@@FMWheels I knew that someone from the car scene would chime in but had to be sure. Yeah, ppl been using duplicolor to fake selective yellow headlights for years now (and to smoke taillights...which are soooo much fun to be behind in fog 🙄)
I know right?! There's something about seeing those harsh blues in large quantities on my street that puts me in mind of a police raid......or maybe that's just the kind of street I live on..but I digress.
I have your answer! Take nail polish clear top coat and tint it with the colour desired, i have done this for years with vehicle bulbs for custom looks
The sharpie looked pretty even to me. Also, until you've conducted the experiment with both variables under the same conditions, your contention about increased permanence remains merely an untested hypothesis. I eagerly await the results of your empirical research.
@@azdgariarada I tried sharpie and tested against a few different things years ago, for car light bulbs regular and led the sharpie will not last. We used the polish method all the time on the custom car scene here, but it was then, like in the early 00s, I don't have anything left from then to show here but it was tried and tested then. Trying to help him out with a proven solution, not spend all my time on here screwing with comments
You just reminded me that, as a kid, I used to color my bedside lightbulb (incandescent, it was the 80's) with sharpies to tone its output down and give it a more relaxing color. It worked great.
THANK YOU!!!! Someone who understands my struggles every year! haha I REFUSE to put LEDs on my Christmas tree. I enjoy the warm glow that incandescent lights give off. I tried explaining to people that LEDs are unidirectional, unless they are diffused. That's why so many LEDs holiday lights, especially ones from years ago, look the way they do. I mean, you're looking at a yard, or even a Christmas tree with ALL THESE LEDs around, yet, it somehow still seems DARK. I hate it! You have given me hope! I thank you.
@@racer927 Alternatively, you also could have just ignored my comment, or everyone could have ignored his video. What you term as 'cussing' is also very subjective and we're grown adults so try to get a grip on yourself.
Several months late on this one, but one thing I did when I decided to finally give in to LED in our tree (taking it from 200 watts to 40 watts) I strung an all red string through the entire tree in addition to the multi strings. This doesn't help to reduce the garishness of blue or green, but does bring the overall ambience of the tree more in line with traditional incandescent lights. I tried the sharpie test a few years ago and while I liked the result I just decided it wasn't worth doing it to 500 lights to satisfy my nostalgic desires. However, I would definitely buy the "white LED with colored plastic" set if anyone ever made them.
I still love this channel so much. Aside from the humour and how interesting the subjects are, I adore the format and presentation. Thank you for all the hard work you put into these.
I found the rotating holiday names hilarious, especially the shoutout to Decemberween. "It's a Decemberween Mackerel!" I tend to prefer orange over yellow, because the orange is closer to the RGB in terms of brightness, while yellow is a bit overpowering on the brightness scale when looking at the lights from a distance.
I share your color preferences. It can be difficult to find light strings with orange bulbs and no pink, and it can be hard to find good orange light bulbs. I found a good clear LED filament bulb that lights up orange from Feit Electric, but their blue is torture! It's really hard to find orange spotlights, but I managed to, but I forgot the brand name.
At first, I didn't figure it out but then it was funny. He saved "Christmas" lights for the end. His detailed content and fun, dry humor make this channel great!
The weird thing with me is that I love both yellow and orange lights. But never on the same strand and not really on different strands in one display. I'm… pretty weird with my Chrismahanakwanzicah lights I guess.
I work at an art supply store and get a lot of people wondering about better ways to thin acrylic. Indeed there is a product of just clear "acrylic medium." You can find it in various viscosities from a thick paste to thin ink. Any art supply store or major craft store should have a good selection.
It's such a strange, piercing blue, and I've noticed it taking over cinematography too for some reason. Both films and television (the latest example is in a lot of the lighting in Star Trek: Discovery). It looks terrible, like a burned-out flare in the film. Why is this a thing?!
Endless blue light phenomena seen in China but actually shining thru the Earth's core. 'Must be silly folk and their Jesus Christmas celebrations.... AGAIN!'
I have the same exact opinions on the LED Christmas lights. The blue is just outshines the other colors a bit too much. The traditional color pallet shouldn't be hard for them to reproduce, and it'd probably sell well. Glad to know I'm not alone on this. And I'm really glad to see that you found such a simple solution. Thanks for the video!
A thin epoxy you can dip the lights in, with some dye in it, might be able to give the effect you want and hopefully last much longer than the sharpie. Maybe you could even get some phosphorescent dyes that makes the lights look like they're on outside during the day without having to power them. Or glow in the dark. Or one that changes color with heat. Or cool swirly effects if you don't mix the dye in all the way. So many possibilities...
If the warm white LED strings have plastic covers you might try dyeing them with RIT fabric dye. It's a common technique for adding the smoked look to plastic visors, sunglasses, etc.
One thing to consider with indoor lights.... using 'so little energy' might not be a good thing. At Christmas most people in the Northern hemisphere want the house to be a little more cosy, and multiple sets of filament bulb sets can actually contribute somewhat to the background warmth of the room. If you have a decent heating system and it's left on 'constant' this might not be an issue, but for people who have timed heating, or a system that struggles to keep up in cold weather, the extra heat output from the lights can help a little. One extreme non-fairy light example was an old rental property we were stuck in back in 2011-2012. We complained than the antique oil-fired boiler couldn't keep the house warm, and than we needed to use a pair of small electric radiators to keep cosy. The landlords refuted this, saying they'd never been too cold. Then I recalled replacing all the old filament bulbs with CFL lamps. A quick count in the 10ftx10ft kitchen and the 18ftx36ft lounge/diner revealed I'd removed 5x 100W bulbs from the former, and 15x 100w bulbs from the latter, replacing them all with 11w CFLs: a loss of 2kW of almost 1.8kW of almost pure heat. Call it 1,500W give or take. That's a fair chunk of heat, especially given that in winter those bulbs were on for 8 hours per evening. Just a random example there. Loved the bloopers :-)
Could be a benefit if your electricity is particularly cheap. But where I live, most houses use central gas furnaces since gas heating is much cheaper than electric heating. In this case, using electric bulbs to add more heat is less cost-effective (and using energy-efficient bulbs is an advantage in summer when trying to keep the house cool).
Me too always wondered why companies don't go the old way, ie. warm (led) lights with coloured covers. Great to see I am not the only one with this strange idea. =) Thanks for this video.
I'm glad to see you are still raving about the twinkling lights. Went out last night to Menards and picked up two boxes $4.99. Never would've considered buying them if wasn't for your video on them.
Finally I have found SOMEONE who agrees with my thoughts and opinions on led christmas lights.I'll use them, but the LED's just aren't as pleasing or nostalgic.
