920,000 xmas lights and still going

[santas-helper38]

I'm making my plans to decorate my house this Christmas. So far, I have

920,000 lights in the plans, and I'm still going. By the end, there will be over a million. Most of the small ones are LEDs, but there are also a couple hundred flood bulbs, a few strobe lights, some lasers, some neons, 480 bubble lites, and over three hundred 40w incandescent bulbs on the carousel.

All these lights will be animated to music. The sound system will have twelve 5000 watt power amplifiers.

My house breaker box has a 100A main. The garage has another 100A main. The house uses power for regular household stuff and electric water heater, and electric in the floor radiant heating.

The garage power is not used too often except for the ceiling lights and a few power tools. I plan to use both buildings for my Christmas lights. Do you think I will have enough power for my planned lighting, or should I upgrade one of these panels to 200A?

[Stormin Mormon]

Using the formula, that volts x amps = watts, you should be able to calculate. Buy a Kill A Watt, and log the actual draw of each string. Hire a couple high school math students to do the calculations. My SWAG is that you'll be fine with 100 amps.

Christopher A. Young Learn more about Jesus

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920,000 lights in the plans, and I'm still going. By the end, there will be over a million. Most of the small ones are LEDs, but there are also a couple hundred flood bulbs, a few strobe lights, some lasers, some neons, 480 bubble lites, and over three hundred 40w incandescent bulbs on the carousel.

All these lights will be animated to music. The sound system will have twelve 5000 watt power amplifiers.

My house breaker box has a 100A main. The garage has another 100A main. The house uses power for regular household stuff and electric water heater, and electric in the floor radiant heating.

The garage power is not used too often except for the ceiling lights and a few power tools. I plan to use both buildings for my Christmas lights. Do you think I will have enough power for my planned lighting, or should I upgrade one of these panels to 200A?

[harry]

I can see you don't live on the East coast.

[ebenezer scrooge]

Christmas lights are a frivolous waste of energy and should be banned.

[Brock O'bama]

[DerbyDad03]

by a bunch of religious nuts.

eOcw3NnZ2dnUVZ [e-mail]...

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re: "All the energy we've saved by using Energy Star products is being wasted by a bunch of religious nuts." "

Hmmm...let's do the math...

Energy used before Energy Star products came along + Christmas Lights =3D X amount of electricity

Energy used after Energy Star products came along + Christmas Lights =3D X amount of electricity - the savings from the Energy Star products.

The savings is still there because the Christmas lights were always there.

[The Daring Dufas]

bunch of religious nuts.

messagenews:l7adnVhZU_eOcw3NnZ2dnUVZ [e-mail]...

quoted text -

Most Christmas lights are smaller than the old 7 watt bulbs and/or are now LED lights which use a negligible amount of power. ^_^

TDD

[Harvey Specter]

Yah, because 920,000 led bulbs would use hardly any electricity. /sarcasm

[The Daring Dufas]

A lot less than 920,000 7 watt incandescent light bulbs. /fact

TDD

[gregz]

Those old lamps also had high waste coloring. Not that bright.

Greg

[The Daring Dufas]

Yea, I remember looking at the glass of broken painted bulbs and wondering why so opaque? ^_^

TDD

[.-.]

Read what the OP wrote. The lights will be animated to music. That means they're not on continuously. Energy still equals power multiplied by time. I hope the OP will also post the kWh used from his electric bill.

Tomsic

[The Daring Dufas]

I posted a link to a video of a fellow who did a Halloween theme to his home that had an incredible light show synchronized to music. ^_^

TDD

[Mark Lloyd]

Most of my Christmas lights have been replaced with LED ones (I'm still changing the animated deer to LED), which use less than 50% as much electricity as before.

Also, the LED lights have better color. LED lights put out light that is actually that color (for example red) rather than filtering yellowish white light. The color is more intense and doesn't fade. Also, you can get white LEDs that are actually white.

[The Daring Dufas]

Have you checked the difference in power consumption between the LED and incandescent lamps? ^_^

TDD

[gregz]

A typical led will draw .06 watt. If driven with dc. Unless the XMAS lights have circuitry, they are going to only light 50% of the time and flash an irritating 60 times a second. They can also be wired to flash a better 120 a second, or better yet, have more regulation to be closer to dc. Some people can't stand to look at flashing LEDs.

Most of the white LEDs are still bluish. I think they look cool for ice cycles. That's about it. I bought my first led string several years ago. It went bad, and back to cheap bulbs.

Greg