Solar Christmas lights are continuing a long tradition that has been going on since the 17th century when the original Christmas lights were actually candles. They were a bit tricky to decorate the tree with they were carefully placed so as to illuminate other ornaments hanging from the tree. While we were a bit of a fire hazard, you just had to be real careful and obviously keep an eye on your Christmas tree.
It wasn’t until 1882 that one of Edison’s assistants named Edward Johnson came up with the idea for electric Christmas lights, the which he used to light up a tree with 80 some odd electric lights in New York City. It took a while for this to catch on, and by around 1900 stores were using electric light Christmas display. But still at the same time someone had invented special candle holders for Christmas trees, so candles were still an advancing technology.
it wasn’t till 1917 that a man named Albert Sadacca came up with an idea, in response to the tragic fire in New York City, caused by candles in a Christmas tree, and he started to commercially produce the first safety Christmas lights. His company,the NOMA Electric
Company, became the largest Christmas light manufacturer in the world. Now he wasn’t alone, General Electric had been making preassembled Christmas lights since 1903 at a cost of $12(equivalent to about $80 today), he just made a better light bulb. Back then you could rent a small set of Christmas lights for only a $1.50 a season.
The history of having a tree at the White House began in 1895 when Pres. Cleveland had the tree decorated for the enormous fee of $300. It has remained a tradition since that time and by 2005 they were using energy-efficient LED Christmas lights.
So lighting the Christmas tree has come a long way, and the idea of decorating the entire house has evolved into a tradition since the second world war. Let’s face it felt like just makes people feel better, and more in the holiday spirit.
Now using solar Christmas lights, is the most environmentally friendly way to bring holiday cheer to your friends and neighbors. Today you can buy a set of solar Christmas lights for about $12 which I found interesting since that was the cost of ordinary Christmas lights in 1903. However today you probably cannot rent a set of Christmas lights for $1.50 for the Christmas season.
Now I know that the idea of giving solar Christmas lights as a Christmas gift does sound a little bizarre, and this is partially because it’s a gift that they probably won’t use for another year. There are however solar systems such as the net or fairy lights that could possibly be used year-round. There is also the fact that by just changing the color of the light bulbs, they can be used as decorations for other holidays. For example, by changing the bulbs to orange, you now have a set of solar Halloween lights. As you can see in the video below if you use white light bulbs, they become decorations which can be used at any time .
All right, so I’ll admit it still might seem a bit bizarre to use them as a Christmas gift, and exactly how favorably solar Christmas lights would be received would depend on just how green the receiver was. But let’s face you would be giving a gift that was actually good for the planet, now how often does that actually happen. Of course if you’re really into that, I could use a hybrid car.
Still as another idea, you could give them instructions on how to build their own solar Christmas lights. Now I would consider that a fun project, but then I like a challenge. I mean essentially all you need is a solar panel, a battery, and some strings of LED lightbulbs. Now that I look at it it actually sounds simple, I’m sure someone’s written up some plans for such a project, and if they haven’t then maybe I will.
I would like to say however, that even if you think giving solar Christmas lights for a Christmas present is lame or not, I hope you’ll still consider using them for your own holiday lighting. I’m sure that long before Christmas gets here, I’ll probably have a post up here on how to build your own solar Christmas lights, but that’s another story
Solar Christmas Lights could save you a great deal of money on your utility bill during a time of year when cash can be in short supply.
If you were paying attention to an earlier post on what to look for when buying Solar Christmas lights you may have noticed that I recomended NiMH batteries for best results with your Holliday lighting. Now you might ask “what does NiMH stand for and why are they better?”
Well to start with NiMH stands for nickel-metal hydride. These keep your lights going about 40% longer than NiCd batteries and they have no toxic cadmium and are therefor easier to dispose of and better for the environment. Some sources claim that they work better if you fully charge them first before installing them into your lighting system. This has worked for some. The system you purchase should have a timer or some method of preventing the batteries from over charging since ths is one of the potential problems with NiMH batteries.
Now if you decide you want to make your own system you should use a 12 volt car battery- mainly because they are common and because you won’t have to overcome all of the technical problems like over charging and care that would be involved in designing your own NiCd or NiMH system.
Of course, you would need to purchase a Solar Panel but that would be the most expensive part because you can buy strings of 12 Volt LED Christmas lights for under $20 on the Internet.
If you have decided to help the planet and save power by using Solar Christmas Lights this Holiday Season, you might be wondering how you should go about choosing what lights would be best for you. The answer to this question starts with a question, “What effect are you trying to create with your Holiday lighting?” Do you have a plan in mind or are you looking to just use your solar Christmas lights to line the roof or porch? These are questions that only you can answer but they are questions you should look at if you are buying any quantity of LED lighiting.
Fairy lights can create a very light but dramatic effect especially if you get any quantity of snow, as they can be used on the snow and in the trees to create a very beautiful effect. Since these are very tiny lights they create that “cloud of color effect”. You can buy fairy lights in a variety of colors and they are a quite popular choice these days.