*_THE_* only good Christmas/Holiday LED lights are the screw-in (to C7 or C9 light sockets) steady-lit, flashing/blinking and colour-changing LED Christmas/Holiday light bulbs in my opinion; as you can *_still_* use vintage/antique Christmas/Holiday light string wire harnesses if you want to there, and so you can _at least_ have the light string wire harnesses be traditional there *_if_* not the light bulbs _themselves!_
Back in the 70s/80s we had a set that had two colors on one bulb. They had a plastic "flower" on each one too. I haven't seen them since. They looked warm and cozy. The sharpies are a great idea!
The flickering of LED festivus lights is an absolute dealbreaker for me. I can instantly spot it from down the road. None of the warm glowy vibes of incandescents
The real problem with green and blue leds is that they are much more efficient than red and orange and similar. Since the different colors are connected in series in nearly all of these sets, this leads to significant differences in brightness. *However,* there is a solution which some manufacturers use: There are Red, yellow, etc LEDs which are actually blue LEDs with a phosphor to create the color. They are more expensive though, but there is no issue with brightness difference.
Yes, I've got one of these RGBW strings where you can either have colored phosphor LEDs which looks very lovely, or warm white if you want to switch it up, all in the same LEDs. It can also alternate between the two but that looks cheesy imo.
Sapient. Plants and fungus are non-sentient, non-human animals are generally sentient (even bees can do math, look it up), and humans and Bugs Bunny are sapient (ie, tool addicts).
6:52 "They'd last many years without fading." And that's exactly why they wont do it. Why make something that lasts many years, when what they currently make has to be replaced every year.
i discovered this channel 2 nights ago and can't stop watching. this video in particular hits home because i have the same frustration with LED lights. I suppose each year I get a little more used to them, but i hope manufacturers will go back to the colors i grew up with. i like the idea of coloring warm white lights, but when you're talking about hundreds of lights.. it's a big job, especially if the color ends up needing to be refreshed every year.
I know some people will go nuts, but damn, that was funny -- a different holiday name every time. Like you took it as a challenge to see how many holiday names you could come up with. 😂 And a proper celebration of Festivus will include the Airing of Grievances. I expect to see that in your next Festivus video! 😉
@@AA5SA feats of strength: sticking with the joke and (mental strength) finding as many ways to say "Holiday season" he could. Airing of grievances: not happy with lights on market.
I loved your original twinkling light video! I first saw it years ago and this one just added! I thought I was alone with the nostalgia with these lights. My father first bought them when I was 13 I believe. They fascinated me and I found them extremely aesthetic!!! Now that I’m much older and in my own home I’m going to be experimenting this year with finding/recreating these lights. And of course helping my parents put up their old sets. Your channel as a whole is very pleasant to watch. Thank you for your insights and well articulated opinions.
This guy cares about the same strange things I care about, I love it! I must say, I did this years ago, knew right away to go to Sharpies, as it's almost like a dye, anyway, LED's are getting better, still no full wave rectification on approx 75% of sets, but they are getting better :)
you can measure the power that a led takes or source takes useally wattage is used its a combined value out of voltage and ampere its a diffrent system instead of heat a wolfram wire up where the most energy go into heat the led use something like a cap and a wire that goes in there in the pot itself is a material like galliumphosphat
Great video, but I will admit the way you went about painting the lights was killing the visual arts background in me lol. With the acrylic paint, you could have diluted it with gloss medium, perhaps even matte medium, and gotten the translucency you were going for with the blue. It's almost exclusively used with acrylic paint for the purpose of making it translucent like a glaze lol. Likewise, the use of sharpies will work as a quick fix but will indeed fade over time. I would recommend Copic markers as they are similarly alcohol-based, have a wider selection of colours, and stay more true to the colour on the cap/label without fading.
+1 for the suggestion of using acrylic medium, it's essentially paint with no pigment. I use it for painting wargaming miniatures so I can do multiple thin coats rather than one thick coat.
@Alex Phillips except if you take some opaque pigment like Titanium Oxide White and apply it in glaze with a medium, you'll never achieve the same transparency as Zinc Oxide White.
I know this is an old video, but you might consider two things if you wanted to try acrylic paint. First, a clear primer spray might give you better grip to get even paint after thinning it a bit. The other thing you can try is adding more acrylic base (this would be similar to the translucent paint you thought of; it's the base without the pigment) to your more difficult colors. Paint strokes are easiest removed by thinning your paint a bit and doing more than one coat. (For more info on acrylic paint, look up tutorials from people who paint miniatures - they've mastered messing with acrylic paints)
For many years I’ve been in a similar situation trying to find suitable LED replacement light sets. I have 2 sets of 80 twinkling incandescent white fairy lights that had a very unique rippling effect by using 4 sets of 20 sequenced bulbs that are intertwined. Over the 25 years or so I‘ve had them the bulbs have blown and they’ve been harder and harder to get each year (and more expensive) as the glass is fused to an usual push fitting. Also a dead short a few years blew several unusual MOSFETs in one set but I was able find some old/new stock replacements online as the ones used were no longer in production. Sometimes a bulb blowing has taken out a whole string of 20 as the bulbs are weak and the fuse bulb didn’t pop. Last year I succumbed to using LED lights but like you found the light and colour too uniform... and couldn’t’ find any that even closely mimicked the twinkling wave pattern of the originals. I eventually chose lights that were made from hundreds of LED lights that independently faded through pastel colours of the rainbow. They looked very pretty but the effect wasn’t near as pleasing as my old incandescent lights. This year I’m going to try Konstsmide 240 FireFly amber LED fairy lights. I’ve seen videos and they look very pleasing and they have very good reviews. Although they’re quite what I’m looking for, they may be the next best thing for the time being. I’ve kept my old sets and I’ve started to convert each channel to use soft white LED’s similar to the ones you’ve been using. A had to change out a few components in the control box as the fading effect came over a bit brutal as it was designed for incandescent bulbs which naturally softened the steps of the fading, hopefully adding smoothing capacitors will reduce any visible stepping. Hopefully be next year I’ll be back to my original lights but upgraded to LED’s... and no more fun playing hunt the blown bulb or having them melt tree decorations. Finger crossed :) P.S. As an alternative to Sharpies (as I’ve found they do fade quite quickly out in the elements), perhaps you could use coloured translucent lacquers perhaps even using nail polish?
If you substitute a bridge rectifier you will first need to verify that the LEDs were not being overdriven since they will have twice the duty cycle with a bridge rectifier. But if they are being under driven then the addition of the bridge rectifier will both increase the flicker frequency and double their apparent brightness. If you add filter capacitors to eliminate the flicker altogether then you have to be even more concerned about the possibility of them being over driven since they will not only experience a much higher duty cycle still but also the average voltage they experience will tend to be much greater thanks to the peak voltage the capacitors will charge to is 1.41 times greater than the RMS AC voltage fed to them so the LEDs will experience this peak voltage for a greater duration, driving the LEDs even harder still. So don’t be surprised if you have to add some added resistance or modify the capacitive dropper circuit to keep the LEDs within their safe driving range.
