The Twinkling Light Set: An increasingly rare but delightful type of decorative lighting 

forever entertained by this guy's outrageously specific opinions on tech items most people never even think about

I just spent 12 minutes listening to a guy talk about Christmas lights in June.... Pretty cool info on the anti fuse

My Christmas tree lights have 6 settings: 1. On 2. Epilepsy test 3. Epilepsy test 4. Underground rave 5. Epilepsy test 6. Epilepsy test

As a Brit I always assumed Menards was just what a pirate shouts when you kick him between the legs.

Legend has it that if you say "warm white LED" 3 times, a wild BigClive might appear.

I'm usually not so keen on running incandescent lights anymore, but for the season of various festivities I'll make an exception for this one special set of lights. Hopefully you find them as beautiful as I do!

I don't know why RU-vid recommended this, but dang, that dude has a pleasant voice and cadence of speech.

I was born in the early 60’s and my parents always draped multi-colored, twinkling, ‘fairy lights’ around the tree. As a child, I was absolutely mesmerized with those flickering incandescent lights. It was almost a magical experience. I wish they were still popular.

"Now you're both annoyed!" I love it!

Agreed, When it comes to Christmas lights, nothing beats the subtle and beautiful incandescent bulb glow. Gives Christmas a more comfy and warm feeling...

"No, I DON'T HAVE A PROBLEM!" lol... almost had the coffee come out my nose there!

I like this guy, he's totally and shamelessly open. I can relate to his passion for lights..still a kid at heart..that's golden!

Every time someone says, 'I don't believe in fairy lights,' there is a bulb somewhere that dies.

Please make this a seasonal series. I wanna know how the flicker flame lights and bubble lights work!

Alec, I thought you'd like to know that because of this video (which I discovered earlier this year, being 2021), I and now my sister share your love of incandescent twinkle lights! We did not know these existed, so thank you for bringing them to our attention and extolling their virtues! We had standard multi-color mini-lights in our living room for year-round ambiance, but they were burning out. Fortunately, because of your video, we were able to replace them with twinkle lights! And thanks to you, I also knew where to find them. The Menards near us stocks them (we live in Indiana and shop in Cincinnati). I also replaced a (working) strand of white lights in my bedroom with white twinkle lights so I can enjoy the effect there, too. We like the gentle, organic, random nature of the incandescent twinkle, and the shimmer effect the flashers cause in the rest of the bulbs. It simulates candle-flame, which is pleasant and relaxing in a living room or bedroom. We love your videos and the way you make obscure, quirky technology fun and fascinating to learn about. Thank you for sharing your interests with us! For other viewers reading this, I've provided information below about the product to help you find it. I am having trouble finding the incandescent twinkle lights using the Menards.com search tool (it finds only the LED lights), so I included the product numbers so you can look them up more directly (though, the website cannot currently find the multi-color product). Product Name: 100 Twinkling Miniature Light Set Brand: Enchanted Forest (distributed by Menard, Inc.) Specs: 100 incandescent lights spaced at 3", green 22-gauge wire, 24.7' (7.5m) lighted length, 26.5' (8m) total length. White Product No.: 284-1565 Multi-Color Product No.: 284-1566

I didn't even realize these were becoming rare! It was some of the most common christmas lighting that came into my thrift store. I would highly recommend checking your local goodwills if you're looking for some.

I have to say I was a little disappointed when you brought up the Menards jingle as evidence of their eccentric nature, and not the fact that the founder (John Menard) has been banned from his own stores for plowing a truck through the front doors of a new store for not opening on time. I worked at my local Menards for two years, and one of the first things I learned was how much of a lunatic that guy is.

"Now you're both annoyed!" *laughs ecstatically in british*

Wow! My mom and I share your enthusiasm for these very specific, hard to find, twinkling lights! Thank you for this video, I love to know exactly how something works. Now I appreciate these lights even more!

That hazy halo around the blue LEDs reminds me very much of how most lights look to me without my glasses/contacts. You're spot-on: it feels like you can't actually get your eyes to focus on them for some reason.

I'm impressed he hasn't said yet (to my knowledge) "And thank you to all my patreon supporters, you are the ones that keep the lights on"

blue leds piss me off too. makes my eyes feel like they are seeing a tear in the universe

Anyone else made it a Christmas tradition to watch these Christmas light vids every year? Also, anywhere to buy the good twinkling lights, in 2022?

We love em dearly. The colors are just "right", and no LED set has yet attained their degree of "imperfection" and warmth.

I *knew* I wasn’t crazy!! LED Xmas lights *do* flicker!!! My wife swears they don’t, but I can barely look at our tree this year with all the LED lights she’s put on it!! Drives me nuts!!! I don’t think every person can see the flicker, or maybe they just don’t notice it for some reason. Drives me crazy!!

I have to admit I'm one of those people who never was aware of "twinkle lights" as something unique. But now I have to find some!

