This year, I'm overclocking my Christmas tree

[Pulsar]

yeah at 60hz it's very noticable, because they're only on for maybe 1/4th of that time. Would need a high speed camera to know for sure but I would imagine that a good portion of the wave as it's going up and down they're off as the voltage is lower than what it takes to activate. So by flipping the negative wave to positive you're adding a secondary pulse in an instance where they'd be all dark.

Even at 120hz I can slightly see a flicker if I turn my head really fast while moving my eyes in that direction but for all intents and purposes it's not really a bother.

I never thought of doing SLI Christmas trees, going to have to try that. :biggrin: I can replace the plastic balls with the glass ones for the PhysX effects when they fall though.

Do you use LED lights? Incandescent will fix the problem entirely.

 

[Red Squirrel]

Do you use LED lights? Incandescent will fix the problem entirely.

I use LEDs for the Christmas tree as someone gave me a whole whack of em for free so figured I may as well use them. I hate dealing with the mini lights that are Incandescent, though they do look nice when they're fully working.

I still use C9's for the outside lights though, but I find I'm constantly changing bulbs. I bought two new sets just so I can get the bulbs off em since the individual bulbs seem to be hard to find without paying a lot for only a few.

I just wish they would make better LEDs. If they sized them up for 170vdc and added a bridge rectifier and capacitor built into the strand itself it would solve the flicker and brightness issue. I was looking online and you can actually buy C9 LED retrofit bulbs, some of which have more than one LED inside and are fairly bright. I'd have to see it for myself though, but that could be an option in the future. Nice thing with LEDs is the low power usage and the fact that they practically last forever.

For outside I'm actually toying with the idea of fully addressable LED strips though. They're not cheap, but if done right could be pretty awesome and would run on straight DC.

Lol! I spy tamper resistant receptacles. I despise those TR outlets but that is all that is available at the box big home centers now
I was greedy when Home Depot was getting rid of the non TR receptacles I bought the rest of the stock of the Leviton 5252's (They were $2 a piece not the normal $5.60) I bought all 20 of them (All that was left) I should be set for awhile with replacement receptacles. Especially now that I bought a quality receptacle (Those 5252's can last a lifetime in a home setting)

Yeah they are kinda annoying, but at same time a neat idea for safety I guess. Though I don't think they should be forced. In a shop or something they would get pretty annoying. Last time I wanted to buy some non TR ones I had trouble finding them. I needed more for an existing project and wanted them to all look the same.

 

[ComputerWizKid]

Can you post how you wired the bridge rectifier into the circuit?

 

[Red Squirrel]

Can you post how you wired the bridge rectifier into the circuit?

It's all closed up now, but basically this is what the diagram would look like:

A bridge rectifier is 4 diodes in a configuration so that the negative wave is forced on the positive side, basically. But I just bought one that is premade as it was easier to physically install. It has a metal back so I used thermal paste and screwed it on the wiring box so the box acts as a heat sink. I soldered the connections to it. Originally I was going to do a 1 gang box but it was just too tight to work in. Even the 2 gang was kinda tricky. I ended up using a 4 terminal strip instead of wiring nuts to make the connections.

 

[GrumpyMan]

Don't forget to disable the C1 (Christmas 1) and C2 (Christmas 2) states in the bios if overclocking....

 

[Jeff7]

Check that they don't get too warm.

If it's cheap made-in-China stuff, on the off-chance that someone with electrical experience designed the thing properly, they might have been designed assuming a 60Hz DC pulse at the plain diode's duty cycle. If you've increased that with a bridge rectifier, that might be increasing the total current passing through the LEDs.
It shouldn't be enough to make anything overheat, but then the market niche I work in allows me to use a very comfortable safety factor. Consumer devices like this seem to say "This resistor is rated for 1/4 watt at room temperature. I will run it at 0.2499 watts and assume room temperature to be 68F and assume that it the light string is not on a Christmas tree." They'll run stuff right at the border of what it can tolerate in order to keep costs low.
Or they'll assume that it's a decoration that's only used a few weeks out of every year and run the components past their normal ratings if it means that they can push the costs even lower.



Also, be careful with high-voltage DC.
You at least don't have any capacitors in there, so there'd be dips in the voltage that'd permit the arc to break.

 

[alkemyst]

QFT, bring some marshmallows, chocolate and graham crackers to Red Squirrel's house, it's going to be time to make Smores soon.

 

[Red Squirrel]

Check that they don't get too warm.