In kids crafts, we often use white glue or Mod Podge (both PVA) with either food coloring or cheap acrylic paint mixed in for coloring. The advantage is that you can vary the intensity, so you could do a weak blue easily.
doesn't matter what time of year, Christmas videos always seem to put me in a better mood. its funny how I go back to Christmas youtube videos every year around the 25th much like how we went back to tv shows or specials every year as a kid. interesting video btw. I have a tooooon of sharpies, I am curious how some of the more unusual colors will look
Reminds me how as a kid i got replacement bulbs for christmas-lights and used them to make my own lighting for LEGO - problem was they were of course incandescent at the time and letting them run dimly, even just for an hour or so while playing, meant that they got really hot when encased in lego-builds. But it did look nice that i have an oven and streelights that worked .P
For the last 5 years I've been using Lights4fun Pro series filament bulbs. They're outdoor fairy lights intended for permanent installations so they're well made and super-long-life. They're naturally warm white and I run them through a dimmer plug to further dim them right down to 1800-2000k. I still so far haven't seen any warm white led set which looks quite so good.
You are reading my mind with this video! All that manufacturers need to do is slap the old colored glass onto LED fixtures and bob's your uncle. You'd think more people in the industry would have thought of this already.
Look at how famous you've become. Your videos are excellent, as reflected by over 5,000 likes in this particular one. You are a superstar and I love watching them. Thank you for all your hard work. It is not unappreciated. You GO!
Fun fact about Sharpie markers: the colored plastic part the tip is on is simply press-fit into the grey handle. Inside is a tube of ink-soaked sponge with a divot for the felt tip which is slightly smaller than the diameter of a holiday string light. Fun fact.
I think everyone is missing the point (no pun intended.) What he is saying is the ink soaked sponge has a hole just the right size to insert a miniature lamp. Insert the bulb into the hole and remove to coat lamp with ink. This would make coloring each lamp a 2 second process as opposed to scribbling all over each one.
While I’m not big on decorating, I still have a great appreciation for your obsession with the details on these lights. And I also appreciate you sharing where to find these lights. If you want companies to keep making a product, you have to vote with your wallet.
Thank you for your experiments! I also have nostalgic feelings for the old lights. Sharpies definitely fade in the sun, so outside they may not last very long, but that's OK.
I went to the Poundland in Carlisle and I don't think they had as good a selection as other locations, based on what Clive usually finds. Maybe Carlisle is just the armpit of England so no one cares.
I went to the Poundland in Carlisle and I don't think they had as good a selection as other locations, based on what Clive usually finds. Maybe Carlisle is just the armpit of England so no one cares.
Where'd you get that jacket? The moire store? HEYO! I'm curious if the technology for the long lasting, low energy incandescent bulbs they came up with at MIT a few years ago will ever be viable. As a filmmaker, the thought of low-heat, low-energy, full spectrum light is veeery enticing.
Both my wife and I also have a disdain for LED Christmas lights. When we got married and were looking to buy our first Christmas tree, the realistic looking trees we liked were only available pre-lit with LEDs. Some warm white LED's are ok but since they are unidirectional, as another commenter noted, they just don't look the same and still don't offer the same spectrum of light as incandescents. So we bought the tree we liked, I spent some time removing the webbed, tangled, mess of existing lights (luckily they were removable with standard plugs), and wrapped all-new incandescent strings around the tree. Oh, also, the pre-lit variety only came with 500 lights...we strung 1,500 lights! That, in addition to a 70's "celestial" star tree topper and our Mr. Christmas "Santa's Ski Slope", makes for one very festive tree!
I watched the part where you changed colors and turned on the string lights a bunch of times because it's so good! The lights give the objects almost a golden shimmer. Also, nice collection of increasingly less decembery holiday terms
I like watching your videos as everything is so brilliantly explained I use so little energy having to understand things you talk about. I also use so little energy as I don't have to keep skipping the video back. BRILL VIDS! :D
As an artist who has played with all sorts of paints, lots of spray paints, and many a sharpy... I have a few tips and suggestions for you. The sharpy will easily scratch off. And when left in the sun (or any UV exposure) the color will fade. But I an idea for a solution to both issues. Spray on canvas varnish. You can find it almost anywhere that sells spray paint (Krylon brand calls is Kamar). Whatever brand you get be sure to get glossy and make sure to get one with added UV protection. I also recommend spraying it into a small cup and dipping the (dried!) Sharpy colored bulbs into it. This will protect the Sharpie ink from fading in the sun or scratching off. BTW even LED bulbs can be removed from the light strands. So the strands in which only the one color twinkled, you could try pulling out the led bulbs and switching up the colors? If you try any of these suggestions and find them useful enough to mention in your next holiday lights video, all I ask is to give me a shout out ;) Oh and I have a few ideas on how to make blinking/ twinkling led strands actually have that twinkly fade via modifying the light strand with capacitors (and smoothing the flicker with a full rectifier using a smoothing capacitor) . I've played with making leds running on batteries fade off capacitors, but I'm just not quite knowledgeable (or comfortable) yet on the best way to do it with a string of leds running on house current.
Really enjoyed this video. My favorite sized lights are C9. The LED ones just don't have the look of the old incandescent glass bulbs that I love so much.
I found some philips smooth clear C9 LEDs this past December season and they felt pretty close to the old clear colored glass ones that I missed from childhood. D2 model, iirc.
Imagine the conversation at the paint r and d department... "you want to make a what?? A transparent pant?? Dave you are fired, go clean out your desk"
We LOVE the gentle twinkling white incandescent lights and have been using them for many years but as you stated in your video, they are hard to find! If I find them, I am going to stock up because the ambience these create cannot be beat. They are so majestic. Thanks for your video...informative AND funny!
When I was a kid our colored christmas lights had some kind of painted coating on the outside of the bulbs because I remember as they got really old they coloring would crack and/or flake off exposing a white or yellow bulb. I also seem to think for some reason that if one bulb blew then the rest of the bulbs would still be lit but I can't remember. Do a video on those bubble lights where the bottom light would heat some compound inside and make bubbles.
I seriously did this allready when I was 10 years old (30 years ago) because the paint on te incandecant bulbs began to peel off. My parents were delighted to see me colour the half white lights back to their old self with I believe were waterproof markers. Twas only a string of about 30 lights, and it remained at our kitchen window for many more chrismasses.
Hey T.C. This isn't a good idea, but might be worthy, there's now a lot of "cheap" addressable RGB leds in every kind of format(SMD, DIP Like and goes on), that you can change color, temp, brightness, contrast(some datasheets says that). Nowadays they are "cheap"(in comparison to 3 years ago). So you can with them build your own christmas lights and make them blink the way you want.
This information is so helpful. Thank you! I first saw these at Disney and I want them for my landscaping. Now I know what specifically to look for. Thanks again!
