Author Topic: Traditional LED strings VS Smart Strings  (Read 2847 times)

Offline medic1621

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Traditional LED strings VS Smart Strings
« on: December 17, 2010, »
I am just about to venture into this mad mad obsession and would like some opinions.  Should I as a new convert, be looking at buying anymore traditional LED lights or simply start buying SS?  Right now I have only a couple thousand lights in my yard so it's not too late to switch over if that would be better way to go.

Offline wbuehler

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Re: Traditional LED strings VS Smart Strings
« Reply #1 on: December 17, 2010, »
It's hard to answer that question as how your light your display is all up to you.
I can tell you that while I am 90% LED, next year I will have LED, SS's, Aethers, and Normal lights in my display.
Each type of light has it's pro's and cons along with cost.

Bill



Offline ponddude

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Re: Traditional LED strings VS Smart Strings
« Reply #2 on: December 17, 2010, »
I'm with Bill on this one.  This year I planned on still have some incandescents but it just didn't work out.  I am about 99% LEDs.  I have snowflakes on my roof which are incandescents but that is it.  I used to mix both LEDs and incandescents and you couldn't tell the difference.  Frankly, you have to purchase the LEDs from people like Paul.  High quality LEDs that work very well will also last a long time.  The big box stores just don't sell quality LEDs...at least IMHO. 

I also believe this RGB strand craze will be fun, but I don't  think people will make them their entire display.  The sequencing alone will be crazy...at least with the current software.  I will be adding SS's as well to my display, just not the entire display.
Greg
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Offline jnealand

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Re: Traditional LED strings VS Smart Strings
« Reply #3 on: December 17, 2010, »
Keep this in mind as well.  On my megatree I run 4 colors with 16 strings each, all LEDS.  In theory i can replace one string of each color with just a single smart string and still get all my color choices using string mode.  However, as my wife has pointed out the density of lights would change dramatically even though I have even more color choices.  I often have more than one color lit at any given time and she likes it when all 64 strings are lit.  While I love what RJ has shown he can do with his megatree I feel that I would need at least 32 strings to maintain my light density in the mega tree.  Not saying that either choice is bad, but just more to think about.  Personally I am thinking that, at least for now, I would use  SS on my roof and gutter lines where light density is less important to me and the patterns and colors that I can generate for the roof and gutter would give me lots of new effects to play with without the expense of a lot of SS for my tree.
Jim Nealand
Kennesaw, GA

Offline medic1621

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Re: Traditional LED strings VS Smart Strings
« Reply #4 on: December 17, 2010, »
Yes, the light density is also one of my concerns... I have noted that I would like to have more lights on some of... well, most of my simple display items already.  The only real advantage I see is that you can string a single line of nodes and have multiple color choices.  Thinking around outline of the house would be a good place for these as well. Not to mention I just got a renardss24 and waiting for the usb adapter to arrive for it.  I would have to get other adapters to run the SS but  to be honest my head is spinning with all the different options out there.  After reading for hours and hours, my simple little plug and play lights and sounds of christmas is starting to look better all the time, if only it would do a couple hundred channels. :-)

Offline jnealand

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Re: Traditional LED strings VS Smart Strings
« Reply #5 on: December 30, 2010, »
A couple of days ago I wrote out a dreaming list of things I would like to do for 2011.  Then I slept on it and went back to look at and now I'm having second thoughts about RGB stuff.  Even with the advent of new sequencing tools, I'm not sure I really want to get into all that yet.  With the programming issue and a hard look at my budget I'm thinking I may just stay basically with what I have (mostly LEDs) but expand to the side yard, I live on a corner lot.  I have more than enough LED stash to make a second smaller Mega Tree and maybe a couple more arches.  I have 3 Aether kits that I have not even taken out of the box and am debating selling those off as well.  Maybe I'm getting to old for this stuff.  That 70 is coming up fast.  LOL
Jim Nealand
Kennesaw, GA

Offline mcangeli

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Re: Traditional LED strings VS Smart Strings
« Reply #6 on: December 30, 2010, »
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A couple of days ago I wrote out a dreaming list of things I would like to do for 2011.  Then I slept on it and went back to look at and now I'm having second thoughts about RGB stuff.  Even with the advent of new sequencing tools, I'm not sure I really want to get into all that yet.  With the programming issue and a hard look at my budget I'm thinking I may just stay basically with what I have (mostly LEDs) but expand to the side yard, I live on a corner lot.  I have more than enough LED stash to make a second smaller Mega Tree and maybe a couple more arches.  I have 3 Aether kits that I have not even taken out of the box and am debating selling those off as well.  Maybe I'm getting to old for this stuff.  That 70 is coming up fast.  LOL

Let me know if you want to unload any of that... :)