(Not so) Blue Christmas.

[Shane_B.]

Hold on .. TOS obligation ... Elvis singing Blue Christmas. I like it. Cover coming soon to a song forum near you.

Ok ... So I've had this conversation before and never really got an answer. I'm a huge fan of decorating for Christmas. I already have about 9,000 lights up, 6 indoor trees and a 20ft LED tree I built on my dock. I'm about half done. Got the Christmas village and train platform to build yet.

99% are LED. The only LED's I've ever had to replace are blue ones. I've had to replace 4 this year so far plus a 5th one that squirrels chewed off from one of my outside trees and I noticed a 6th one that needs replaced on another tree outside last night. All blue.

What could it possibly be about blue LED's that cause them to fail a lot sooner than the others? I keep having to replace sets that squirrels chew up and I save the blue LED's from them. Haven't had to touch the other colors. I have 15 year old sets of lights I've never had to touch except for blue.

All of them on my main tree are dimming out. When they get near the end they start to flicker and just fizzle out.

Is it the chemicals used to make the blue reaction? I'm at a loss. And the funny thing is they don't give you blue replacements. Just a red, green, and gold/yellow.

Any other masters of exterior illumination out there? (Scene from Christmas Vacation)

[CoveCamper]

The theory is magnesium.

 

"To make the p-type variant it has to be doped with magnesium to build up the number of free moving holes. Buckeridge explains that you would expect each magnesium atom replacing a gallium atom to donate one extra charge carrier but this simply is not the case. ‘You need to put in a lot of magnesium to see any type of p-type activation at all [in gallium nitride],’ he says. ‘[It’s] technologically challenging because you are near the solubility limit.’"

 

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/blue-leds-fail-because-of-magnesium-trap/

[Shane_B.]

59 minutes ago, CoveCamper said:

The theory is magnesium.

Well I'll be the son of a monkey's uncle.

So it's not just my imagination that these things go bad prematurely.

Squirrels must like magnesium or I have amazingly bad luck. They targeted the blue ones. They chewed the wire off both sides of the socket and chewed the blue plastic globe cover off that goes over the LED to get to the LED inside. I found the chewed up bits laying on the ground.

[RobertWS]

[CoveCamper]

50 minutes ago, Shane_B. said:

Well I'll be the son of a monkey's uncle.

So it's not just my imagination that these things go bad prematurely.

Squirrels must like magnesium or I have amazingly bad luck. They targeted the blue ones. They chewed the wire off both sides of the socket and chewed the blue plastic globe cover off that goes over the LED to get to the LED inside. I found the chewed up bits laying on the ground.

Well, at least it was cheap LED's. I live out in the woods on a 10 acre lot. About ten years ago I had to take my work service van in twice to replace fuel lines that had been chewed on. I had to start putting moth balls around the vehicle. I never did figure out if it was a squirrel or mice doing it.

[Shane_B.]

53 minutes ago, CoveCamper said:

Well, at least it was cheap LED's. I live out in the woods on a 10 acre lot. About ten years ago I had to take my work service van in twice to replace fuel lines that had been chewed on. I had to start putting moth balls around the vehicle. I never did figure out if it was a squirrel or mice doing it.

I was told squirrels do these things to sharpen their teeth. I talked to someone about them eating my cedar porch and chair and they said they weren't actually eating it. Apparently their teeth grow like our fingernails and they constantly have to keep them trimmed by chewing stuff but I haven't checked their claim. Males sense though.

 I think your problem was probably mice. I read that they are really attracted to soy based products like wire casing and hoses and more. Just like the squirrels with the pittsburg sealer. There's something in it that attracts them.

I envy you with the acreage. I have 4.5 and it's not enough to get away from people. It's getting worse as more are leaving the city and wandering out here bringing their baggage. I'm surrounded on 2 sides by large acreages and woods but it still doesn't stop people.

Once Elon gets the kinks worked out of his high speed satellite internet service I want to leave here. It's sad but it's impossible to not have good internet especially with my wife's job.

[Notes_Norton]

Back in the days when phones were hooked to poles with wires, the squirrels put me out of service more than once.

It seems they like phone cables too.

Notes ♫