There will be at least one Chinese manufacturer out there who will put the entire string in series and power it directly from mains AC via a capacitor (for current limiting); so I'd go easy on that "low electrocution risk" claim 🤔.
Led light solution for manufactures to implement. Make every light an RGB diode with about 5 channels that can be individually controlled. That way the user can customise the exact color they want. A single strand of lights could be used for several holidays with a simple change of colors. Don't forget to include options like flickering and shimmering effects. Then there's my favorite effect, the chaser lights from the late 80's. LED lights have so much potential.
I hate those damn blue led lights. Just burn the retinas right out. I hate them when a house has a ton of them and it’s on a corner so I can’t see the road as there to bright and distracting.
Blue LEDs are awful in general. With electronic device indicator lights, they're so excessively bright compared to indicator lights in other colors. I wish manufacturers would either manufacture these LEDs to have lower brightness, or choose dimmer colors. Like, my computer's powered-on light really doesn't need to be bright enough to light a room. Fortunately, for some devices, you can disable the LEDs (either through hardware or software) and for everything else, there's electrical tape.
I, also, love incandescent bulbs for my outdoor lighting, more specifically, I love the larger C7/9 look which makes running mini lights look like a battery project. I got some cheap G40 LED type strings and while the low energy use is nice it is far from optimal in the color range. They use multi-colored plastic filters over concave LEDs like you have(but 5mm not 3mm like these). It depends on how the strand was built as to how much of a pain in the ass it will be but it is possible to dismantle the bulbs and replace the LEDs with warm white like I did. They look 1000 times better.
Every time I see a new video headline from this account, I fall into a feeling I can only describe as the excitement I had as an 8 year old pulling apart VHS tapes to see how they worked... I think I love you.
It really feels like they could just add a chip to the LED driver that would allow the lights to act like incandescent twinklers. They would help people use so little energy.
You make me suddenly care about light strands, and then go shopping for some before I realize, "Hey, I don't really care about this!" I would consider this effect as a job done extremely well. Fantastic video, as always.
You're not alone buddy, the blues and purples in LED light sets are unsettling for me as well. Since their entry into the market several years ago, I've opted to painstakingly maintain my incandescent bulbs rather than purchase a palette I'm not completely satisfied with. If they would tone those blues and purples down a bit, I would actually break down and buy some. Thanks again for an awesome video.
Did you ever consider dipping the bulbs into coloured ink (e.g. in an ink well)? Might be quicker than using Sharpies, and give a more uniform appearance.
I did! However the selection that was in front of me in the craft was quite poor. Another thing I meant to try was "rolling" them on an ink pad for stamps, but I ran out of time :(
There are paints specifically for this at any craft store... They're "stained glass" paints. They work great, don't fade and can be dipped for a beautiful, even, translucent finish.
The rotating holiday name joke was DEFINITELY worth it. Bravo, yet again.
Gus W Yup.
@ Totally worth it.
Christian W Mistaken impression that anybody else cares.
@ Good riddance to bad rubbish.
Novy God sadly omitted, though!
My wife, after showing her this video: "Finally, someone who understands me!!"
Replacement colored lenses should be available for the stock lenses for the white LEDs
Watching this with my wife while she yells at the tv: JUST USE GLASS PAINT!
I guess that's a thing.
I was going to yell this also! Krylon Stained Glass paint!
Didn't know that existed 😮😮
Duh, right? 😜
Also, duplicolor makes "chrome" paint that is translucent.
@@FMWheels I knew that someone from the car scene would chime in but had to be sure. Yeah, ppl been using duplicolor to fake selective yellow headlights for years now (and to smoke taillights...which are soooo much fun to be behind in fog 🙄)
I love LED technology but to be perfectly honest, I’ve had these very same concerns and no one, until now, address them properly. Wow! Thank you!!!
Finally, someone who shares my disdain for the excessive bright blue in LED lights!
Me too... hurts my eyes for days 😞
I don't understand the issue with the blue LED's. I think they look great, in fact, I think they look so much better than the old school ones.
I know right?! There's something about seeing those harsh blues in large quantities on my street that puts me in mind of a police raid......or maybe that's just the kind of street I live on..but I digress.
I tip-tie a blue strand to 2 white strands so the white softens the blue and it is MUCH nicer to look at.
I have your answer!
Take nail polish clear top coat and tint it with the colour desired, i have done this for years with vehicle bulbs for custom looks
Sounds like more work than the sharpie.
@@azdgariarada but its more even and permanent unlike sharpie
The sharpie looked pretty even to me. Also, until you've conducted the experiment with both variables under the same conditions, your contention about increased permanence remains merely an untested hypothesis. I eagerly await the results of your empirical research.
@@azdgariarada I tried sharpie and tested against a few different things years ago, for car light bulbs regular and led the sharpie will not last. We used the polish method all the time on the custom car scene here, but it was then, like in the early 00s, I don't have anything left from then to show here but it was tried and tested then. Trying to help him out with a proven solution, not spend all my time on here screwing with comments
But comment screwing is fun!
Oh baby yeah, right there, that's the spot.
You just reminded me that, as a kid, I used to color my bedside lightbulb (incandescent, it was the 80's) with sharpies to tone its output down and give it a more relaxing color. It worked great.
THANK YOU!!!! Someone who understands my struggles every year! haha I REFUSE to put LEDs on my Christmas tree. I enjoy the warm glow that incandescent lights give off. I tried explaining to people that LEDs are unidirectional, unless they are diffused. That's why so many LEDs holiday lights, especially ones from years ago, look the way they do. I mean, you're looking at a yard, or even a Christmas tree with ALL THESE LEDs around, yet, it somehow still seems DARK. I hate it!
You have given me hope! I thank you.
This comment uses so little energy.
^
RocketboyX that's why it's so attractive LOL
Yes, but zillions of electrons were inconvenienced, regardless.
This reply uses so little energy.
string up to 30 of those comments!
You can rotate the holiday names, because they use so little energy.
Gus W he never states his political opinion but he does have people watching from all over the world with different holidays
@ ❄️ baby
@ Alternatively, you could just ignore him mentioning multiple holidays because it doesn't affect you.
That and maybe make your case without cussing.
@@998Squid You're not helping.
@@racer927 Alternatively, you also could have just ignored my comment, or everyone could have ignored his video. What you term as 'cussing' is also very subjective and we're grown adults so try to get a grip on yourself.
You: "Decemberween"
Everyone who is a fellow sleeper-agent H*R fan: It's free real-estate
FoxtailBoyd1991 I feel seen
YES! H*R Crew represent!
Several months late on this one, but one thing I did when I decided to finally give in to LED in our tree (taking it from 200 watts to 40 watts) I strung an all red string through the entire tree in addition to the multi strings. This doesn't help to reduce the garishness of blue or green, but does bring the overall ambience of the tree more in line with traditional incandescent lights. I tried the sharpie test a few years ago and while I liked the result I just decided it wasn't worth doing it to 500 lights to satisfy my nostalgic desires. However, I would definitely buy the "white LED with colored plastic" set if anyone ever made them.
