A Query About LED Lighting

[mishalak]

I am looking for LED lighting, in particular the strings that are often used for Christmas. Why? Because I wish to decorate with them, especially to set the right mood at upcoming parties. So I thought to inquire among people I know online to see if anyone has had a particularly good (or bad) experience with a website or a manufacturer so that I might have some clue as to where to purchase them or what to look for.

Alternatively if you local to me and have a string of LED lights you won't need back for some months I'd be happy to rent them for a while.

The ideal situation would be to put up enough lights that I would softly light a room to set a good party mood and I like LEDs for this purpose because of their low power consumption and their wonderfully bright and clear colors.

I've done a google search and I'm uncertain about my results. Some sites mention full wave rectified strings (that sounds good since it means they will be brighter due to not being off half the time) and a huge variety of prices. This leaves me uncertain as to what to do since I don't want to buy something that will quickly become dim or cause a fire hazard.

Comments

[perlandria.livejournal.com]

I have been able to find then off season in the sort of specialty stores that stock really expensive light bulbs and obscure batteries.
Such as this one down the road from me...
http://www.bulbstoreinc.com/
Anything like that there?

[eiricmacbean.livejournal.com]

Here's a link to a sale page at a site I've found to be useful.
http://www.christmaslightsetc.com/LED-Christmas-Lights-sale--802.htm
There's more in the regular price section, too.
If you don't want to mail order, then try ACE Hardware, or something similar. A lot of places will have these kind of lights for outdoor patio decoration year-round.

[gomeza.livejournal.com]

I think you will also find that full-wave rectified strings will have much less noticeable flicker. One of the problems with LED lighting on (our relatively low frequency) AC is that LED react INSTANTLY to changes in current, so they flicker noticeably. Different people perceive this to different degrees. For me, it is VERY noticeable. But then, movie projector sometimes flicker too much for me...

I'm interested in decorating with them too, but I want very specific color temperatures, and so far they seem hard to find. I want a warm white that comes relatively close to tungsten. I don't want cold or blue-ish white. I don't want amber or yellow. I know they exist, I've seen them.

Anyway, let me know what you find, would you? I'll probably forget about this post in an hour...

[gomeza.livejournal.com]

Ah, that link above looks like they have what I'm looking for. Pity the things are so expensive, but not having to replace bulbs every year will probably make them worth it.