Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

How I hang Christmas lights without a ladder

imgur.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

71–80 of 82 posts

Re: How I hang Christmas lights without a ladder

#71

Post by iudqnolq »

dionidium wrote: post #70
senthil_rajasek wrote: post #4

"The carefully split the wire part" in many places has me concerned about electric shock. Is this wiring upto code in the U.S? Also, the comment at the end to use "hooks" beats the whole point of using magnets.

The conductors appear to be separately insulated, so this poses no risk. However, it's generally a safe bet that modifying devices or equipment is a no-go. These lights were probably reviewed by a "listing" agency (e.g. Underwriters Laboratories) that's accepted/required by the municipality having jurisdiction and modifying the device invalidates that listing.

It's low risk, but I have to push back against no risk. If someone splits it with a knife there's a plausible chance they nick the insulation by accident.

Re: How I hang Christmas lights without a ladder

#72

Post by Zircom »

grepfru_it wrote: post #68
Zircom wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We tried that with some lights we in our bushes thinking it'd be fine to just keep them off, they're not even visible unless you were on our porch with your nose against the bushes looking for them. HOA ended up fining us anyways, nosy fucks.

>nosy fucks Was probably your neighbor who ratted you out. I’m constantly reporting violations to our HOA

Highly probable, we have a bit of history with the neighbors a few doors down and would not surprise me one bit if they were snooping around the outside of my house for absolutely no good reason and got the random urge to nosefuck my bushes. They're certifiable and have nothing better to do all day.

Re: How I hang Christmas lights without a ladder

#73

Post by dionidium »

iudqnolq wrote: post #71
dionidium wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The conductors appear to be separately insulated, so this poses no risk. However, it's generally a safe bet that modifying devices or equipment is a no-go. These lights were probably reviewed by a "listing" agency (e.g. Underwriters Laboratories) that's accepted/required by the municipality having jurisdiction and modifying the device invalidates that listing.

It's low risk, but I have to push back against no risk. If someone splits it with a knife there's a plausible chance they nick the insulation by accident.

Yeah, that's fair, but it's low risk if done properly, whereas a lot of the electrical work homeowners get up to introduces risk even if executed as intended :)

Re: How I hang Christmas lights without a ladder

#74

Post by bobsil1 »

ThrowawayTestr wrote: post #22
bombcar wrote: post #12

You can get led strips of lights designed for outdoors that when off are just a clearish rope. Install those permanently and when they’re not on they’re basically invisible.

Individually addressable, waterproof LEDs are super cheap. Most expensive part is the power supply.

Yep, we “hung the lights” this year by simply changing the 2-digit light show code in a browser from Thanksgiving to Holidays.

Re: How I hang Christmas lights without a ladder

#75

Post by prennert »

mtgentry wrote: post #61
cardamomo wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I love homes from this era! The quality of the materials, at least among the homes still standing, is often excellent. This is anecdotal, but I find that they also tend to have a lot of natural light and stay cooler in the summer.

Yeah I’ve done extensive work on the house and anywhere that’s original is in great shape. All the wood is old growth. It had termite damage at one point but the termites only ate areas where newer (lesser quality) wood was used. Heck, even the mirror in the bathroom opens and closes perfectly and it’s 110 yrs old. The downsides are there was zero insulation in the walls when we bought it and the leaded glass windows…

In some cases you can add a separate plain, featureless double pane window behind your original feature windows and get the best of both worlds.

Re: How I hang Christmas lights without a ladder

#76

Post by dsfyu404ed »

senthil_rajasek wrote: post #4

"The carefully split the wire part" in many places has me concerned about electric shock. Is this wiring upto code in the U.S? Also, the comment at the end to use "hooks" beats the whole point of using magnets.

>"The carefully split the wire part" in many places has me concerned about electric shock.

Don't worry. The internet virtue point demerits from playing with electricity are cancelled out by the ones you earn from avoiding ladder usage.

Re: How I hang Christmas lights without a ladder

#77

Post by rkagerer »

pifm_guy wrote: post #52
ThrowawayTestr wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Individually addressable, waterproof LEDs are super cheap. Most expensive part is the power supply.

They also don't last outside long... Eaten by squirrels... Tube gets full of water... As soon as one LED dies, all the rest start flickering like crazy....

If you're doing a new build are there products out there that are more nature-proof? (eg. like would be used in permanent commercial displays)? Or countersunk into solid material?

Re: How I hang Christmas lights without a ladder

#78

Post by bombcar »

Zircom wrote: post #72
grepfru_it wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>nosy fucks Was probably your neighbor who ratted you out. I’m constantly reporting violations to our HOA

Highly probable, we have a bit of history with the neighbors a few doors down and would not surprise me one bit if they were snooping around the outside of my house for absolutely no good reason and got the random urge to nosefuck my bushes. They're certifiable and have nothing better to do all day.

Long ago I realized that the “cure” that is a HOA is way worse than the disease that is messy neighbors. And with what you save in hoa costs you can buy into a better neighborHood anyway.

Re: How I hang Christmas lights without a ladder

#79

Post by Zircom »

Zircom wrote: post #32
bombcar wrote: post #12

You can get led strips of lights designed for outdoors that when off are just a clearish rope. Install those permanently and when they’re not on they’re basically invisible.

We tried that with some lights we in our bushes thinking it'd be fine to just keep them off, they're not even visible unless you were on our porch with your nose against the bushes looking for them. HOA ended up fining us anyways, nosy fucks.

I actually forgot to mention the funniest part of this story, so at first we only received a warning that we need to take the lights down and so we did immediately that same day. However, apparently they're so inconspicuous that they didn't realize we'd already taken them down and they went ahead and find us anyways two weeks later for not complying with the initial warning. Go figure.

Re: How I hang Christmas lights without a ladder

#80

Post by pifm_guy »

rkagerer wrote: post #77
pifm_guy wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They also don't last outside long... Eaten by squirrels... Tube gets full of water... As soon as one LED dies, all the rest start flickering like crazy....

If you're doing a new build are there products out there that are more nature-proof? (eg. like would be used in permanent commercial displays)? Or countersunk into solid material?

There are some with redundant data feeds.

It means any one LED can die, and the rest still work correctly.

If two LED's next to one another die, then the whole strip still fails, but obviously the chances of that are far lower.

When looking at them, each addressable LED has 6 pins not 4 if it's the redundant data feed type.

Post reply on HN