I still love this channel so much. Aside from the humour and how interesting the subjects are, I adore the format and presentation. Thank you for all the hard work you put into these.
his show reminds me of computer chronicles alot... I like it.
I found the rotating holiday names hilarious, especially the shoutout to Decemberween. "It's a Decemberween Mackerel!"
I tend to prefer orange over yellow, because the orange is closer to the RGB in terms of brightness, while yellow is a bit overpowering on the brightness scale when looking at the lights from a distance.
I share your color preferences. It can be difficult to find light strings with orange bulbs and no pink, and it can be hard to find good orange light bulbs. I found a good clear LED filament bulb that lights up orange from Feit Electric, but their blue is torture! It's really hard to find orange spotlights, but I managed to, but I forgot the brand name.
At first, I didn't figure it out but then it was funny. He saved "Christmas" lights for the end. His detailed content and fun, dry humor make this channel great!
RichXKU “It’s 55 days after Halloween!”
@@Lordrocky24 with bunnies running for their lives.
The weird thing with me is that I love both yellow and orange lights. But never on the same strand and not really on different strands in one display. I'm… pretty weird with my Chrismahanakwanzicah lights I guess.
11:27 what is that sound?! It’s like a dying goose. I love it.
These lights are my spirit animal.
Because I have so little energy.
I work at an art supply store and get a lot of people wondering about better ways to thin acrylic. Indeed there is a product of just clear "acrylic medium." You can find it in various viscosities from a thick paste to thin ink. Any art supply store or major craft store should have a good selection.
Roommate -Look, I just bought a new set of LED string lights! (plugs in) RETINA SEARING BLUE TAKES OVER.
It's such a strange, piercing blue, and I've noticed it taking over cinematography too for some reason. Both films and television (the latest example is in a lot of the lighting in Star Trek: Discovery). It looks terrible, like a burned-out flare in the film. Why is this a thing?!
@Deer are Cute That's what I'm thinking, too. I just don't know why they're intentionally blowing out the visuals like that. It looks terrible.
*_Here comes the rapid flash mode!_*
_epileptic fit intensifies_
Deer are Cute
So modern cameras hate blue like pre-1970s cameras hated black people?
Endless blue light phenomena seen in China but actually shining thru the Earth's core.
'Must be silly folk and their Jesus Christmas celebrations.... AGAIN!'
5:30 - May I suggest CLEANING the bulbs thoroughly so that the Sharpie adheres!
I have the same exact opinions on the LED Christmas lights. The blue is just outshines the other colors a bit too much. The traditional color pallet shouldn't be hard for them to reproduce, and it'd probably sell well. Glad to know I'm not alone on this. And I'm really glad to see that you found such a simple solution. Thanks for the video!
A thin epoxy you can dip the lights in, with some dye in it, might be able to give the effect you want and hopefully last much longer than the sharpie.
Maybe you could even get some phosphorescent dyes that makes the lights look like they're on outside during the day without having to power them. Or glow in the dark. Or one that changes color with heat. Or cool swirly effects if you don't mix the dye in all the way. So many possibilities...
Ooh, me likes this idea!
Wesley Van Pelt I was thinking dipping the lights and maybe use paint thinner so it’s just enough.
Technology Connections keep in mind epoxy is fine with spirit mixes, but hates water.... my significant other suggested ink from highlighters!
Epoxy is not UV resident. Try a urethane instead
@@TechnologyConnections Can't wait to see The Fairy Light Saga: LED Experiments 2: The Epoxy Epoch next year around this time!
If the warm white LED strings have plastic covers you might try dyeing them with RIT fabric dye. It's a common technique for adding the smoked look to plastic visors, sunglasses, etc.
Good idea. I'm going to try that. I dyed plastic black before and it worked great.
One thing to consider with indoor lights.... using 'so little energy' might not be a good thing. At Christmas most people in the Northern hemisphere want the house to be a little more cosy, and multiple sets of filament bulb sets can actually contribute somewhat to the background warmth of the room. If you have a decent heating system and it's left on 'constant' this might not be an issue, but for people who have timed heating, or a system that struggles to keep up in cold weather, the extra heat output from the lights can help a little. One extreme non-fairy light example was an old rental property we were stuck in back in 2011-2012. We complained than the antique oil-fired boiler couldn't keep the house warm, and than we needed to use a pair of small electric radiators to keep cosy. The landlords refuted this, saying they'd never been too cold. Then I recalled replacing all the old filament bulbs with CFL lamps. A quick count in the 10ftx10ft kitchen and the 18ftx36ft lounge/diner revealed I'd removed 5x 100W bulbs from the former, and 15x 100w bulbs from the latter, replacing them all with 11w CFLs: a loss of 2kW of almost 1.8kW of almost pure heat. Call it 1,500W give or take. That's a fair chunk of heat, especially given that in winter those bulbs were on for 8 hours per evening. Just a random example there. Loved the bloopers :-)
Could be a benefit if your electricity is particularly cheap. But where I live, most houses use central gas furnaces since gas heating is much cheaper than electric heating. In this case, using electric bulbs to add more heat is less cost-effective (and using energy-efficient bulbs is an advantage in summer when trying to keep the house cool).
Me too always wondered why companies don't go the old way, ie. warm (led) lights with coloured covers. Great to see I am not the only one with this strange idea. =) Thanks for this video.
I'm glad to see you are still raving about the twinkling lights. Went out last night to Menards and picked up two boxes $4.99. Never would've considered buying them if wasn't for your video on them.
Finally I have found SOMEONE who agrees with my thoughts and opinions on led christmas lights.I'll use them, but the LED's just aren't as pleasing or nostalgic.
*_THE_* only good Christmas/Holiday LED lights are the screw-in (to C7 or C9 light sockets) steady-lit, flashing/blinking and colour-changing LED Christmas/Holiday light bulbs in my opinion; as you can *_still_* use vintage/antique Christmas/Holiday light string wire harnesses if you want to there, and so you can _at least_ have the light string wire harnesses be traditional there *_if_* not the light bulbs _themselves!_
Back in the 70s/80s we had a set that had two colors on one bulb.
They had a plastic "flower" on each one too. I haven't seen them since. They looked warm and cozy.
The sharpies are a great idea!
The flickering of LED festivus lights is an absolute dealbreaker for me. I can instantly spot it from down the road. None of the warm glowy vibes of incandescents
The real problem with green and blue leds is that they are much more efficient than red and orange and similar. Since the different colors are connected in series in nearly all of these sets, this leads to significant differences in brightness.
*However,* there is a solution which some manufacturers use: There are Red, yellow, etc LEDs which are actually blue LEDs with a phosphor to create the color. They are more expensive though, but there is no issue with brightness difference.
