LED frost-resistant street garlands: features and types

Both children and adults are waiting for the New Year's miracle, which is why many people think about decorating their own yards. It is difficult to create a truly New Year's atmosphere without bright twinkling LED lights that fill the space with the mystery and charm of magic. For facades, frost-resistant options are recommended.

New Year has been celebrated for centuries. Even in the Roman Empire, it was customary to decorate the streets with flower garlands before the holidays. Many Catholic countries have adopted this tradition and adhere to it to this day, but instead of flowering plants, avenues and streets are decorated with garlands of mistletoe. In Germany, they went further, they came up with wreaths with shining lights that were hung on the doors of houses and window openings, and from there this experience was quickly adopted by all other countries of the Old and New World.

The electric garland was invented over 120 years ago, invented and introduced by the physicist Edward John in 1882., and already in 1906 the first Christmas tree in Europe, decorated with lights, appeared. It happened in Finland, and after 32 years, this tradition has passed to our country. Nowadays, it is already difficult to imagine New Year's days without smartly decorated streets, house facades, shop windows and trees. Every year the decoration of the streets becomes more refined and original, today it is not uncommon for luminous compositions on the streets, a "flickering" sky overhead and advertising banners decorated with a mysterious glow.

The tradition of decorating the buildings themselves appeared relatively recently, this happened after the owners of some shops began to hang garlands at their outlets. By this, they attracted the attention of buyers to their products, but the idea turned out to be so beautiful and interesting that soon the illumination began to appear on private houses and cottages. For a long time, the Russians were deprived of this pleasure, since we have much more severe winters than in Europe, and the garlands popular there simply could not withstand our cold weather. However, technologies do not stand in one place, and some time ago special frost-resistant LED garlands appeared, which anyone can purchase.

The principle of operation of LED for the street and the house is the same. However, outdoor decorations are deliberately designed to withstand fluctuations in temperature, rainfall and wind. They work up to -30 degrees, while neither falling snow nor rain can disable such lamps.

Frost resistant LED bulbs have a long lifespan, they can faithfully serve several seasons, while their work remains uninterrupted. The operating period of LEDs is 4-5 times longer than that of conventional incandescent lamps. Many people believe that such garlands are not cheap decoration, this is not true, such products are characterized by low energy consumption, so the organization of a luminous facade will not hit the wallet hard, but it will bring a lot of pleasure.

LED lamps are very bright, their light on the street is visible from afar, even a small garland illuminates the surrounding area so that it does not need an additional light source. At the same time, consumers note the exceptional purity of the glow.The bulbs in such a garland are connected in such a way that the structure continues to function even in a situation when one of the active elements suddenly fails. This is the main advantage of LEDs in comparison with the usual incandescent lamps, which have a strictly consistent type of connection, which requires the absolute serviceability of all parts.

A lot can be said about the merits of garlands. However, one cannot do without a fly in the ointment: in this case, it is the price of the product. The cost of LEDs is an order of magnitude higher than traditional incandescent lamps, however, this is more than offset by a long shelf life, the ability to work even with broken elements and low power consumption. That is why, overpaying once, in the end, you will receive hefty savings.

Of course, the high price leads to low demand, so you can hardly find such garlands in every store. As a rule, only the largest supermarkets are engaged in their implementation. You can also try to find this piece of jewelry on the Internet, however, in this case there is no guarantee that you will be able to change the product if a defective one is sent to you. It all depends on the rules of the trading platform on which the transaction was made.

There are several reasons for the classification of street Christmas lights.

According to the method of nutrition, it is customary to distinguish the following types.

• AC powered - in this case, there are restrictions related to the distance from the source of electricity.
• Single batteries - that is, models that run on batteries. This option is convenient for outdoor use if it is not possible to power the garland indoors, however, with constant light, it may be necessary to replace the batteries.
• Solar powered models - these are modern highly environmentally friendly devices that accumulate energy within themselves during the daylight hours, and due to the accumulated light bulbs, they can work all night long.

The third option is considered optimal, since the accumulation of energy occurs even in cloudy weather.

Several options are distinguished depending on the configuration.

• Universal LED Devices - these are products with a rather elastic design, which involves the use of a flexible wire, on which light bulbs are alternately attached. Such models are suitable for decorating any surfaces of various shapes, they can recreate a wave, a circle, a Christmas tree star and any other figure, therefore they are often used to decorate gazebos, trees, landscape compositions and cornices of a house. By the way, such products can be either monochrome or multi-colored.
• Garland curtain or curtain - such a garland looks like a cable with LED bulbs of the same size hanging from it. As a rule, the length of such a garland varies from 1.6 to 9 meters, so everyone can choose the most convenient and profitable decoration option for themselves. If you wish, you can purchase such garlands for windows, or you can decorate the entire facade with them. Quite often they are attached to the canopies and porch.

• Garlands in the form of icicles or "fringe" - such a product will be the best option only if you decide to decorate a window cornice or a visor near the front door. The principle of operation is similar to the first two options, but the number of bulbs is much less. Usually, the length of each thread is no more than one meter, while the LEDs are grouped by color into small beams, so when the device is turned on, a glancing effect appears.
• The garland-mesh looks very nice, although technically it is much more complicated: it is a lot of different wires, at the junction of which LEDs are fixed to each other. Such products are bought to decorate entire walls of a building, as well as to decorate terraces and gazebos. The design is equipped with special connectors, which allows you to combine individual elements into any garlands of a wide variety of sizes.

