Target sale & wife buy in!

[chrisatpsu]

Are these Leds you will  have to watch the voltage and current if they are.

The 12,000 are not led. I do have some others that are, though

What do I have to look out for when converting the multi strands to solid color strands?
 
-Rimist

a lot of companies have a "special" bulb that starts off the string, test to see if you can change this bulb from one from the middle of the string, if it still lights up, you're ok...   if not, then you have to worry about the beginning bulb of each "section" of lights on that string.

also, some comapnies don't mix up the bulbs equally, you might have way more blues, or another color that doesn't quite fill up another string.

[sirloinofbeef001]

 some comapnies don't mix up the bulbs equally, you might have way more blues, or another color that doesn't quite fill up another string.
[/quote] This is true. I found that out last year.

[tbone321]

That tends to be more true of LED's or really crappy ican strings.

[rimist]

The strings I bought yesterday were almost all Philips incandescent. The led strings I purchased a few days ago were also Phillips

-Rimist

[chrisatpsu]

yeah, for the led's  i'd swap the first bulb with one about 5 or 10 down  (still connected on both sides with 3 wire, not 2) once you test, and it's ok, you should be good to go.

the incans "should" be fine.

[shaunkad]

search bulb press some one made a cool on and posted the pictures

[rimist]

search bulb press some one made a cool on and posted the pictures

Thanks!

[Whip]

You must not live near me because every Target/Walmart/KMart shelf is bone dry. They never hit 70%.

[rimist]

This particular Target its in Clearwater Fl

[Whip]

This particular Target its in Clearwater Fl

Yeah..Im in CT. A bit out of my range.

[Gary]

a lot of companies have a "special" bulb that starts off the string, test to see if you can change this bulb from one from the middle of the string, if it still lights up, you're ok...   if not, then you have to worry about the beginning bulb of each "section" of lights on that string.

also, some comapnies don't mix up the bulbs equally, you might have way more blues, or another color that doesn't quite fill up another string.

Rimist, I agree with Christatpsu said, as I've been there. 2 years ago, I bought 25 sets of multicolor lights with the plan to separate them into my red, orange, green, blue, and purple light poles (the reason why I decided to do it is another story). Each set had several bulbs that sat in a wider socket to accomodate 3 wires going in the bottom, and all the sets had that bulb as being red or orange. So for the other color sets, I had to remove the red/orange LED from the plastic casing and switch the color. Then there was the issue that for some reason, the LED I put in the wide socket didn't light up even though it works fine in a narrow 2-wire socket. Then there was the issue that when taking out dozens of bulbs and putting them back in, they didn't always seat properly, so the section didn't light up and I had to try to find the offending bulb, etc.  And since there were extra red and orange bulbs, I had to sacrifice a few of my strings to make up for the shortfall of the other colors.

It was a huge tedious job. I don't know what the plans for your light display are, but I have a bunch of the multi-color strings on my bushes and it does add a variety of color to the display without resorting to adding extra controllers and channels. Maybe I can convince you to save yourself countless hours of frustrating work? 

P.S. I didn't concern myself about the differing voltage draws between the different colour LEDs. I've been running them for 2 years now with no problems with burnt out LEDs or anything like that.

Here is the end result with the light poles and my bushes behind:
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[chrisatpsu]

since there's a shortage of single color anything around here except white, i bought cases of multi incans with the intention of making stings or red, green, blue, etc...

after pulling bulbs from about 7 strings, i gave up.  it wasn't worth the effort for me.  i ended up using them on my mega tree, which gives a certain appeal to my wife.  turned out to be a good thing, now that she sees the stuff in operation, its easier for me to add to next year.

[jeffcoast]

If the sets are that way, where you can't change the first bulb, you could always leave it and then cover it. Some electrical tape around the light works wonders. I go to Dollywood every December for their Christmas time, and they cover all the buildings with lights, and that is what they do when they have lights that are in places they don't want lit to make them even, like when a string is going from one window frame to the next.

[chrisatpsu]

you can get blackout caps too for some bulbs types  (mini incans, for sure)  but yeah, black (or green) electrical tape works well