Thread: Need help with an LED string lighting question

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If you were to buy two strands of Philip's LED globe lights for example, one Box of clear LEDs and one box of red LEDs (the globes also match the LED's color, so it's not all white LEDs with different colored globes), can you switch out "bulbs" to make an alternating red/clear light strand or will you encounter problems?

This is something we are talking about in the Circus prop thread (#277-278) as this was tried and the poster has had some strands work okay and others not. I'm wondering if there could be voltage/current issues in play. Like one colored strand might be rated higher than the other colored strand?

BTW Philips also makes a Multi-Colored LED globe light strand that use red, blue, green, yellow, purple and orange bulbs.

What do you guys think? Thanks.

BTW not sure how long these will be listed on Target's website after Christmas but here is a link to the Multi-Colored version of the G40 strands I'm referring to: http://www.target.com/p/Philips-25-L...s/-/A-13480614

I think you'll run into some issues. Red leds usually have a different voltage/resistor than other lights in a multi colored string.

As icyuod2 said, the forward voltages / brightness will vary from color to color, The biggest problem you would have is finding the different colors in the same voltage / brightness to match the string. Can it be done, sure....

You might want to go in store and look at the multi strand , the white and the red. if there is a different resistor on the various colors, you will see a little rubber bulge in the wire, if only 1 wire is entering and leaving the "bulge" then they are all on the same resistor (more than likely anyway) which means you would be safe. The bigger Issue I have ran into is that the leads dont make very good contact and come loose, so just spend a bit of time making sure they all have a good connection.

Some of the bulbs on each end of a strand have these " special " bulbs that look like this :



There are also some that look the same with different l colored little pieces on them...and there are no replacements for them.

The strands seem to start out as two cords then after entering the first bulb turn into three cords, then end the same way.

We've made a few sets already that worked initionally, then stopped after being moved..we thought maybe it was loose bulbs..they are a pain to connect..but we found burned out leds in them.

I'd be curious to hear what our resident lighting guys think it is.

I think there's a good LED circuitry lesson in here in general, but Blade have you considered just using a strand of the white bulbs and replacing every other globe cover with a red one (so don't switch out the white LED?). The red globes wouldn't be as red as the true red strand but still might give the effect you are looking for. And it might be too late to suggest this but I would try to keep track of what the original strand was before swapping LEDs and globes out for one another so you can go back to a matched set.

looking at the image, the black/grey stripe looks like a standard diode, all that does is prevent AC current from passing through so the leds get DC. (led's only work on dc), though usually there is 4 diodes setup in a bridge rectifier to convert AC to DC...

Originally Posted by Ghost of Spookie

I'd be curious to hear what our resident lighting guys think it is.

I think there's a good LED circuitry lesson in here in general, but Blade have you considered just using a strand of the white bulbs and replacing every other globe cover with a red one (so don't switch out the white LED?). The red globes wouldn't be as red as the true red strand but still might give the effect you are looking for. And it might be too late to suggest this but I would try to keep track of what the original strand was before swapping LEDs and globes out for one another so you can go back to a matched set.

Yeah I considered that, but you would have an issue with a whole strand of red bulbs. Also the white bulbs in red globes look more orange. :/

I think we still know which ones are which... maybe.. :?