Keep in mind that in such models, the wires are quite thin, fragile and can be easily damaged by mechanical damage. That is why it is better to hang such a net on flat surfaces - it is not suitable for tree decoration. Depending on the light emitted, the garland can have a cool white tint, or it can be colored - blue, red and yellow. It can be used to decorate buildings in a retro style or create stylish laconic compositions.

Duralight is a special type of frost-resistant outdoor garlands. This decoration is a special tube with LEDs placed inside it, while the distance between the bulbs can vary from 12 to 27 mm. Depending on the type of cord, garlands are flat and round. Duralight is most often used to create festive glowing inscriptions and figures; they are widely used to decorate shop windows and billboards.

On the basis of duralight, another original model of street garlands was created, which is called "melting icicles", here glowing threads hang from the pipe, but thanks to a special controller they gradually go out. Thus, from the outside it seems that the glow area is gradually decreasing. As a rule, the number of icicles in one garland ranges from 5 to 10, while the distance between them is 10-50 cm.

The arrangement of street lights resembles a design intended for a residential area. However, they have a number of important differences, the most important of which is related to the quality of the insulation. Frost-resistant outdoor LEDs must be reliably protected from temperature extremes and harsh winter conditions, as well as from high humidity and prolonged precipitation. That is why, first of all, it is necessary to pay special attention to the quality of the plastic, which is used to create the lamp body. It is quite easy to distinguish a high-quality material from a low-grade one: a cheap one simply cannot withstand a temperature drop below 20 degrees and cracks.

Unfortunately, being in a store, it is quite difficult to identify a fake. From the outside, both expensive and low-quality plastic look exactly the same, so you should pay attention to the marking - G and R, as a rule, it is the guarantor of the authenticity of the product and determines the high frost resistance of the coating. Better yet, stop at such LEDs, in which the body is made of rubber or rubber, such coatings will not only significantly extend the shelf life of the product, but also increase the degree of safety of its operation.

A frost-resistant LED garland for the street can be an acquisition that will quite noticeably hit the family budget., and the price of a product largely depends on its length: the shorter, the cheaper. That is why try to calculate as accurately as possible what size garland you need. As a rule, depending on the manufacturer, it is produced in sizes from 5 to 20 meters, and if you wish, you can even find a product whose length reaches 50 m.However, you can buy several small garlands and connect them to each other using special connectors that make it possible collect devices into a single chain.

It is very important that the garland is waterproof, the principle here is the simplest: if the design has additional protection against water, then the packaging will certainly indicate the marking in the form of the letter N. Keep in mind that when using a garland that is powered from an AC mains, it is very important so that the voltage in it is stable. If this cannot be ensured, then even the most expensive and high-quality garland can quickly fail if the voltage is not stable. Therefore, it is better to purchase an additional stabilizer in the kit, this will require some unforeseen expenses, but it will effectively protect your jewelry from surges in the network. Or it is worth stopping at other design options for the local area.

Special attention should be paid to the mechanism for connecting the garland. It is advisable to make all purchases exclusively at certified points of sale, in addition, it is important to adhere to several recommendations.

• The device must certainly be equipped with an automatic shutdown system in a situation of overloads in the network - this option will significantly extend the life of the garland.
• The package with the LED must contain information about the power and voltage that powers the product. In addition, the seller must have a document confirming the fire safety of the product, if he cannot show it to you, then the purchase should be immediately abandoned.
• Check information about existing manufacturers, make a firm choice in favor of proven brands that have been producing these products for many years.
• Even in the store, you should check the operation of the device, the LED lamp should be deployed and each connection, as well as the power supply and the strength of the insulation coating, should be checked. You also need to check the strength of the wiring, it should not break with any touch.
• A distance of at least 1.5 m must be maintained from the plug to the lamps.

In order for the garland to work for a long time and delight with its pure flickering light, it is extremely important to install it correctly. In principle, absolutely any bases can be used to place the LEDs, but the choice largely depends on the characteristics of the garland itself, its size and shape. If you have a long LED at your disposal, then you can safely decorate the entire house around the perimeter or decorate a whole wall, and if you have a budget short tape, you should dwell on the decor of window cornices or a doorway. Medium length options can be used to decorate small shrubs, trees or railings, and stairs leading up to the house.

The operating modes of LED lamps in Russia are set in accordance with the regulations in force at the legislative level.

Models produced by manufacturers, as a rule, have several modes, the most popular of which are:

• fixing - a mode for which the most common glow of diodes is typical;
• chasing - in this case, the diodes gradually gain brightness, and the damping occurs alternately and rather slowly, in this case, an almost ideal light overflow effect can be created;
• flash (blinking) - in this mode, every fifth diode blinks, the rest work in standard mode;
• chameleon (chameleon) - in this case, the shade of the diode changes all the time;
• multi-chasing - this option is possible only if there is a controller, when the operating modes are constantly changing each other.

For information on how to properly connect LED frost-resistant street lights, see the next video.