Replacement festoon lamps

[littlespark]

Local village hall wants me to update their Christmas lights on the outside. Currently 2 strings of 20 B22 lampholders, with the rubber gasket and coloured mini globe filament lamps. Some work, some don't.

I'm looking for a supplier of coloured LED lamps, but i don't want to;

A: Pay over the odds.
B: Buy cheap and have then not reliable.
C: Replace the entire string with "fairy" lights (supply is from an external socket, so don't have room for the plug-in transformers)

As its 40 lamps in total, i could have 10 x 4 different colours, or 8 x 5 different colours

Seen these on fleabay, but have no idea of quality

10×B22/E27 G45 2W Colour LED Light Bulbs Festoon Party Lights for Indoor Outdoor | eBay

LED Cap Type - standard B22 bayonet / E27 screw bulb, installs into existing B22 / E27 base light fixtures directly. Lamp Holder: B22 / E27. Power Consumption: 2W. 10 colors including: red, yellow, blue, green, orange, pink, purple, violet, warm white and cool white light bulb, 1 of each, 10...

www.ebay.co.uk

 

[buzzlightyear]

Why don't you ask them to supply you
And take headache off you getting them.

 

[littlespark]

It might come to that, buzz.

But if I can make a quid or two on each lamp, it’s a good earner

 

[snowhead]

You or the customer might need some extra arms legs and shirts to pay for them but some here, already filtered for B22 LED

Outdoor Lighting | Lightbulbs Direct

Outdoor lighting fittings at LightBulbs Direct from LED floodlights to keep your premises safe, or decorative outdoor lighting to illuminate a garden at night.

www.lightbulbs-direct.com

 

[buzzlightyear]

I'm working in Blackpool could pull down a line and sell you some cheep.

 

[Simon47]

I have a couple of these (the 40 way ones) in the garden Festoon Lighting Harness - https://www.tlc-direct.co.uk/Main_Index/Lighting_External_Index/Festoon_Harness/index.html
And the 2W lamps Household GLS - Bayonet Coloured Lamps, Light Bulbs BC B22 - https://www.tlc-direct.co.uk/Main_Index/Lighting_Menu_Index/Lamps_and_Tubes_Index/GLS_Coloured/index.html

Although we do have a larger than average garden, 160W of LED lighting is more than a tad too much, so I run then off transformers at around 55V.

But, both harnesses had the plug incorrectly fitted, the gland not tightened on the BS4343 plug so not sealed and no strain relief. Both times they said they'd checked their stock and no other had this problem - but I can't help thinking that if it's a truly isolated issue then the odds of me getting two of them (a couple of years apart) are ... exceedingly small. Interestingly, the second harness I bought used a plug/socket (encased in heat-shrink) to join the tail onto the flat festoon cable (on the earlier one it was a moulded joint) - I did suggest to them that with a very minor design change (put a socket on the other end) they could have linkable ones, but the sales people dealing with the question seemed unable to cope with that idea and just stated that they aren't linkable.

But the bigger issue is that I had a lot of lamp failures due to water ingress. The lamps themselves are not sealed and rely on the fitting to keep water out, but I found this didn't work. So now, apart from a few I've left as a control to see what happens, all of the lamps have a small hole drilled in the end to allow them to "breath" without drawing water in past the lampholder seal. As supplied, there's a large volume or air in the lamp, and any breathing is going to go via the seal around the neck of the bulb - and thus quickly draw water into the very small space around the cap of the lamp, and hence got into the lamp. Since I drilled some holes into the lamps, I've had no more failures.