Strobe lights...

[castortiu]

I'll be adding strobe lights but I don't have experience with them, looking around for cheap prices I found those:

E-12 BASE CLEAR COMPACT TOWER STROBE
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E-17 BASE CLEAR COMPACT TOWER STROBE
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SURFACE MOUNT XENON STROBE CLEAR
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What do you think? Are they good? And which of those should I buy?

How do you control the blinking speed?

I’m planning to put them in a tree and in the front of the house.

Cas.

[jnealand]

I can't tell you if those are any good or not, but Action Lighting is a good vendor.  My stobes came from Christmas Light Show. 

You do not control the blink of a strobe.  All you can do is turn them on and off.  I just turn them on for brief periods depending on what else is going on. 

You might want to do a search over on Planet Christmas.  I have seen a number of threads on strobes over there.

[lineman]

I purchase 10 from CDI they were around $5 something they seem to work just fine

[Rainlover]

I am not a strobe expert but like Lineman, I bought some from Creative Displays.  I hooked them up and turned the lights off in my garage and they are really cool. They are really bright. I was seeing spots for a while. I can't wait to see how they look in my display.

John

[rm357]

I just bought some from christmaslightshow.com a couple of weeks ago for $6.99 each. I also bought some C9 vampire tap sockets for spt2 wire. The cheap extension chords I bought at lowes just happen to be made with spt2 wire (said so right on the packaging)... They have two different strobes available - one of the flashes ~1 per second and other runs around 3 to 4 flashes per second. And yes, they are quite bright.

Note: eveything I have seen indicates that you should NOT dim these. Turn them 100% on and turn them off...

RM

[castortiu]

I just asked Paul at CDI and the strobes on his site are incandescent lamps beating 130 times a minute. Usually incandescent lamps have a much slower reaction than real flash Xeon lamps. And the difference is very noticeable.

Now I have these 2 to choose from, but neither of them tell me if they are incandescent or real flash lights.

One from Action Lighting
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One from Christmas Light Show.
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Someone has experience with any of those and if they have Xeon lamps inside? Or another site from where to get Flash lights?

Thanks,
Cas.

[trekster]

Hello Cas.  I got mine from You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login
They are not incandescent.  I did not take them apart but I watched them and it is a real strobe light in them.   I could see a small glass tube and it was very bright when they flashed.  I bought ten of them.  I put them in some C9 sockets and watched them flash.  They look great to me.

Ron

PS..... Thank you for the Prancer that you are working on.

[castortiu]

Ron,

Thank you for the tip, useful info, I'll order from Christmaslightshow right now.

Thanks,
Cas.

[scharbon]

Just when I thought I had stopped spending money on this hobby (addiction) for the year - you guys get me thinking about strobe lights.  I think I am going to have to play with these for 2010.  Looks like abohter $120 will vaporize in the next month!!!  Christmas light show mentions that you need to add weep holes to allow moisture to escape.  Where do you add the weep holes - in the green casing or the clear plastic dome?  Thanks in advance for any info you can provide.

Steve

[basis21b]

I'll be adding strobe lights but I don't have experience with them, looking around for cheap prices I found those:

E-12 BASE CLEAR COMPACT TOWER STROBE
You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login

E-17 BASE CLEAR COMPACT TOWER STROBE
You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login

SURFACE MOUNT XENON STROBE CLEAR
You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login

What do you think? Are they good? And which of those should I buy?

How do you control the blinking speed?

I’m planning to put them in a tree and in the front of the house.

Cas.

I've used the lights with the E-12 (C7) Base for the past two seasons.  I purchased 2 cartons (24 of them).  In those two years of use only one has failed.  I have them all on a single string and am very happy with the randomness of the flashes.

Tom

[tbone321]

I would NOT put any weep holes in them unless they are shown to be needed.  Weep holes can and do let moisture in as well as let it out and if the bulbs have a good seal then they are not needed and creating them would be damaging the strobe.  I would bet that drilling them would also void any warranty on the strobes (as they are not rated for outside uses).  Unless you see condensation forming inside of the strobe I would leave them alone and if you do, then drill the weep hole in the lowest part of the strobe whether it is the lens or the base.  

[scharbon]

tbone,
   Thanks for the information.  I appreciate the input and will follow your advice.

Tom,
    The Action Lighting site doesn't sate the flashes per minute for the strobes.  Can you tell if its one to two per second or is it three to four?   The price on the strobes at action lighting is better, but the information  on the strobes at Christmas lighting is better.  Thanks for any information you can provide.

Steve

[castortiu]

Tom,

When you look inside the E-12 (C7), are incandescents or xeon lamps?

Cas.

[basis21b]

tbone,
   Thanks for the information.  I appreciate the input and will follow your advice.

Tom,
    The Action Lighting site doesn't sate the flashes per minute for the strobes.  Can you tell if its one to two per second or is it three to four?   The price on the strobes at action lighting is better, but the information  on the strobes at Christmas lighting is better.  Thanks for any information you can provide.

Steve

Steve,

To be honest I have not checked but I believe it is about once per second.  I know it is not beyond two flashes per second.

I have to correct myself.  I thought I used the E-12 (C7) version but in examining my order history I see I ordered the E-17 (C9).  I doubt the C7 vs C9 matters much except you can order an empty 25 socket C9 string from them too...

Tom

[theavguy99]

I bought a box of c7 strobes from Action Lighting last year.  They seem to flash at about 1 flash per second, and with a set of 12 after a couple of seconds the flashing was fairly random.  They are definitely xenon strobes.

They all worked perfectly for the first couple of weeks of my show and then they slowly started to fail...  We had a lot of rain during December, and I noticed that there was a good amount of moisture inside the failed strobes.  At the end of the season, I think out of 12 I had 5 or 6 that had failed... 

The clear covers are somehow glued or heat sealed to the black base and I could not get them unscrewed, even though they appear to be threaded on.  I was going to disassemble one to see what components I would need to replace, but never proceeded further. 

If the circuitry could be embedded in epoxy, they would probably withstand outdoor exposure...

Anyone have ideas on repair of these or how to better waterproof them?