I thought I was the only person who even realised this type of xmas light existed; it's by far the best twinkling type, especially the ones where you have 4-5 different randomly twinkling sub-strands within one single set. My set was bought in 1995 in the UK but I don't think I've seen them on sale here in around 15-20 years.

I was born in '71 and one of the Christmas rituals I grew up with was testing each string of lights and if necessary locating the burnt-out bulb. One of my favourite visual delights was watching the twinkling of the Christmas tree at night after all the other houselights were off. It was mesmerizing!

When I was young we moved into an old house that had some things stored away in the basement by a previous owner. One of those things was a few sets of "bubble lights" which I'd never seen before. We used them for years until the plastic housing that held the bubble tubes became brittle and broke down, likely from the extra heat they produced to heat the liquid-filled glass tubes (perhaps also their age). These lights looked amazing and were very different to anything I've seen, and it seems that you can still at least find "vintage repros" on places like eBay. Not sure how they'd compare to the old ones we had.

Hm-hmm lights: Christmas lights Hm-hm-hmm lights: Holiday lights (Edit: every year around this time I get an influx of comments, thank you all.)

Been looking for the twinkling lights in this video for 2 years. Love them.

I absolutely agree on the colouring and randomness of the twinkling being key. My parents replaced our brilliant twinkling lights for our Christmas tree with lights that don't twinkle at all and it just doesn't have the same peaceful magic as it used to.

Rewatching this video has become a yearly Christmas tradition like Charlie Brown or the grinch. I love how comforting the simplicity of these lights are and can feel the warm glow of nostalgia as they shimmer. I recommend this video and these lights to everyone, it's a little ridiculous how much I bring them up during the Christmas season. Thanks so much for making it :)

My dad was upset for years because he couldn’t find the old twinkle lights anymore. When I was a kid in the 80s, we always had the multicolored twinkle lights that actually seemed to all twinkle individually and they had a pretty flower shaped shield around them. It’s a shame they don’t make those anymore. They were beautiful. Yellow, blue, pink, green, red was my favorite color combination back then.

Amen on the new colored lights!!! I've been searching for true twinkle lights for years!!!! Thank you for your information!!!! 😘😘😘😘😘

Me, a Midwesterner: these aren’t rare, I bought them last week? Me, a few minutes later: a yes, Menards, that’s why...

You mention a dislike for the harshness of colored LED lights, and a desire to see a set that instead uses warm-white LEDs with colored caps. I agree 100%, and in fact just the other night I actually MADE my own set just like that. I bought a set of warm-white plus a set of multi-colored from the local hardware store, and just switched the caps between them. The modified set is MUCH easier on the eyes, and more closely resembles incandescent in my opinion.

Upvoted for Menards.

I lit my first apartment's bedroom with these. I just had them stretched at full length around the perimeter of the ceiling and the twinkling and flickering made it look just like the room was amply lit by candle light at all times, and it was fantastic. To be honest I highly recommend them if you think you'd like that effect

Woah, another human being that appreciates these twinkling incandescent lights as much as I do, I'm not alone. I've been watching your channel for more than a year, but I just came across this video. Well, this is where I'll deposit my thoughts on rope lights for the first time ever, because I'm way more into rope lights than most, and I never get to share what I know. I know this video is years old, but I really hope you'll read this, because I know for certain you'll appreciate it more than most. Here's the most essential tip I could ever give about white incandescent string lights: Connect them to an outlet dimmer. Not only does this extend the life of the bulbs, but they gain a huge boost aesthetically. They become more richly ambered when dimmed, and also another quality that's indescribable. You really have to see it for yourself to understand, it quite stunning. Also, the twinkling bulbs will twinkle more slowly the more you dim them. I use a bluetooth controlled outlet dimmer by GE, allows you to control the level of dimming using an app on your phone, and to make multiple schedules to dim the light to a certain level and different times throughout the day. I have these twinkling rope lights permanently hanging throughout my house, so I'll have them scheduled to gradually increase in brightness in the morning to wake me up, and gradually dim in the evening. It makes it more versatile because often having so many of these lights on at full brightness is too much, so you can dial it in for different situations to make them more comfortable. It allows me to have 658ft of "icicle" style white twinkling ropes lights always on, inside and outside, to some degree of brightness, without it ever feeling too much, too bright or visually busy. Then there's the practical benefit. What wears out incandescent bulbs is repeatedly being turned on and off, the huge rapid shift from being in a cold state to searing hot. Also, being lit at full brightness, and also movement, all for the same reason: The tungsten filament is more fragile when its hot, it breaks more easily. In fact, there's a lighthouse that's reputed to be using the same incandescent bulb for more than 100 years because the bulb is rarely turned off, and never subjected to movement. Before I learned about this, I was replacing about 45 bulbs per week on average. Once I put them on dimmers, and never turn them off, never go beyond 80% brightness, and started handle them carefully, that number went down to only 4 bulbs being replaced per week, it blew my mind. LEDs just cannot compete with incandescent rope lights, aesthetically, which is why I went through the trouble of figuring all this out. Not only is the color of the light more pleasing, but the way the glass encasement makes the light sparkle has a mesmerizing effect. And most importantly, as you noted, the twinkling is random. The patterned twinkling of the LED variety just breaks the charm. That's also why I like using the "icicle" variety. The way the bulbs hang randomly placed in the space makes them look more like stars in the sky, especially with dimming: When you dim these twinkling sets, the light of the non-twinkling bulbs are smaller and less bright than the twinkling bulbs, so there's also an added variation in light size. The more variation, the better. But here's something I can't understand, and maybe you could figure out: If turning incandescent bulbs on and off stresses them and shortens their lifespan, why does that not seem to be true for the twinkling bulbs???