Yes, I've got one of these RGBW strings where you can either have colored phosphor LEDs which looks very lovely, or warm white if you want to switch it up, all in the same LEDs. It can also alternate between the two but that looks cheesy imo.
Or they could just add a resistor, which fixes the problem a lot more easily: ruclips.net/video/B_jMHRLnOco/видео.html
Here at Warner, every holiday involves sentient rabbits.
"Harvey!"
Oh, i thought you said rabbis. My bad .
@@artistwithouttalent I had to read your comment to get that joke. Wow.
After your sharpie painting, you can likely use exterior spray varnish to protect the sharpie ink from the weather and UV?
Sapient. Plants and fungus are non-sentient, non-human animals are generally sentient (even bees can do math, look it up), and humans and Bugs Bunny are sapient (ie, tool addicts).
6:52 "They'd last many years without fading."
And that's exactly why they wont do it. Why make something that lasts many years, when what they currently make has to be replaced every year.
they paint it instead of using coloured plastic
it will look nice, and it will fade
i discovered this channel 2 nights ago and can't stop watching. this video in particular hits home because i have the same frustration with LED lights. I suppose each year I get a little more used to them, but i hope manufacturers will go back to the colors i grew up with. i like the idea of coloring warm white lights, but when you're talking about hundreds of lights.. it's a big job, especially if the color ends up needing to be refreshed every year.
Garish and offputting is what the holiday season is all about!
I know some people will go nuts, but damn, that was funny -- a different holiday name every time. Like you took it as a challenge to see how many holiday names you could come up with. 😂
And a proper celebration of Festivus will include the Airing of Grievances. I expect to see that in your next Festivus video! 😉
Happy holidays. ;)
What about feats of strength?
@@AA5SA feats of strength: sticking with the joke and (mental strength) finding as many ways to say "Holiday season" he could. Airing of grievances: not happy with lights on market.
@ Nope.
I loved your original twinkling light video! I first saw it years ago and this one just added! I thought I was alone with the nostalgia with these lights. My father first bought them when I was 13 I believe. They fascinated me and I found them extremely aesthetic!!!
Now that I’m much older and in my own home I’m going to be experimenting this year with finding/recreating these lights. And of course helping my parents put up their old sets.
Your channel as a whole is very pleasant to watch. Thank you for your insights and well articulated opinions.
This guy cares about the same strange things I care about, I love it! I must say, I did this years ago, knew right away to go to Sharpies, as it's almost like a dye, anyway, LED's are getting better, still no full wave rectification on approx 75% of sets, but they are getting better :)
blue LEDs are a real issue. It needs to be adressed. btw does anyone know if LEDs use less power?
disastermaster85 Hey, did you know that LEDs use less power?
Yes, LEDs use less power than incandescent bulbs.
They actually put power back in to the grid. Go watch your meter run backwards 😃 happy kwanzamassoweenukkah
Yes, they use solittleenergy.
you can measure the power that a led takes or source takes useally wattage is used its a combined value out of voltage and ampere
its a diffrent system instead of heat a wolfram wire up where the most energy go into heat
the led use something like a cap and a wire that goes in there in the pot itself is a material like galliumphosphat
Great video, but I will admit the way you went about painting the lights was killing the visual arts background in me lol.
With the acrylic paint, you could have diluted it with gloss medium, perhaps even matte medium, and gotten the translucency you were going for with the blue. It's almost exclusively used with acrylic paint for the purpose of making it translucent like a glaze lol. Likewise, the use of sharpies will work as a quick fix but will indeed fade over time. I would recommend Copic markers as they are similarly alcohol-based, have a wider selection of colours, and stay more true to the colour on the cap/label without fading.
Aaaand you forgot about pigment opacity.
+1 for the suggestion of using acrylic medium, it's essentially paint with no pigment. I use it for painting wargaming miniatures so I can do multiple thin coats rather than one thick coat.
@Alex Phillips except if you take some opaque pigment like Titanium Oxide White and apply it in glaze with a medium, you'll never achieve the same transparency as Zinc Oxide White.
Someone call in Jazza!
I know this is an old video, but you might consider two things if you wanted to try acrylic paint. First, a clear primer spray might give you better grip to get even paint after thinning it a bit. The other thing you can try is adding more acrylic base (this would be similar to the translucent paint you thought of; it's the base without the pigment) to your more difficult colors. Paint strokes are easiest removed by thinning your paint a bit and doing more than one coat. (For more info on acrylic paint, look up tutorials from people who paint miniatures - they've mastered messing with acrylic paints)
5:39 "Festavus lights" Hang on, Festavus for the restofus?
For many years I’ve been in a similar situation trying to find suitable LED replacement light sets.
I have 2 sets of 80 twinkling incandescent white fairy lights that had a very unique rippling effect by using 4 sets of 20 sequenced bulbs that are intertwined.
Over the 25 years or so I‘ve had them the bulbs have blown and they’ve been harder and harder to get each year (and more expensive) as the glass is fused to an usual push fitting.
Also a dead short a few years blew several unusual MOSFETs in one set but I was able find some old/new stock replacements online as the ones used were no longer in production.
Sometimes a bulb blowing has taken out a whole string of 20 as the bulbs are weak and the fuse bulb didn’t pop.
Last year I succumbed to using LED lights but like you found the light and colour too uniform... and couldn’t’ find any that even closely mimicked the twinkling wave pattern of the originals.
I eventually chose lights that were made from hundreds of LED lights that independently faded through pastel colours of the rainbow.
They looked very pretty but the effect wasn’t near as pleasing as my old incandescent lights.
This year I’m going to try Konstsmide 240 FireFly amber LED fairy lights.
I’ve seen videos and they look very pleasing and they have very good reviews.
Although they’re quite what I’m looking for, they may be the next best thing for the time being.
I’ve kept my old sets and I’ve started to convert each channel to use soft white LED’s similar to the ones you’ve been using.
A had to change out a few components in the control box as the fading effect came over a bit brutal as it was designed for incandescent bulbs which naturally softened the steps of the fading, hopefully adding smoothing capacitors will reduce any visible stepping.
Hopefully be next year I’ll be back to my original lights but upgraded to LED’s... and no more fun playing hunt the blown bulb or having them melt tree decorations.
Finger crossed :)
P.S. As an alternative to Sharpies (as I’ve found they do fade quite quickly out in the elements), perhaps you could use coloured translucent lacquers perhaps even using nail polish?
You should do a DIY video where you add bridge rectifiers to Christmas lights
You're pronouncing it wrong, it's:
*FULL*
*BRIDGE*
*RECTIFIER*
!
@@OlaMagnusLie no, in this case the correct pronunciation is in fact Big Clive calmly explaining what his lazy bridge rectifier is.
...Yeah - you didn't get it.
