Tru-Tone C7 Christmas Lights | Unboxing and Checkout
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- Опубліковано 15 вер 2024
- After a few seasons of deliberation, I finally decided to try a string of Tru-Tone Christmas lights. Tru-Tone offers quite a variety of configurations to purchase. I started with a string of 10 C7 lights.
I have an extensive Christmas lights display at my house, featuring over 50 strings of C9 incandescent lights, and a whole host of other various types of incandescent light sets made over the last 7 decades or so. The whole setup draws obscene amounts of power and costs thousands of dollars per season to operate. I refuse to switch to LED lighting strings as they simply do not have the same appearance. The colors, brightness, and quality of light does not compare to the old lights from years ago and I simply don't like it.
The Tru-Tone company aims to solve this LED problem, and as far as I know, is the only company that makes lights like this. I'm thoroughly fascinated by the concept. The box these come in is so fun and looks just like something from the 1950s. The red and green wires the string is comprised of is just like the way it used to be. The shape and coloring of the bulbs is nearly indistinguishable from the real incandescent counterparts.
Unfortunately there's a flaw with these lights that's a deal-breaker for me in a lot of use cases, and that is the LED flicker. I am extremely sensitive to LED flicker. I've tried many different LED bulb models and brands to use in my house for regular lighting and have not been able to use more than 1 or 2. The flicker is very obvious to me and gives me a headache with long-term exposure. These bulbs, as do the majority of other LED Christmas lights I've used, have a noticeable flicker to me. It looks very bad when they're all together in the box, but the effect does diminish considerably once they're spread out.
Unless you're particularly sensitive to LED like I am, I would not allow my flicker commentary to deter you from using these. If you don't mind a regular LED light bulb in a lamp or ceiling light, you won't mind these. They're far from the worst flicker I've seen, and are without a doubt among the best for LED Christmas lights. If you look at these from a distance, you cannot tell the difference between these and a traditional incandescent set. These are unlike any other LED Christmas lights out there.
These will not suffice as a replacement for my indoor lights as the flicker would bother me in the house, but these are definitely good enough to use outdoors. I will very likely order hundreds of these bulbs next year to start replacing my outdoor light strings with to cut down on the power draw.
Thanks for giving us a try and for taking the time to share this review! It was great to see you recognize and appreciate so many details our tiny business works so hard on! High frequency flicker is, as you presumed not a simple problem to solve. While our lights are cycling at 120 hz, twice the rate as most common LED Christmas lights (basically ON twice as often), we'd love nothing more than eliminate ALL perceptible flicker. We're fortunate to have a former Lutron LED engineer advisor, and aside from the incredibly small available space within the bases of our C7 and C9 bulbs, all paths we've explored create new issues, including significantly greater cost for an already expensive-to-manufacture product. That cost is much easier to absorb for household lamps that you are only buying a few of, not 25 or hundreds. 1/3
While we certainly haven't given up, in the meantime, the overwhelming majority of our customers either do not perceive any flicker, and those that do, recognize their significant improvement over standard LED Christmas lights. Certainly you are aware of your more atypical sensitivity and I genuinely wish we were able to have provided a product that fully resolved this for you!
There IS a solution with our current product, but not a very inexpensive one: Tru-Tone bulbs will operate off of 120v DC which requires a transformer such as a Variac that will output that. (Not especially common). 2/3
More than anything, we appreciate the support! We're a very small business pioneering this modern take on the vintage Christmas lighting aesthetic and each year we're able to accomplish more. 3/3
I'm glad you saw the video! I very much believe in supporting small businesses. You have a great product and I hope this video gives some much-needed publicity to the product.
I happen to have access to the equipment and knowledge to run the lights on a rectified DC circuit. I have had success with one concept circuit so far, but will need to change a few components to reach perfection. If I can perfect it, these lights will be the perfect solution for my outdoor lighting needs.
Your inside lights seem to be more jewel toned. I’d be curious to see how the jewel toned tru tone match up to your existing bulbs.
try wiring a portable 120 volt plug to 10 to 12 12 volt motorcycle batteries in a string. this string of batteries in series should give you 120 volt operation for flicker free operation.
