Dimming Starry Night Icicle Lights

[typoagain]

I bought a bunch of these lights.

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They look great on the house. But I would like to do more with them. While it is not a deal breaker for me, I would like to dim then.

But before I do I have a concern about doing it. The lights are designed so that about every other light dims on and off, (not flashing) independently.

Here is a link to a video if you want to see them working: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login

My question is will dimming the whole string with my LE and LOR controllers mess up the chip that makes the bulbs fade in and out?

I have 14 strings of these over-priced puppies and I do NOT want to screw them up! I also have a dozen of the Phillips 42" stars that work the same way.

[urthegman]

I have a snowflake that I am wondering the exact thing about. If I get a chance I am thinking of jerry rigging a dimmer switch into an extension cord and testing it that way. If I get the time to do it today that is.

[tbone321]

I would say that they are not going to take well to dimming.  At best, tey will not function well at any dimming level and at worst, you will damage the strings dimming controller.  The really bad point is that if they are destined to fail, it might not happen right away.  The only way to know is to experiment and see but the best ide of all is not to use these types of lights in a show where you intend to dim them.  The on / off function should be ok but even there, I had a wall wart fail on me even at full on with a X-10 dimmer.

[trekster]

I do not know what your controller on the light string looks like.  I had some (see link) star icicle lights that had a box attached to them to change effects.  I figured out it was 120vac in and 4 wires out.  I found it was 1 common and 3 120avc out to three parts of the light string.  I tied the 3 together and applied 120vac to the common and the 3 tied together and I has star icicles that I could dim and control with my LE.  PLUS I had some nifty little controllers to play with.  Ron

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[typoagain]

It looks to me like the chip is actually in each individual bulb.