A Greener Christmas
The Rawls Road Christmas display has been innovative with energy savings for years. Display owners Joseph Ayo and Oscar Lamas have never really been deterred by a high electric bill. The homes which we have are older and only have 150 amp electrical service on each home. We had always had limitations on how much electricity is available for our very large Christmas displays and here is how we get such a large and bright display out of such limited resources.
Computerized Animation:
Most of our lights are animated by computer. Our current computer hardware allows us many options. There is a simply a lot of "off" time for the lights. On average only 20% of the lights are on at anyone time. Our brightest song, Beethoven's 5th pushes us to the limits and sometimes causes a breaker to trip. This song has moments in which 70% of our lights are on at one time. This on time is carefully calculated and short lived do the brightness level diminishes before our breakers and wires have a chance to heat up enough to trip. Along with this we found that partially dimming power supplied to incandescent lights can save power without taking too much from the show. We found most flood lights and Christmas lights achieve 100% brightness at about 93 volts, voltages up to full line current of 120 volts is not necessary and does not produce any increased brightness so we limit the maximum brightness on computerized channels to about 93 or 94 volts. This not only saves approximately 20% of the electric bill but also results in improved bulb life and less heating on extension cords and breakers. Combined effect of computer animation and partial dimming has made our electric bills approximately 1/4 what they could be if our lights were continuously left on and at full voltage.
In spite of the reduced savings brought about by using reduced voltages or partial dimming, animation of lights has a second toll. This being that each December we ruin fluorescent bulbs inside the house due to the power fluctuations from the animation outside. Also GFCI outlets that we run the lights under tend to wear out from all the heat and power fluctuations and need bi-annual replacement. Luckily there may be an answer to this problem with the new availability of LED lighting.
LED Lighting:
In 2007 many visitors may have noticed the 5122 property of Oscar Lama's took on a nearly 70% conversion of incandescent lights to LED lights. The investment in so many LED lights on a large display took many thousands of dollars to purchase however it did result in their average electric bill for the season which had ranged approximately $700 for the season had been lowered 65% thanks to all those LED lights. The 5118 house of Joseph Ayo's had also decline but his conversion to LED lights were more modest with a 15% conversion, his electric bill difference was hardly noticeable. However Ayo plans to continue converting increasing percentages of lights to LED lights. Early in 2008, the two placed orders directly from China, some new LED lights in hard to find forms. "We just cannot find net lights or chasing lights in the LED format in stores, or for that matter useful lengths in 100 light strings without importing them directly ourselves", says Ayo.
Early in 2008, experiments will be underway to see if LED chasing lights can be modified to have direct computer control as they have done in the past Christmas shows. There is a very good chance the stable of the show, the Chasing lights on the houses will be converted to low power LED's. At the time of this writing, we don't know if LED chasing lights can be modified like the old. To make matters worst, if multiple strings don't have colors in the same orders as other strings, they cannot be simply have bulbs moved to correct locations to have colors match and chasing lights be in same flowing patterns, as different colored LED lights work with completely different voltages and watt consumptions. None the less the Rawls Road innovators will be checking it out to see if it can be done!