600 C-9 light bulbs

The normal rule is you don't put a load greater than 80% of circuit capacirty itf it will be on longer than 3 hours. Christmas is usually when the NEC goes on vacation though. If you spread these out across 6 cords, plugged into the receptacles directly I don't really see a huge problem thouigh since, technically it is a

Fortunately circuit breakers do not take holidays off. They are only rated for a maximum of 80% continuous load of 3 hours or more. Depending on the age, quality, and condition of the circuit breakers you may not get them to stay on for that long. That's about 16 amps for a 20 amp circuit.

I think I remember that from "National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation" and the blackout ended when someone at the power plant threw a switch labeled "Emergency Nuclear Power".

That was followed by someone saying "Don't look directly at the house".

I have used 300 around my house, but that was divided among 3 circuits (shared with other lights). I consider the load to be 6A per 100. That's a little safety margin.

I don't know of any modern name brand breaker that will not hold 100% of the rated amps ... if you can believe the manufacturer ratings

First problem I found - C9 bulbs consume more than 7 watts, and I have the impression of traditionaly 10 watts!

I would allow for 10 watts per C9 bulb!

- Don Klipstein (Jr), ( snipped-for-privacy@misty.com)

Mark Lloyd wrote:I hel;ped my neighbor a griswald type a few years ago. He was using his main plus a sub panel drawing over 120 amps. We had to balance the loads since breakers were tripping.

He got a near 1000 buck electric bill and now does nearly nothing.

He had made the news and created a traffic problem but I miss it.

He offered to do it again but power it from my home...

He literally lit up the neighborhood!

I was really thinking "9" in C-9 was the watts but the way they rate things these days I wouldn't bet on anything. I doubt the quality control is that precise to start with. The safest bet is 3 circuits if you can come up with another 20 amps somewhere.

Dim them slightly for much longer life.................

C9 is a designation of bulb style/shape and diameter, and not wattage.

C means "candle flame shape". The "9" means maximum overall diameter, in 1/8ths of an inch (meaning 1.125 inches).

C9, A19 and things along these refer to bulb shape/diameter.

There is a letter designation for bulb shape, and a number designation of bulb diameter in 1/8's of an inch.

A has 2 stories behind it, 1 saying "arbitrary" and 1 meaning "average". A lingering story is that "average" is between "PS" (see below) and "S" (see below).

B is supposedly "Blister", but some sort of oval shape.

C means "candle flame" shape.

E means ellipsoidal.

F means a flame shape - maybe more bottom-fat than C.

G means globular/spherical.

GTL means an incandescent penlight bulb having a short tube protruding from a spherical bulb with the short tube having a lens.

K is some specific reflectorized bulb design that I sense as being good for more compact incandescents.

PAR means "Parabolic Aluminized Reflector" - traditionally a narrower beam spotlight.

PS is "pearshape" - usually a higher wattage bulb that has a tubular "neck" between the base and the "main bulb portion".

R means "reflectorized bulb" - usually a floodlight or spotlight design.

S is a shape more common for some automotive types of bulbs and some more ancient designs of bulbs - "S" means "straight-sided" - like an "ice cream cone".

T means any of a significant variety of tubular shapes, for both "single-end" and "double end" lightbulbs! May include some Philips ones from production lines previously owned by Westinghouse, as well as whatever else (bigtime available) is "T-bulb"!

- Don Klipstein ( snipped-for-privacy@misty.com)

The C9 Christmas lamps used to be 9 or

For what it's worth, that's 15.98 amps at 120 volts, or right at the 80% of the circuit rating that you were told was the limit, several posts ago...

There is a reason they're called c NINE. They are 9w each. duh.

uh huh. ok, pile 'em on and see.

Yeah, you would think that -- but you would be wrong.

With the ones I measured, it was very close to 7W. However, I did notice a significant variation between bulbs, so 10W isn't too unlikely.

Or use C7 bulbs, which are closer to 5W.