Ok, if you have ever put up Christmas lights, you know it's not all that bad. But then you have to take them down again! Then, maybe put up some OTHER lights for the next holiday. Well, I, in theory, have solved this paradox: Multi-Action Christmas Lights! The lights will change color at the flip of a switch! The science: I'm not an expert, but I think that if the type of filament in a bulb were changed, it might have a different colored light. This could be accomplished, but each bulb would only have two color options. The other (more practical) option is to put the bulbs very close together, and put more on a strand. You would have some Christmas-color ones, and some Halloween-color ones,etc. But they would be spaced out. Mixed up. No Halloween bulb would be right next to a Halloween bulb. It would instead have a Christmas bulb on one side of it and a, I don't know, St. Patty's Day one on the other. Then you use the same technology used in the flashing kind of Christmas lights, you know, the ones that look like they are moving. Voila! You can now choose which lights you want to have on! Oh yes, the lights would actually be on different strands, just twisted together. It would work perfectly!-- TahuNuva, Oct 31 2007 I knew it! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/JuttaYou are the abbess, Countess [jutta] von Sponheim, mentor to Hildegard of Bingen! [pertinax, Nov 01 2007] I've bought programmed Christmas lights which would do this if planned. One setting makes all the red blink, one setting alternates blinking red green blue yellow. etc. Would be simple to have a setting for all orange, all heart shaped etc.
While this isn't baked that I know of, it is easily doable and probably will be in the stores tomorrow. so to speak-- dentworth, Oct 31 2007 Hi [TahuNuva][+]-- the dog's breakfast, Oct 31 2007 Baked, I'll try to find a link. Tri-color LEDs probably. I saw a commercial on late night TV.-- MisterQED, Oct 31 2007 not bad mr. not a scientist
Just have extra bulbs running on a normal strand. The extra bulbs would be the other colors, and you could wire them to be switchable.
welcome the the bakery-- evilpenguin, Nov 01 2007 Thanks to all! I am soon to be posting more ideas. I'm glad everyone (I've seen) is kind on here, and I of course will try to do the same! {Leaves to go look at more great ideas} {Remebers something, comes back} Umm, when you type another person's username, do you need to put brackets around it, or is that done automatically? Thankful for help! {Goes back to looking at ideas}-- TahuNuva, Nov 01 2007 [username]-- evilpenguin, Nov 01 2007 The brackets are just a mannerism and don't do anything but visually distinguish a username from regular text. For obvious proper names like TahuNuva, there's really no point to it - it just confuses people.-- jutta, Nov 01 2007 It helps if you take the scapular off first.-- jutta, Nov 01 2007 [ ] [+] [ ]-- evilpenguin, Nov 01 2007 O-tay, I got the bracket thing down, thanks!!
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^^See, they're down!
I know, not funny. Not even supposed to be funny. If you laughed, you.....probably thought it was funny, and you were wrong.-- TahuNuva, Nov 09 2007 I had this idea independently, and think I've got a way to implement it effectively. Each "bulb" consists of 3 separate colored LEDs (Red, Blue, Green). Every 4th bulb is wired on the same circuit, and each LED within the bulb is independently powered (that is the first red connects to the 5th, 9th, etc, the second to 6th and 10th, same for the other colors).
Each of these circuits is wired to an individual controller that can feed it a variable amperage to produce a differing light intensity (up to saturation, anyway). You can then program up to any four light colors to be displayed at any time by mixing different LEDs at different intensities. Use just the red and green at christmas, blue and all 3 (white) at hanukah, red and red at full, blue and green at half (pink) at valentines day.
This wouldn't be cheap, so the controller would also have feedback to tell you exactly which bulb was out/damaged for easy replacement.-- MechE, Nov 23 2009 15 years later, yeah, it's pretty cheap.-- RayfordSteele, Jun 04 2024 random, halfbakery