If you substitute a bridge rectifier you will first need to verify that the LEDs were not being overdriven since they will have twice the duty cycle with a bridge rectifier. But if they are being under driven then the addition of the bridge rectifier will both increase the flicker frequency and double their apparent brightness. If you add filter capacitors to eliminate the flicker altogether then you have to be even more concerned about the possibility of them being over driven since they will not only experience a much higher duty cycle still but also the average voltage they experience will tend to be much greater thanks to the peak voltage the capacitors will charge to is 1.41 times greater than the RMS AC voltage fed to them so the LEDs will experience this peak voltage for a greater duration, driving the LEDs even harder still. So don’t be surprised if you have to add some added resistance or modify the capacitive dropper circuit to keep the LEDs within their safe driving range.
GIMME DA SCOPE.
In kids crafts, we often use white glue or Mod Podge (both PVA) with either food coloring or cheap acrylic paint mixed in for coloring. The advantage is that you can vary the intensity, so you could do a weak blue easily.
doesn't matter what time of year, Christmas videos always seem to put me in a better mood. its funny how I go back to Christmas youtube videos every year around the 25th much like how we went back to tv shows or specials every year as a kid. interesting video btw. I have a tooooon of sharpies, I am curious how some of the more unusual colors will look
Reminds me how as a kid i got replacement bulbs for christmas-lights and used them to make my own lighting for LEGO - problem was they were of course incandescent at the time and letting them run dimly, even just for an hour or so while playing, meant that they got really hot when encased in lego-builds.
But it did look nice that i have an oven and streelights that worked .P
For the last 5 years I've been using Lights4fun Pro series filament bulbs. They're outdoor fairy lights intended for permanent installations so they're well made and super-long-life. They're naturally warm white and I run them through a dimmer plug to further dim them right down to 1800-2000k. I still so far haven't seen any warm white led set which looks quite so good.
Check out the new Tru-Tone.com bulbs...they are filament LED based.
You are reading my mind with this video! All that manufacturers need to do is slap the old colored glass onto LED fixtures and bob's your uncle. You'd think more people in the industry would have thought of this already.
Look at how famous you've become. Your videos are excellent, as reflected by over 5,000 likes in this particular one. You are a superstar and I love watching them. Thank you for all your hard work. It is not unappreciated. You GO!
Happy last 5 minutes of Decemberween, Technology Connection.
Fun fact about Sharpie markers: the colored plastic part the tip is on is simply press-fit into the grey handle. Inside is a tube of ink-soaked sponge with a divot for the felt tip which is slightly smaller than the diameter of a holiday string light. Fun fact.
Anderson 63 Scooper And they smell nice too!
I didn't.
I think everyone is missing the point (no pun intended.)
What he is saying is the ink soaked sponge has a hole just the right size to insert a miniature lamp. Insert the bulb into the hole and remove to coat lamp with ink. This would make coloring each lamp a 2 second process as opposed to scribbling all over each one.
@Dave Micolichek or wear gloves?
While I’m not big on decorating, I still have a great appreciation for your obsession with the details on these lights.
And I also appreciate you sharing where to find these lights. If you want companies to keep making a product, you have to vote with your wallet.
Thank you for your experiments! I also have nostalgic feelings for the old lights. Sharpies definitely fade in the sun, so outside they may not last very long, but that's OK.
Ah, channeling your inner Big Clive I see. Just take his recommendations and head down to your local Poundland for the choice sets of fairly lights!
I went to the Poundland in Carlisle and I don't think they had as good a selection as other locations, based on what Clive usually finds. Maybe Carlisle is just the armpit of England so no one cares.
I went to the Poundland in Carlisle and I don't think they had as good a selection as other locations, based on what Clive usually finds. Maybe Carlisle is just the armpit of England so no one cares.
I've never been to Poundland, though I've been to Poundtown
Big Clive had another solution to multicolouring led lights which was to use jelly babies. Probably won't last very long outside unfortunately.
Where'd you get that jacket? The moire store? HEYO! I'm curious if the technology for the long lasting, low energy incandescent bulbs they came up with at MIT a few years ago will ever be viable. As a filmmaker, the thought of low-heat, low-energy, full spectrum light is veeery enticing.
Do you have any more information about these MIT incandescent bulbs? That sounds interesting. Nice joke! Moire can be very distracting.
@@buddyclem7328 www.dezeen.com/2016/01/13/mit-energy-efficient-incandescent-light-bulb-research/
The jacket is a test for your TV's comb filtering ability.
Both my wife and I also have a disdain for LED Christmas lights. When we got married and were looking to buy our first Christmas tree, the realistic looking trees we liked were only available pre-lit with LEDs. Some warm white LED's are ok but since they are unidirectional, as another commenter noted, they just don't look the same and still don't offer the same spectrum of light as incandescents. So we bought the tree we liked, I spent some time removing the webbed, tangled, mess of existing lights (luckily they were removable with standard plugs), and wrapped all-new incandescent strings around the tree. Oh, also, the pre-lit variety only came with 500 lights...we strung 1,500 lights! That, in addition to a 70's "celestial" star tree topper and our Mr. Christmas "Santa's Ski Slope", makes for one very festive tree!
Gearing up for another year of lighting, and man, this video still cracks me up. Hope you do an update this year. Great work!
5:45 I actually really like the faded colors.
Also, have you tried covering the sharpie in clear nail polish? That's how I keep sharpie on plastics.
SO LITTLE ENERGY!
S O
M U C H
A E S T E T I C S
I watched the part where you changed colors and turned on the string lights a bunch of times because it's so good! The lights give the objects almost a golden shimmer. Also, nice collection of increasingly less decembery holiday terms
I like watching your videos as everything is so brilliantly explained I use so little energy having to understand things you talk about. I also use so little energy as I don't have to keep skipping the video back. BRILL VIDS! :D
You said Decemberween!!! I smell a homestar runner fan??? Coach z is already hitting the nonspecific mouthwash
good jorb!
I was about to say something, but I found this comment. And that makes me happier.
Thomas Andrews this comment needs to be “BALEETED!” 😂
@@reeftank706 If you don't stop, I'll pour a thing of mountain dwa on your computer...it's the never ending sodddaa ah ah ah ah
My head asplode!
This video is *SO LIT*
*TLE ENERGY*
It's very reassuring that I'm not alone in my hatred of blue LED lights! Totally going to try this method!
As an artist who has played with all sorts of paints, lots of spray paints, and many a sharpy... I have a few tips and suggestions for you. The sharpy will easily scratch off. And when left in the sun (or any UV exposure) the color will fade. But I an idea for a solution to both issues. Spray on canvas varnish. You can find it almost anywhere that sells spray paint (Krylon brand calls is Kamar). Whatever brand you get be sure to get glossy and make sure to get one with added UV protection. I also recommend spraying it into a small cup and dipping the (dried!) Sharpy colored bulbs into it. This will protect the Sharpie ink from fading in the sun or scratching off.
BTW even LED bulbs can be removed from the light strands. So the strands in which only the one color twinkled, you could try pulling out the led bulbs and switching up the colors?
