COLOR CHANGING LED C9 LIGHTS

Color Changing LED C9 Lights, retail $14.99 (www.target.com)
Manufactured by Seasonal Specialties (www.seasonalspecialties.com)
Last updated 12-01-06




I know it's late-July, but what flashaholic could resist testing Christmas lights, no matter what time of year?

This is a set of ten color-changing LED Christmas lights. Each C9-style "bulb" has seperate red, green, and blue LEDs inside; these all do a color fade routine in unison (together) when the unit is turned on. You can also press a button on the control box to "freeze" the lights at a specific color you happen to really like.

The set operates from an AC adapter; decorate with them as you would ordinary Christmas light sets.

These lights were purchased at a Target store in the eastern US for 50% off just after Christmas 2005.


SIZE



Remove the control box and the cardboard box with the AC adapter in it by using scissors or a very sharp knife to cut the tape holding them to the surface of the cardboard inner container these lights are shipped in.

Unplug and get rid of the "try me" switch and battery box from the dark green control box, and plug the lights into the included AC adapter. Plug the large part of the AC adapter into any standard household (in the United States anyway) 110 to 130 volts AC 60Hz receptacle.

If you wish to disembowel the battery box to harvest the three AA cells, I can offer you no guarantees as to their State of Euphoria - er - uh - state of discharge (there I go thinking about the heavy metal band Anthrax again!!!); this will depend somewhat on how long the product has been on the shelf, and to a much greater extent on how long the product has been actuated in "Try Me" mode.

Decorate with these lights the same way you would decorate with other Christmas lights. Hang them on the front of the fireplace mantle, hang them in a window, put them in your Christmas tree, etc., or just hang the suckers off your dorm room ceiling for that special holiday feeling all year 'round.

The lights will slowly color-cycle, unless you press the switch button on the front of the control box; this "freezes" the set at the color it was when the button was pressed.

Perform the same action to resume the normal color-cycling behaviour.



This light set is meant to be used as a decorative light set in a dry area, not as a flashlight meant to be carried around, thrashed, and abused, so I won't try to drown them in the toilet tank, bash them against a steel rod or against the concrete floor of a patio, let my housemate's citty kats go to the litterbox on them, run over them with a 450lb Celebrity motorised wheelchair, or perform other indecencies on them that a regular flashlight might have to have performed on it. So this section of the web page will be significantly more bare than this section of the web page on a page about a flashlight.

Whenever power is applied, the globes always start out red. They then cycle to green, then to blue, then to several other intermediate colors (more than one LED is on at once). The "bulbs" may display a white color at some point, but I have not watched them long enough to make that determination.

The green is significantly dimmer than the red or the blue; it is a yellow-green, not the emerald green found in modern InGaN LEDs.



Lights on, red.



Lights on, green.



Lights on, blue.


Quicktime movie (.mov extension) showing C9 lights in action.
It is approximately 4.3 megabytes (4,565,516 bytes); dial-up users please be aware.
It will take no less than eighteen minutes to load at 48.0Kbps.
I cannot provide it in other formats, so please do not ask.


WMP movie (.avi extension) showing these lights in action.
It is approximately 13.6 megabytes (13,986,498 bytes); dial-up users please be aware.
It will take no less than forty five minutes to load at 48.0Kbps.
I cannot provide it in other formats, so please do not ask.

That music you might hear playing in the background is a song called "Rockbuster", from an Abyss demo for the Commodore 64 computer from the late-1980s.



TEST NOTES:
Test unit of this and several other products were sent by a website fan and received on 07-20-06.

Product was made in China. A product's country of origin really does matter to some people, which is why I published it on this web page.

The AC adapter outputs 4.5 volts at 560mA.
Center of plug is positive (+), outer can is negative (-).


UPDATE: 11-28-06
When I plugged them in a short time ago today, one of the "bulbs" no longer displays green. So for some reason, the green LED inside that particular enclosure has burned out.


UPDATE: 11-28-06
No, you aren't seeing things.
Yes, a same-day update.
For whatever reason, the "bulb" with the defective green LED has come back to life - it now displays green just like all the others.


UPDATE: 11-28-06
No, you aren't seeing things.
Yes, another same-day update.
The bulb with the faulty green LED appears to be a "tabby-thrashed stool specimen maternal parent humper" (toylet words replaced with innocous ones - the correct acronym is PWPOSMF) - that green LED is out again.


UPDATE: 11-29-06
Well what do ya know... the "bulb" with the bad green LED is working properly once again.


UPDATE: 12-30-06
I just looked at the set; the "bulb" with the bad green LED is malfunctioning again - it displays the red & blue fine, but not the green.


PROS:
Reasonably durable construction


CONS:
Green isn't all that bright


    MANUFACTURER: Unknown
    PRODUCT TYPE: LED Christmas light set
    LAMP TYPE: Unknown type LED
    No. OF LAMPS: 30
    BEAM TYPE: N/A
    SWITCH TYPE: Momentary pushbutton freeze/resume on control box
    CASE MATERIAL: N/A
    BEZEL: LEDs protected by plastic C9 "bulbs"
    BATTERY: N/A
    CURRENT CONSUMPTION: Unknown/unable to measure
    WATER RESISTANT: No
    SUBMERSIBLE: No
    ACCESSORIES: AC adapter, batteries, battery box, "try me" switch
    WARRANTY: Unknown/not stated

    PRODUCT RATING:

    Star Rating





Color Changing LED C9 Lights * www.target.com






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