If it's cheap made-in-China stuff, on the off-chance that someone with electrical experience designed the thing properly, they might have been designed assuming a 60Hz DC pulse at the plain diode's duty cycle. If you've increased that with a bridge rectifier, that might be increasing the total current passing through the LEDs.
It shouldn't be enough to make anything overheat, but then the market niche I work in allows me to use a very comfortable safety factor. Consumer devices like this seem to say "This resistor is rated for 1/4 watt at room temperature. I will run it at 0.2499 watts and assume room temperature to be 68F and assume that it the light string is not on a Christmas tree." They'll run stuff right at the border of what it can tolerate in order to keep costs low.
Or they'll assume that it's a decoration that's only used a few weeks out of every year and run the components past their normal ratings if it means that they can push the costs even lower.



Also, be careful with high-voltage DC.
You at least don't have any capacitors in there, so there'd be dips in the voltage that'd permit the arc to break.

I made my own bridge rectifier with a bunch of random diodes before I ordered the premade one and ran it for a few hours as a test and they were not warm at all so I should be good. Since I had exposed AC wiring during this test I did not want to run it any longer as I had to make sure the cat does not go play with that.

Definitely going to keep a close eye the first time I power all the lights though.

 

[Jeff7]

I made my own bridge rectifier with a bunch of random diodes before I ordered the premade one and ran it for a few hours as a test and they were not warm at all so I should be good. Since I had exposed AC wiring during this test I did not want to run it any longer as I had to make sure the cat does not go play with that.

Definitely going to keep a close eye the first time I power all the lights though.

"They" being the lights themselves.
That bridge rectifier looks like it'll be capable of handling a lot of current, even without a heatsink.

The lights and any current-limiters they might have (LEDs most likely) are what could get excessively warm, though I don't know if we're talking "set fire to things" warm. Depends on how cheap they went on the construction of the thing.

Why did that giant photo above not get resized? How did they bypass the board code to resize it? Weird.

See what happens when you overclock, stuff gets broke.

Don't know.

The rest of the images on the page include the "NcodeImageResizer" thing:

<img src="(image.jpg)" border="0" alt="" class="tcattdimgresizer" onload="NcodeImageResizer.createOn(this);" />

That image in post# 11 is the only one that doesn't:

<img src="(image.jpg) border="0" class="tcattdimglink" alt="" />

 

[Red Squirrel]

Yep I meant the LEDs and the rect. Checked both.

What would be a fun toy to have though is a FLIR so I can compare with and without rectification to see if there's a difference. To the touch the LEDs don't get hot though. Of course I'll need to test for longer period of time which will probably end up happening next time I have enough time off to babysit it.

 

[alkemyst]

"They" being the lights themselves.
That bridge rectifier looks like it'll be capable of handling a lot of current, even without a heatsink.

The lights and any current-limiters they might have (LEDs most likely) are what could get excessively warm, though I don't know if we're talking "set fire to things" warm. Depends on how cheap they went on the construction of the thing.



Don't know.

The rest of the images on the page include the "NcodeImageResizer" thing:

<img src="(image.jpg)" border="0" alt="" class="tcattdimgresizer" onload="NcodeImageResizer.createOn(this);" />

That image in post# 11 is the only one that doesn't:

<img src="(image.jpg) border="0" class="tcattdimglink" alt="" />

It's due to him using IMGLINK instead of IMG, sad thing is this was probably intentional for the 'lolz' based on his 'scaling' pun.

IMGLINK:
[imglink]http://schmitthouse.files.wordpress.com/2011/12/twin-trees.jpg[/imglink]

IMG:

 

[Red Squirrel]

Forgot to take a pic of final product.



Totally overkill, but so far so good, it works nicely.

15 amps max is actually a legit rating too, all wiring inside is 14 awg including power cord and the rectifier is rated for like 30 amps or something like that.

Testing it out for a longer test now to ensure the LEDs don't get too hot. I can feel a slight warmth but as long as it does not get hotter I think I'm fine.

I should have reversed the plugs though, so I could have it say AC / DC.

 

[Ns1]

just perfect.

 

[brainhulk]

 

[alkemyst]

Forgot to take a pic of final product.



Totally overkill, but so far so good, it works nicely.

15 amps max is actually a legit rating too, all wiring inside is 14 awg including power cord and the rectifier is rated for like 30 amps or something like that.

Testing it out for a longer test now to ensure the LEDs don't get too hot. I can feel a slight warmth but as long as it does not get hotter I think I'm fine.

I should have reversed the plugs though, so I could have it say AC / DC.

Keep in mind almost anything designed to plug into a circuit is rated at about 80% of that load. Something that plugs into a 15 amp circuit will only pull 12 amps. A 20 amp device will pull 16 amps.