You might however be looking for a more traditional look with larger bulbs. You could decorate your trees in a traditional fashon, or you could line your roof top and edges of your house with strings of lights. Note that in both of the options presented so far you could chose LEDs that change colors, which is something incandescent lights cannot do.
Now in chosing your lights there are a few things to look for: 1) You want to be sure to look for lights labeled “ultra bright” LEDs. 2) You will want to ensure they are powered with Ni-MH batteries which last up to 3 times longer than Ni-Cd (lead acid) batteries. These batteries also will charge on a cloudy day and are not affected by being only partially charged. 3) Make sure that the solar panel has EVA laminated encapsulation, which has strong UV-resistance and a lifetime of 10 years, because othe epoxy methods only last 2 years or so. Since the LEDs have a very long life you would then have a string of perfectly fine lights with no power source.
Now you might want to note that Solar Christmas Lights are becoming popular as decorations at wedings and other holiday occations. Just the other day I saw Solar Halloween lights which simply had orange bulbs instead of the traditional Christmas colors. The fairy lights have become popular for routine yard decorations. So in choosing your lights you might look at whether you might be using them in other ways as well.
Well I hope I have given you some useful information and I wish you a Happy Holiday Season.
Well LEDs which make Solar Christmas Lights even practical had a modest beginning. The first Light Emitting Diode was invented in about 1907 by a guy named H.J. Round, a British Chap who noted the properties but didn’t think they warrented further research.
It wasn’t until the 1960′s that they became popular for digital indicators such as clocks,etc and they only emitted red since that was as far as the technology had gotten. It wasn’t long after, in 1971 that blue joined the repertoir and we had a choice. I actually remember that Blue LEDs made much “cooler’ watches.
The technology developed over the next 20 years and by the 1990s we had greatly improved our color range and the brightness so that they began being used for billboard displays. By the late 1990′s they were being used as Holiday decorations such as Christmas tree lights and outdoor lights. They were a quite a bit more expensive but they used less power.
By 2006 the Capitol Christmas tree was completely decorated with LEDs and the next year the big tree at Rockafeller Center followed suit. The fact that they use abut one tenth of the power required by incandescant bulbs made them very popular for large lighting projects. There was a popular restaurant in Los Angeles that had a massive number of lights decorating their building and by switching to LEDs they saved more on their electric bill in one month than most private homes spend in a year.
Today they allow us to go one step further and power our holiday lighting by using the Sun. Solar Christmas lights would not be possible if it were not for LEDs because of their low power consumption. The fact that they have been known to last up to 200,000 hours is another plus.(this is only for the Christmas tree size- the home lighting size is more like 30,000 hrs.) They make displays like this Posible:
Well as you saw in the first post using LED Christmas lights saves about 90% on your power bill. Now they are more expensive to buy but what wasn’t mentioned they also last way more than 10 times as long as incandescent bulbs as a general rule. Now if you go with Solar Powered Christmas lights you won’t spend anything on your power bill but if you use a solar panel to power incandescent bulbs this could be the result:
I guess you can see why it is pretty important to use LEDs in you Solar light system. Now some people have the idea that all LEDs are very tiny because often the Less expensive sets do use pretty small bulbs, but if you recall the earlier video LEDs come in all sizes. As an example of whit you can do with LEDs watch this:
Now just remember if this light show had been done with incandescent bulbs it would have used 10 times the electricity. If this had been done with Solar Powered lights it would have all been powered by batteries that were charged by the Sun.
Well as you saw in the first post using LED Christmas lights saves about 90% on your power bill. Now they are more expensive to buy but what wasn’t mentioned they also last way more than 10 times as long as incandescent bulbs as a general rule. Now if you go with Solar Powered Christmas lights you won’t spend anything on your power bill but if you use a solar panel to power incandescent bulbs this could be the result:
I guess you can see why it is pretty important to use LEDs in your Solar light system. Now some people have the idea that all LEDs are very tiny because often the Less expensive sets do use pretty small bulbs, but if you recall the earlier video LEDs come in all sizes. As an example of whit you can do with LEDs watch this:
Now just remember if this light show had been done with incandescent bulbs it would have used 10 times the electricity. If this had been done with Solar Powered lights it would have all been powered by batteries that were charged by the Sun.
While Solar Christmas Lights sounds like an old joke, they are very real. How many of us drive or walk arround the neighborhood during the Holliday Season to see the beautifully decorated yards and houses. Some people go all out on decorations. Not all are as active as this one.
How much do you suppose this guys electric bill is? More than I’d like to pay, but that is not the point. Whether you are an environmentalist or not, it just makes sense to conserve our resources whenever possible. There is a heated debate on Global Warming, and just to be on the safe side, not wasting energy is one thing each of us can do to to help- just in case it isn’t a hoax.
But does this mean we can no longer experieine the beauty and joy of the light displays that have become so much a part of the Holiday Season? Well fortunately for us there is solution that allows people to have prolific diplays of holiday lights and do it powered entirely by the Sun. Solar Christmas lights are powered by solar panels that charge power cells during the day so you can spread holliday cheer all night long.
As you can see just using LED lights is a huge savings but when you power the LED’s with a solar panel you can see it takes 0 power from the power grid.
