Christmas LEDs in my room!

please note this entry is NOT intended as a set of instructions to be mimic by anyone else. it is NOT advertised as a D.I.Y. (do it yourself) project. if you decide to mimic this project, and the end result is you becoming homeless cause your house burnt down, I AM NOT RESPONSIBLE!!!! the intention of this entry is simply to share my experience of this project. nothing more.

LED technology has penetrated into the Christmas landscape with many vendors providing LED alternatives to the typical Christmas lights we are used to. LED lights have their advantages that can't be ignored. besides the fact they are energy efficient, the bulbs last much longer, and they can take more abuse than typical bulbs.

this year i decided to look into LED Christmas lights, not for decorating my tree (i didn't get one this year, but then i never bother to get one), to illuminate my room with. you see many years ago (actually just last year) i noticed a porch with these white LED Christmas light hanging above and providing a very soothing ambient lighting. i thought to myself that this could look pretty neat in my room. so this past monday i stopped by at a Target store which was having 50% off clearance sale on all Christmas related items. i bought the only white LED icicle lights they had available and a set of plastic clips to attach them to the wall. the brand i bought was a Philips LED White Dome Icicle lights. contains 70 bulbs per set. total wattage input per set is 4.8W at 0.04A.


when i came home to set them up i loved the result. the light emanating from the LEDs gave my room an eerie but cool ambiance. even better when i realized that they were dimmable with a sliding dimming switch.


then i decided to get another set to hang them on the other side on my room to balance the light out. i had visited a different Target store in the hopes of obtaining and purchasing one more box. when i got to Target, it took a while to locate another set. at first i thought it was too late, cause i didn't see any along with the other Christmas lights. then i found three boxes in another isle and decided to get all three. by this time the clearance sale was up to 75%. with the regular price of $14.99 the whole set cost my less than $13. at first all i needed was just one, so driving home i was thinking of what to do with other two. then it dawned on me - why not use them in my floor standing lamp. all i would need is the right attachment to convert the incandescent socket into a 120V outlet. so i stopped the Home Depot and got an incandescent socket extension and a small converter.


the idea was simple; remove the 40 watt bulb from my lamp, replace it with the incandescent socket extension, insert the 120V socket converter, and attach the LED lights to the lamp via the socket. check out the video below to see how everything came together.



so my little project worked out better than i expected. and the total wattage = 14.4W (19.2W if you count the set on the wall). the light output isn't as luminous as a typical incandescent or compact florescence bulb, but i wasn't trying for that kind of output. all i wanted was enough light to give my room a cool and calming ambiance. even though i used all three LED Christmas light sets, i may decide later to pull one set out and hang it up on the opposite end of my room as i originally planned. until then i'll enjoy this for now.

video info:

this video was shot using an XBOX Live Vision webcam
and software app Crazy Mirror v2.2

music info:

Song:
"Chrono Trigger" (track 01)
Album:
Chrono Trigger: The Brink of Time
(album and song copyrights are properties of Square-Enix)



peace,
@riel