LED Christmas lights from Philips

[justDIY]

I see all over delicious, some hardware hacker is recommending purchasing LED xmas light strings, as a source of inexpensive LEDs ...  they claim to be getting strings of 75 bulbs for $5 (after rebate)

I suppose that's not a bad price, especially for green or blue leds - but its a lot of work to go through to extract the bulbs. - bhk, hebei and a number of other vendors come close to that price in quanity, and the leds don't require any surgury to remove them from a light string.

link --> http://www.starshipmodeler.com/tech/cj_xmas.htm

[Rob]

I don't know if disassembling Christmas lights rises to the level of hardware hacking, but I'll let someone else decide that.

The thing that's not even mentioned is that the LED leads are bent when they insert them into the socket. Straightening the leads weakened them to the point of breaking when I took my set apart.



Those bends leave some of the lead intact, but depending on what you're up to, maybe not enough.

[jmccorm]

Update:

Over the holidays, I've increased my total to 2500+ lights. Those 50% off after-Christmas sales helped. I didn't DARE wait until they went to 75% off because all the LEDs would be gone.

About removing the LEDs from the base...

I was able to unbend the connections, remove it from the base, put it back in the base, and rebend the connections. After that, when I tried to straighten them back again, one of the leads broke. The broken connections ended up being 3/8th of an inch, which is more than enough for even the most amateur to work with.

In retrospect, about your review of these lights, I think it was unfair. I understand your concentrating on the LED aspect of it, but in terms of Christmas lights, these were solid performers with good characteristics. The only real black mark I'd give against them would be price. I'd completely recommend them.

Heck, I put my money where my mouth is. After Christmas, I paid an additional $140 ($280 before 50% off) for even more of these lights. I still agree that they could be even better (in terms of LEDs). But I just can't agree with your disrecommendation of them. Philips did a good job with this light set.

[Rob]

In retrospect, about your review of these lights, I think it was unfair. I understand your concentrating on the LED aspect of it, but in terms of Christmas lights, these were solid performers with good characteristics. The only real black mark I'd give against them would be price. I'd completely recommend them.

I'd recommend them at 6 bucks a set. Not at 12.

I didn't emphasize using the strings outdoors--I mainly installed them on our tree and lived with them a few days. I didn't mention it in the review, but my wife hated the white ones, due to the color/tint (same for the Forever Brights as well). I doubt that it would have been as big an issue outdoors.

I can perceive the flicker. Not everyone can (out of the 4 of us in my house, 2 of us could).

Interestingly, even at full price that's 20 cents per LED. Just three years ago blue and white LEDs couldn't be had for cheaper than a buck each. What brought the price down? Keypad lights on mobile phone handsets. Manufacturers ramped the volume up tremendously to light those buttons up.

Bottom line: I'm very glad that you took the time to speak out in favor of these lights. Your posts are great, they're based on real experience with the lights, and you do a great job of articulately pointing out what's good about these sets.

[Kelvin]

I like the pictures you posted of the LED Xmas lights by Philips still in the boxes.
I have a deck lined with the LED "ROPE" version of the same lights by Philips.
I bought them from Target during christmas holidays. I need some more strands of rope but I cannot find these Philip's lights anywhere I look. Would you know where I can buy Philip's LED rope lights online?
Thanks in advance

[Saint Kosmo]

I wonder if Philips licensed this patent from Forever Bright? 

ya its safe to say the only issue i have with them is they dont have any kind of UL ULC and or CSA on any of their product and can get away with it.... they knocked me off and not really a whole lot i can do about it... thats okay we will have to see what they will feel like when we play thier game....