If you try any of these suggestions and find them useful enough to mention in your next holiday lights video, all I ask is to give me a shout out ;)
Oh and I have a few ideas on how to make blinking/ twinkling led strands actually have that twinkly fade via modifying the light strand with capacitors (and smoothing the flicker with a full rectifier using a smoothing capacitor) . I've played with making leds running on batteries fade off capacitors, but I'm just not quite knowledgeable (or comfortable) yet on the best way to do it with a string of leds running on house current.
Really enjoyed this video.
My favorite sized lights are C9. The LED ones just don't have the look of the old incandescent glass bulbs that I love so much.
C9 and C7 are wonderful. Both the clear colored glass and the frosted ones that look like they're coated with a colored powder inside.
I found some philips smooth clear C9 LEDs this past December season and they felt pretty close to the old clear colored glass ones that I missed from childhood. D2 model, iirc.
Imagine the conversation at the paint r and d department... "you want to make a what?? A transparent pant?? Dave you are fired, go clean out your desk"
We LOVE the gentle twinkling white incandescent lights and have been using them for many years but as you stated in your video, they are hard to find! If I find them, I am going to stock up because the ambience these create cannot be beat. They are so majestic. Thanks for your video...informative AND funny!
LOVING the way you used various holiday names. Excellent!
When I was a kid our colored christmas lights had some kind of painted coating on the outside of the bulbs because I remember as they got really old they coloring would crack and/or flake off exposing a white or yellow bulb. I also seem to think for some reason that if one bulb blew then the rest of the bulbs would still be lit but I can't remember.
Do a video on those bubble lights where the bottom light would heat some compound inside and make bubbles.
Festivus is always worth it.
LEDs are more glowy, and more glowy pleases my eyes
I seriously did this allready when I was 10 years old (30 years ago) because the paint on te incandecant bulbs began to peel off. My parents were delighted to see me colour the half white lights back to their old self with I believe were waterproof markers. Twas only a string of about 30 lights, and it remained at our kitchen window for many more chrismasses.
Hey T.C. This isn't a good idea, but might be worthy, there's now a lot of "cheap" addressable RGB leds in every kind of format(SMD, DIP Like and goes on), that you can change color, temp, brightness, contrast(some datasheets says that). Nowadays they are "cheap"(in comparison to 3 years ago). So you can with them build your own christmas lights and make them blink the way you want.
I forgot to metions, the most famous models are WS28XX, PL9823 and APA106
@@mateusfelipecota That is my dream. I built my first prototype LED Christmas lights in 1997. They ran off of a DC power supply.
I looked at the thumbnail and I thought it was a Big Clive video :D.
I like how the description of the outro music in the captions is diffrent with every video; “disturbingly smooth jazz” lol
The joke about the Festivus lights was entirely worth it. Totally. Completely. Well done.
Clear finger nail polish. Break apart sharpie and place the ink cart into the polish.
Or just buy some dyes for that.
Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, Christmas, solstice, yule...I see what you did there 😜
This information is so helpful. Thank you! I first saw these at Disney and I want them for my landscaping. Now I know what specifically to look for. Thanks again!
Stoked for this year's follow-up!
It's a real shame no-one makes these lights in traditional Bobunk colours. Now I can, if I can find the correct Sharpies.
low consumption , don't heat up , less fire hazard, low electrocution hazard . The only problem they don't solve is : Cats VS X-mas trees :D
Sure they do, wrapped tightly around their necks. . .
It’s a Christmas tree, Xmas doesn’t exist.
There will be at least one Chinese manufacturer out there who will put the entire string in series and power it directly from mains AC via a capacitor (for current limiting); so I'd go easy on that "low electrocution risk" claim 🤔.
Come to think of it, I'm sure Big Clive has a fairy-lights "extension cord" on his channel.
@@biker932012 the X is short for Χριστός.
That Homestar Runner reference halfway through!
Led light solution for manufactures to implement. Make every light an RGB diode with about 5 channels that can be individually controlled. That way the user can customise the exact color they want. A single strand of lights could be used for several holidays with a simple change of colors. Don't forget to include options like flickering and shimmering effects. Then there's my favorite effect, the chaser lights from the late 80's. LED lights have so much potential.
wow! liking this video cost me so little energy, I did it 10x
“Algorithmic Overlords” lol
That, and "sentient rabbits"
I thoroughly enjoyed the commitment to calling them holiday lights... All of the holidays lights...
I loved the outtakes. I hope you include them in more of your videos
Will a black sharpie result in black light or cast shadows? ;)
I hate those damn blue led lights. Just burn the retinas right out. I hate them when a house has a ton of them and it’s on a corner so I can’t see the road as there to bright and distracting.
Blue LEDs are awful in general. With electronic device indicator lights, they're so excessively bright compared to indicator lights in other colors. I wish manufacturers would either manufacture these LEDs to have lower brightness, or choose dimmer colors. Like, my computer's powered-on light really doesn't need to be bright enough to light a room. Fortunately, for some devices, you can disable the LEDs (either through hardware or software) and for everything else, there's electrical tape.
I, also, love incandescent bulbs for my outdoor lighting, more specifically, I love the larger C7/9 look which makes running mini lights look like a battery project.
I got some cheap G40 LED type strings and while the low energy use is nice it is far from optimal in the color range. They use multi-colored plastic filters over concave LEDs like you have(but 5mm not 3mm like these). It depends on how the strand was built as to how much of a pain in the ass it will be but it is possible to dismantle the bulbs and replace the LEDs with warm white like I did. They look 1000 times better.
Every time I see a new video headline from this account, I fall into a feeling I can only describe as the excitement I had as an 8 year old pulling apart VHS tapes to see how they worked... I think I love you.
It really feels like they could just add a chip to the LED driver that would allow the lights to act like incandescent twinklers. They would help people use so little energy.
did I mention that they use so little energy?
You make me suddenly care about light strands, and then go shopping for some before I realize, "Hey, I don't really care about this!"
I would consider this effect as a job done extremely well. Fantastic video, as always.
You're not alone buddy, the blues and purples in LED light sets are unsettling for me as well. Since their entry into the market several years ago, I've opted to painstakingly maintain my incandescent bulbs rather than purchase a palette I'm not completely satisfied with. If they would tone those blues and purples down a bit, I would actually break down and buy some.
Thanks again for an awesome video.
Did you ever consider dipping the bulbs into coloured ink (e.g. in an ink well)? Might be quicker than using Sharpies, and give a more uniform appearance.
I did! However the selection that was in front of me in the craft was quite poor. Another thing I meant to try was "rolling" them on an ink pad for stamps, but I ran out of time :(
In the craft.....
.....store
@@TechnologyConnections 😄
paint them black and make a paradox xD
Or a waste of money and of so much energy.
There are paints specifically for this at any craft store... They're "stained glass" paints. They work great, don't fade and can be dipped for a beautiful, even, translucent finish.