It's that time again...

I've used purple for several years in a 6 color setup (red, yellow, green, blue, purple, white).  I superstrand them all together without spacing them apart.  Things I've found:

For incandescent purples:

- Never have them on at the same time as red... they'll be hard to tell apart

- Once they fade a little from UV exposure they are easier to tell apart from red.  I suspect that if you put new purples out for an October display (I don't do an October display) then the purples put out in October will be ready to join new reds put out in November.  When possible try to mate year 2 purples with year 1 reds.  Of course if you switched to purple to reduce the blue replacement cost then doing the fading recommendation defeats the point... I can't help you there.

- Mine appear more purple at a distance (~100') than they do up close.  At least the ones I put on the house appear more purple than the ones on the mega tree in the front yard... but that could be due to pigmants my the house siding, so take this with a grain of salt.

- They look more purple when used with blue or white.  When used with yellow a whole other effect happens which, although hard to describe, is quite interesting (and very different than the red/yellow combo which is also good). 

- The purples that were new in 2006 were easier to tell apart from red than the purples I bought in 2009.

The fact is that an incandescent filament contains very little purple light.  If they were to use a more "purpley" coloring then the bulb would be way too dim to be useful.  The reddish purple that is used is a compromise that allows brighter intensity while still appearing somewhat purple.

I have not tried it, but theoretically running red at a 80% to 90% maximum instead of 100% might make red more distinct from purple.  Although the reds would be a little dimmer the filament would proportionally contain less blue light (it is burning cooler) thus allowing the red lights to look more red.  It might just make the difference.  If anyone tries it, let me know if it works.

With purple LEDs:

- These are very distinctly a different color than red

- They also tend to be rather dim

- Some of the older purple LEDs used to react with the sunlight and turn blue (I haven't heard of that problem in a while though)

Overall I like the LED purple color better than the incandescent purple, but LEDs come with their own nightmares too (or maybe I should make that LED vendors).



Edited by LightsOnLogan - 03 Sep 2010 at 1:02pm

too funny ... amazing how much stuff we need when we get an idea

I think we all wish for that 

sounds good to me

Well part one of my setup is up. Next will be the driveway arches to allow to park 2 cars side by side and then connect the whole thing on the network. That's for next weekend. Already over 20 plus hours of work with 4 people. 3 adults and a rent-a-kid!