A solar Christmas?

[the reporter]

There is a lot of talk about Christmas lights and the electricity they use, both inside and outside the house. I wonder how much of the electricity could be powered by solar, especially in bright regions of the world?

I wish I had solar power; it's in my plans, but I haven't been able to build yet. My lights run from commercially produced wind power.

I did the math last night, though, right after setting my lights up for this year. 320 LEDs (120 white, 50 red, 50 orange, 50 yellow, 26 blue, 24 green) and one CF with a red gel add up to a total power draw of 35W. Done the "traditional" way, with incandescent lights, the same display would be 260W, and I would have to worry about melting my red gel.

Actually, I think I would be tempted to try to rewire the strings of lights into a 12VDC native configuration. For green, blue and white LEDs, that would be 3-4 in series; for red, yellow and orange, it would be 5-6 in series.

I have a friend at a hotel that has had a horrible time with the led lights. they constantly burn out, so that after a few months, over half are dead.

Any one else expperience this?

Originally Posted by Doc Ruby

I have a friend at a hotel that has had a horrible time with the led lights. they constantly burn out, so that after a few months, over half are dead.

Any one else expperience this?

It hasn't been my experience, no. I would look for ills in the power supply.

I've also noticed that the manufacturers of LED lights tend to "cheat" a little by putting a large number of LEDs in series, with no resistor padding it out. They put them into two circuits, and then face the circuits in opposite directions so that one circuit is lit for 1/120 of a second, then the other circuit lights for 1/120 of a second.

A possible solution would be to construct a box which contains a resistor wired between an outlet and a plug. This resistor's job would be to pad the power supply for the LEDs so that they can operate at whatever current level they want, rather than being driven by shifts in the supply voltage.

Seriously, though, I would consider looking for bugaboos in the hotel's electrical system.

Thanks, I'll pass it on.

[mgopilot]

LEDs for Christmas lights are too expensive for me, and this solar home only has a couple in flashlights. My little 4' artificial Christmas tree is lit up with a line of 50 little 1 watt multi-colored lights and a device for effects. There are thousands of pine trees outside, and snow. My system is 350 amp hours until 50% auto-shutdown (which only has happened once in 7.4 years). It is a 2 amp draw. May everyone have a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!!