Review Details

LED Christmas lights 12volts AC / DC Specifically for Landscape lighting systems

Product Review (submitted on February 11, 2021):

My wife the artist asked for some soft micro lights among the branches of a small Arbutus tree. I am committed to using only 12VAC for landscape lighting so 120VAC real Christmas lights were not acceptable. I tested the 50WA-6-G-WW-12V strings and found very low current consumption: 0.1A for string of ~50 or about 1.2 Watts. I also found that the 3-wire string has small groups of LEDs separated by 2-wire links, and cutting the two-wire links allows shorter strings if needed. I found that about two and a half strings worked for our Arbutus' aesthetics. At first try, the LEDs were quite bright, good, but way brighter than we wanted. A 125 Ohm 2W series resistor feeds the link of 128 LEDs and gives the right dimming. Yes, the resistor wastes energy but drops total demand by 50%, extends the life of the LEDs, works well with AC, and acts as a fuse in case the string develops a short (20+Amps from the landscape transformer into 20ga wire will most certainly cause smoke and sparks). (DIY'ers NOTE that successful dimming of AC-powered LEDs requires bench experiments due to the vastly different electronics that handle different LED assemblies. The mods above worked for me on the strings I purchased. Whatever you DIY, you DIY at your own risk! ).