Yes, I agree. I couldn’t use these on the indoor trees. Outside, spread apart, look real nice. I have some on the upper section of the roof, and the flickering is only noticeable out of the corner of my eye. My incandescent sets aren’t going anywhere!
I have a feeling my indoor incandescent lights will never be replaced.
@@JordanU Yep, you can't beat the look.
try wiring 10 to 12 motorcycle batteries in series to a 120 volt receptacle.
when you plug your light string in,
this will give you 100% flicker free operation. for indoor and outdoor use.
I hope this helps you.
That really doesn't seem like a safe, practical solution.
Good Video bro I enjoyed glad you was able to use the lights outside
Thanks bro glad you enjoyed it.
I like it
OK
I respect your thoughts on these, yes while I love these bulbs and do not seem to be able to detect the flicker, I know there are some who suffer from being very sensitive to it. Hopefully TRU TONE can remedy this with either a special light string with a rectifier built in or fit a small full bridge diode package in the base as they are quite tiny for the current these use.
It's possible these bulbs could be run from a DC power supply, which in theory should rectify the issue, but the question is what voltage will they like.
@@JordanU The wall current in the USA is 120 volts RMS (root mean squared). The actual peaks of the sin wave is 170s volt positive and 170 volts negative. So if you rectified it directly it would be 170 volts pulsed (at 120 Hz) DC without filtering with a capacitor. Pulsed DC has lower equivalent power than solid fixed DC current. The flickering comes from the LEDs needing a forward starting voltage so to speak. Say the starting voltage is 120 volts the LEDs will be off from 0 to 120 then on from 120 thru 170 then off again when it drops below 120 volts again. The other issue is what in inside of the TruTone bulbs circuitry. Are their bulbs designed to run on 170 volts? What kind of current limiting is built into the set. Lots to consider.
@@jp040759 Someone from TruTone reached out to me after watching this video and let me know the bulbs can be operated on a fully rectified 120vDC circuit to completely eliminate the flicker. A friend assisted with building such a circuit, and we were able to develop a successful concept which was shown in a more recent video.
@@JordanU I will look for that video. THANX
These Tru-Tone lights are nice, and a step in the right direction that hopefully other companies will follow, if done right. If you plan to get more of these you should just buy the bulbs by themselves because you have plenty of light sets to power them. Just swap out the incandescent bulbs with Tru-Tone bulbs. I think that would be cheaper instead of buying a whole new string of lights.
I will definitely order just the bulbs for outside and reuse the strings I have. The wires the TruTones come with is very neat, but would serve no benefit outside as it can't be seen.
That's very weird because I have twenty five of the trutone c7 And I tolerate them okay that's There's a couple other L ADC 7. Christmas lights that I do not tolerate from other brands.
Due to the flicker
What's weird about it? People perceive things differently.
Have they ever made CFL Christmas lights? One single small "U" shaped tube inside of a coloured envelope would work. May not be able to do c7, but they could certainly make one in a c9 format.
The issue is the driver circuit. I would think they would be too big for a c7/c9 base.
@@versedbridge4007 it seems like they could make something work, but I guess each individual lamp would need a ballast. I guess incandescent really is the only good option.
@@WalterKnox None exist to my knowledge, though I feel like it would be possible to make something like that with cold cathode bulbs.
@@JordanUI just looked it up, it seems that they did at one point make something like that, but they are round bulbs and not the classic shaped bulbs
@@WalterKnoxI remember reading about them a few years ago on some website with Christmas light history. And they were round.
You should try smart LED lightbulbs. Because they run on DC using proper conversion systems, they shouldn't have as much flicker.
I should not. I hate "smart" products. Those bulbs are a total waste of money and probably have just as bad of a flicker as all the other ones. I have plenty of incandescent bulbs and they work great, there's no reason to look for something else.
You can't beat incandescent Christmas lights
@@LW8015ERI agree.
I HATE LED’s. I’ve been recently lighting my surroundings with High Pressure Sodium, Low Pressure Sodium, and Mercury Vapor Lights just to give Georgia Power my middle finger!!
Me too. I still run incandescent inside the house and sodium outside, and will continue to until I absolutely cannot get the bulbs anymore.