Alec out there fighting the good fight for us.
this post was submitted on 06 Dec 2025
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Technology
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I bought these lights, they're sitting on the kitchen table waiting to be opened and put on a tree! I'm so excited!
I literally wait every year for this video.
while I disagree with his hatred of blue and green LED christmas lights being too much (I actually love them), I do love hearing about his process to find the christmas lights of his dreams.
I look forward to these videos every year 😁
I feel like this video touched some larger philosophical points about technological progress. It's to work and create with restraints. If there are no limitations you end up with an unfocused mess.
I've seen that cropping up in a lot of videos lately from tech adjacent creators. Cathode Ray Dude veered off in his video about an HP laptop that had a feature that overwrote the Windows boot splash screen with a calendar view using the "Ring -2" management system into this kind of beautiful screed about basically why society is unraveling.
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Did he ignore flicker problems again like last year? Because flicker ruins lights for a lot of us
I actually ran my outside lights on rectified DC power last year because the flicker kills me
Say more about this. I also don't like flicker
Short answer, cut an extension cord in the middle and solder in a FULL BRIDGE RECTIFIER.
This gives you DC power. Now your lights will not flicker. They are also like 50% brighter.
But wait! The catch is that a lot of the strings are reversed in the middle so only half of it works on dc. You then have to cut the lights in the middle, swap the wires, and reconnect them.
Its a lot of farting around but looks nice.
I dunno. I just bought the Sylvannia led traditional white lights. Flicker free. Finally.
That's what's so stupid about the whole problem - the solution is known and easy but it costs a tiny bit more to make so lots of manufacturers don't do it. It just needs to run off DC instead of AC. Simple.
I wonder if you could use four of the LEDs themselves to form a full bridge rectifier?
Would still need a capacitor or something or it would flicker at 120Hz (in the US) but that's not much more cost I would hope.
Also those 4 would flicker more than the rest of the string.
Electroboom needs a lemmy
Did you read "full bridge rectifier" in his voice, too?
Of course!
I typed it in his voice.
I just looked it up and I'm fairly certain it wouldn't work. Every time the output waveform gets too low then the led would turn off, which is what creates the flicker. An led needs a constant current to stay on constantly.
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As always, he created a delightful video!
I love Technical Connections!!
Same! I saw that characteristic lighting in the preview thumbnail and got so excited.
I would be happy if I ever care about anything 1/10th as much as this guy cares about Christmas lights.
I'm curious about the options coming down the pike for people that don't like flicker. I heard some of you say that you run your LEDs off of DC power somehow. How do you plug in the string of LED lights to DC power?
Short generalized answer: it depends on the strip / strand... But if the strand has a brick at the end that is converting ac - > dc with 2 wires you can typically replace that with a better driver easily. It gets far more specific when a data line is introduced. It won't fix cheap LEDs outright but it can change how they behave.
christmas is nothing but a unsubstantiated mythological narrative co-opted and reengineered by corporate entities for profit maximization.
i'm sure they're not perfect but i've had good luck with C7 ceramic LEDs from amazon.
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