# Discreet flickering LED's now hitting the market.



## corey872 (Jan 10, 2010)

Hoping to build a couple candelabra's for the big day and looking to run ~13 individually flickering LED candles for each one. Found a seller on ebay now carrying the discreet LED's (ie not as a tealight). Looks like they are running ~24 cents a piece in 50 LED quantities. Still reasonable 29 cents per 10 LED's.

These seem to be the same 20mA yellow LED from the standard tea lights, so I wouldn't expect much output - though team them with some warm white straw hat LED's and you could easily have a more candle-like output.

Couple of the classic threads:

Mega tea light thread
http://hauntforum.com/showthread.php?t=16052

Dealing with the type 2 'LED only' tealight
http://hauntforum.com/showpost.php?p=395744&postcount=49

Build a special high intensity tealight
http://hauntforum.com/showthread.php?t=24483

The last time I was at the dollar store the had tea lights 3 for $1 - so almost as cheap for the whole tea light and extract the LED. Though a guy only needs so many coin cell batteries and mini on/off switches. I built up enough coin cell batteries last year to get a pretty good shock picking up the stack!


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## MaryShelley (Jul 27, 2011)

I think I found the ebay seller you're referring to. Are you planning to buy any of those LEDs? If so, let me know how they look!


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## corey872 (Jan 10, 2010)

If you found hongkongsuperseller, that seems to be the guy. There is another guy, but he's running about $1 per LED.

I've got 50 flickers and 100 warm whites on the way, so should be a very flickery Halloween. I've never worried too much about the output because I always team the flicker with some warm whites to get the color and light output up. But I'll report back how these stack up. May have to plug them all into a proto board all at once just for grins!


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## The_Caretaker (Mar 6, 2007)

I've bought over 300 LEDS here: http://besthongkong.com/index.php?cPath=75, no issues with free resistors


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## corey872 (Jan 10, 2010)

Just a quick update - the warm white LED's showed up today. May have to test some out soon to see what kind of color they have. I got a note from the flicker LED seller saying the mail out of Hong Kong was being delayed due to extra security and I could expect the LED's in 15-20 days  Will update more when/if they come in.


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## corey872 (Jan 10, 2010)

Well, bad news right off the bat. Had some time to test my 'warm white' leds...looks like the color temp is almost 4100K !! They are practically pure white - no 'warm' glow at all. To simulate a candle, they should be down around 2200-2400K.

I'm going to drop the seller a note on ebay, but don't have high hopes.

http://www.mastlight.com/CRI-Chart.html


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## TheOneAndOnlyKelly (May 7, 2009)

Worst comes to worst, you could try to color the outside of your LEDs with a yellow marker to filter out some of the blue light and warm the color. (Shrinkwrap yellow cellophane might work as well...)


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## corey872 (Jan 10, 2010)

A dab of paint might work - just have to see. I've contacted the seller to see if maybe I got the wrong product, but this will probably come down to each of us have a different definition of 'warm white'

In better news, the flicker LED's showed up this evening. They look nice - typical 20mA yellow LED just like you'd find in a tea light. They seem to flicker just a bit slower than I recall most of the others doing - but probably more in line with what you'd expect from a real candle - especially if it wasn't in direct wind.

Little video of a couple dozen slipped onto a 3V battery:


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## scarrycher (May 30, 2012)

corey872 said:


> A dab of paint might work - just have to see. I've contacted the seller to see if maybe I got the wrong product, but this will probably come down to each of us have a different definition of 'warm white'
> 
> In better news, the flicker LED's showed up this evening. They look nice - typical 20mA yellow LED just like you'd find in a tea light. They seem to flicker just a bit slower than I recall most of the others doing - but probably more in line with what you'd expect from a real candle - especially if it wasn't in direct wind.
> 
> ...


where did you say you got the ones in the 3volt battery, those look nice


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## corey872 (Jan 10, 2010)

hongkongsuperseller on ebay, search 'Randomly Flickering Flicker Flash Flashing 5mm LED'

http://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_fro...mly+Flickering+Flicker+Flash+Flashing+5mm+LED


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## JeffHaas (Sep 7, 2010)

How did you end up using these? It looks like two or three grouped together might work really well if embedded in a candle or put inside a lantern.


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## corey872 (Jan 10, 2010)

To me, these flicker LEDs are too yellow and not bright enough to come anywhere close to simulating a real candle. But they are the only flicker LED I've ever seen on the market. So, the main way I use these is as a 'driver'. I let the flicker LED power the base of a suitable transistor, then let the transistor drive suitable warm white (or any other color you choose) LEDs.

You're basically making this circuit:










which looks like this when breadboarded in real life:






or can be made really compact as in this 4-way flicker I use to give a 360 degree round pattern in my landscape lights.






assembly here:

http://www.hauntforum.com/showthread.php?t=24483&highlight=flicker

or I've even used them to drive a single warm white LED for a candelabra with individual 'candles' made of a rolled paper shade hot glued to a plywood base...





























The possibilities are practically endless...candles, lanterns, flickering pumpkins, glowing embers, eyes, or most anything else.


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## BioHazardCustoms (Aug 5, 2009)

When I order LEDs on ebay, the seller I buy from is niktr0nix. It's the same people who make the LEDs that Allen Hopps uses in his tutorial, and they're generally a good bit cheaper than on the website. I bought 100 Blue 5mm LEDs prewired for 22.99 shipped to my door. Then, when i realized that I didn't need all 100 in blue, they agreed to ship me 50 red and 50 blue. This is a GREAT ebay merchant, and I plan to be doing business with them again very soon.

We need to see if we can't get niktronix on here as a forum vendor. Might be able to get a few discounts that way...


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## JeffHaas (Sep 7, 2010)

Can you give an ebay link to niktronix? When I did a search there he didn't come up.


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## corey872 (Jan 10, 2010)

Jeff, I think you need to substitute a '0' (zero) for the 'o' (oh) in the vendor name. I found him, though he doesn't seem to have any flicker LEDs. He does have a few warm white LEDs, though nothing in the 8mm variety with a color temp specified, and nothing as bright as the ones I have typically used which were around 100K mcd.

Though if he can do any custom work, an 8mm warm white LED, 140º view angle, ~2400K color temp and 100K mcd with the flicker built in would rock for a single candle! ...possibly a 1 watt / 200K mcd option for really pumping out the light.


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## JeffHaas (Sep 7, 2010)

Aha! That's what I missed. Here's a link to his store:

http://stores.ebay.com/niktronixledandgamespecialists


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