbrights have the AC-DC conversion at the base of each bulb, but maybe with one of the so-called inferior brands with the transformer at a more inconvienient location would be easier to hack.

Anyone tried this?

-C

Where Have You Found LED Holiday Lights?

I found mine in my neighbour's garden.

(I was too lazy to use Google [google.com] and buy my own, so I stole them.)

Fire safe, too

They also drastically reduce the chance of fire.

Who knew, a dried up dead tree strapped full of extension cords pumping mad current could be a fire hazard?!?!

Re:Fire safe, too

Not using lights at all further reduces the fire hazard. Not killing a tree and leaving it in your house to dry just about eliminates the fire hazard.

And where can you find ones NOT made in China?

Since I do not support countries which are de jure repressive regimes, forced infanticide, who long ignored an AIDS crisis, and who believe that their people are State property, I do not buy products made in China. Where can you get holiday lights made elsewhere?

Bad question, potentially interesting answers

The Foreverbright site [foreverbright.com] (linked from "holiday" in the intro) has a "Where to Buy" [foreverbright.com] link offering a lengthy list of retailers. I haven't checked the shelves yet, but it seems you should look at those little hardware stores and drugstores rather than random department stores if you want to buy them in person.

bad news re: bulk discounts

I called a few distributors, hoping that I'd be able to get a better price if I bought more LED lights at once.

Short answer is, HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA.

In any quantity that a regular person would buy (as opposed to, say, someone in charge of site purchases for Disney World), you're not going to get a discount, is the long answer. (I'd like to hear contrary evidence, but that is the received wisdom so far.)

I'm not going to buy more than 10 boxes, though. I figure 10 boxes (at $20 a pop) is already really pushing it, but I don't want them for "Christmas lights" exactly -- I want them as general string lights which I might happen to use during the winter holidays borrowed from the No. European pagans, but will also set up in my room etc.

timothy

I'm a dealer

I'm a dealer for National Specialty Lighting. Although mostly known for their rope light (including LED rope light), they also make pro-grade xmas lighting.

Here's their page on LED xmas lights. [nsl-ltg.com]

"Suggested Retail" is $11.95 per string. Case-lot discounts begin at 24 strings.

Just FYI, of course. I'm not trying to advertise here, just inform. Many electrical supply houses (where the real electricians buy stuff) are National Specialty Lighting dealers. You might try one of them.

Why use LEDs??

Now I know that LED holiday lights may seem all hi-tech and geeky, but regular ones are so cheap and readily available, the LED ones just don't seem worth it.

The 80 light LED set linked to above costs about US$20 and come only in red. I can go to my local supermarket and get a regular 100 light set for $US1.47 in a variety of colors or multi-colored. For the cost of one LED string, I can buy 13 regular ones, and still have change left over. Thats 1300 lights vs 80 LEDs!! Sure the LEDs are more effiecient and sure, they will last longer, but not enough to come anywhere close to making up the cost difference.

I think a better "Ask Slashdot" would be: Gee, holiday lights are so darn cheap these days, what other uses can we find for them?" (and no, they won't run Linux, and no, you can't turn them into a web server....or can you?)

Where?

Raley's (Supermarket) Placerville (Calif) 'bout eleven dollars a string. red, amber & multi(?) color. (Just thought a straight-up, non-hostile reply might be novel.) Cheers!

Marked down, last year at Kmart

It was a good deal too at half-price. I forget exactly what price though; maybe $6 or 7? And I only found one string; the rest had sold out already. They are shaped like stars, run on 120V and seem to work well but I haven't put them on anything yet. This was the day after Christmas at a Kmart in Scottsdale, AZ.

Let me hook you up!

Send me an RFQ. Spec the desired length, spacing, colors, diffuse or water-clear, and pattern. I will reply with a quote for manufacture. LED terminals protected with heatshrink tubing. Blue LEDs will cost approximately ten times more, a bipolar set with alternate LEDs blinking from red to green will be about twice cost of steady-glow or alternate-blink.

120 Blue LED Christmas Lights = £29.99

Maplin [maplin.co.uk] has blue LED Xmas lights. They're £29.99 and that gets you 120 blue LEDs. Thats 25p each! They say theyre discontinued but a friend has seen them still in stock.

from Dave @ Forever Bright

Forever Bright is really the only way to go.
They have a patent on the system they use that
doesn't require a transformer and can be strung
end to end. Here's the response I got from
[e-mail]

All of the retailers listed on our Website
carry our product line, but they did not stock
all locations. This left retail availability
very poor in some areas and many consumers
frustrated.

We're trying hard to convince them to stock all locations as consumer demand for our products
is very high. It often helps when consumers
tell retail store managers they're looking for
a particular product or brand. The managers
report the requests to corporate offices for
future inventory considerations.

Raley's Drugs stocked the Forever Bright line
in all of their locations and we believe they
may have stores in your area. American home
hardware may also be worth a try. Sorry, we
can't sell direct.

Thank you for taking the time to write us.

Happy holidays,
Dave at Forever Bright

Good Vendor List

http://www.energyideas.org/library/holidaylights ve ndorlist.cfm

One specific location

Almost specific...
If you are anywhere near the Concord, NC area, there is a craft store at Concord Mills that sells these. I havent bought any, but how about someone posting a link to a company that sells them if someone really needs/wants them.

ForeverBrights in California

As mentioned above, Raleys does have 'em in stock, and a nice variety to boot (not just the flame tips), though I'm not sure about the price ($8 or $11) I've been to three Albertsons in Southern California, and all of them had 70 light flame tip multi color (with blue), and for only $8. I say had, since I cleaned the three of them out :) In addition, they have clear (Antique Candle) and red/green, but everything is only available in flame tip.

Final Update

Hi all,

Don't know how many of you are still interested, but here's my last update. I finally found Forever Bright lights for sale at a local Ace Hardware. $24.99 for the blue lights, $14.99 for the red/green lights. Pricey, but worth it if they reduce my electric bill noticeably.

So, I brought them home. The red/green lights are dim. Not very bright at all. The individual lights are small, although the colors are evenly bright throughout the entire string of lights. My first impression was so-so.

The blue lights were spectacular. Blazingly deep blues, the larger plastic around the LEDs make them seem much bigger than usual, and the color is just wonderfully satisfying. I plugged them in immediately and left them on all night. My first impression was extremely positive.

Now, one thing I noticed is that the lights appear to have a 60-hz cycle. If you wave the lights back and forth in the dark, you get a strobe effect. It seems strange to me, but I got used to it. You can only notice it strongly when you are close to the lights and/or moving past them quickly.

So, next morning I plugged my lights back in, and you know what? Both strings of lights were broken. The red/green string burnt out half its length. The blue string was completely dead. I've tried replacing dozens of individual lights, but without much success.

It seems to matter which direction the lights go in. If they go in the sockets backwards, it seems like they don't work. But then sometimes I'll plug the same light back in the same socket and everything will work again. It doesn't make much sense.

So, I'll probably return the whole set and wait for the lights to get better for another year. Sorry to disappoint.

--Glassware

Good to support this industry

By buying these lights and hopefully increasing the production, it will hopefully drop the price more and help a project that is ongoing in Nepal where a guy has been giving batteries hooked up to super bright LEDs so that people can have light after dark for the first time in their lives, allowing children to spend more time learning to read and increasing the quality of life just that much more.