6:47 "If you're not an American Mid-Westerner, you probably don't know Menards." I laughed harder at that than I should have.

I totally enjoyed this presentation as I was looking for the twinkling lights and didn't know where to find them or how they worked. The video was excellent and the presenter very professional and entertaining. Thanks. Cheers

I like how on one side you have an old CRT TV and on the other a LED printer. It adds a nice touch in line with the rest of your videos.

When I was growing up we had the old-fashioned full-sized Christmas lights instead of the mini lights. My favorite thing was the "twinkle" bulbs. You could buy a whole set of twinkling lights, though that was expensive and thus uncommon. Or you could buy the bulbs separately and mix them in with your regular lights. The twinkle bulbs came in the same variety of colors as the regular bulbs, which was another nice feature. When the mini lights became popular, I was bummed that there were no mini twinkle lights. Even now the few mini twinklers are just clear, not color, and you can't buy them separately.

This is season to be jolly You are the men I’m at my wit end trying to explain twinkle is DIFFERENT than flasher People think I’m crazy 😀

You sure helped keep these lights alive. I decorated my house with four strands of these lights "two clear and two multicolor" as well as two strands of their C9 counterparts on the roofline. You are right it sure is quite a pleasing effect. Thank you for bringing them to my attention.

I agree with your take on this. I want lights to twinkle randomly, as if the sun was reflecting off of icy or snowy branches in a light breeze. I'm in love with Twinkly lights. I have 1200 on some bushes out front. They're expensive, but fantastic!

As soon as you got done with the fairy lights joke I could tell I was going to like this one

I love the randomly twinkling lights, too! I miss them and I'd love to have some! In the 50s and 60s we had some standard-sized blinking (as they were called then, IIRC) lights in the strands for our Xmas tree. (All of those strands were wired in parallel, so we didn't have to hunt for burned-out bulbs.) Around 1960 we got one strand of the miniature twinkling lights (all colors) that we used to decorate the inside of our front door. IIRC again, Italian restaurants used a lot of them for atmosphere! The interesting thing about the strand we had is that it had was almost all twinkling lights except for a few slightly larger, dimmer lights that were always on. My older brothers guessed they were there to handle the excess voltage when a large proportion of the twinkling lights happened to blink off.

So! I found another set of these! Tupkee Shimmering Twinkle lights on Amazon. I just got them in today, and they are these kinds of lights!

I love these lights too! I grew up with them and we continue the hunt to find them. I’m glad that led’s are coming up with a take on the twinkle to keep it alive, but you are right, the bulbs do it better. Also, we used to also use the twinkling c9 and c7 bulbs as well. Much easier to find in the 90’s.

Man, love going back to this video when you come up with new and exciting ways for dealing with crappy xmas lights.

Thank you for talking about these true twinkle lights! They're my favorite and remember them from my childhood. No one around where I live( including Christmas stores) seems to know anything about them.

"And now you are both annoyed". And that's why we love you man. :)

What I miss are the old C-7 colored Christmas bulbs that would blink independently. Back in the 70's they were sold as "twinkle lights" and were clear colors rather than the steady on lights were a "solid" color.

Ah, I just found this channel at xmas 2020 and then this came up in my feeds. As a 50+ Floridian (with mid-Western parents) we grew up using colored xmas lights that twinkled. I think each of our 3 sets were from JM Fields and were $1 in the early 70s. As the youngest, I got to help putting them away in the original flimsy boxes. I was proud to make them fit. When we got them out the next year, my dad and I would test them and replace any bulbs. Although we didn't use them anymore (due to their age) I was devastated a few years ago when my older sister told me she'd tossed them out. Fond memories. Plenty of pictures though. Am still a color lights gal even if it is now LED...thanks for the video.

I don't know how this video was recommended to me, but I'm so glad to find there are others! I had one precious string of these twinkle lights, and guarded them fiercely for years, but now they are lost! I am beside myself. They don't sell them anymore. No one else uses them. They were magical. And now that magic is gone.

I'm just now catching up on your older videos, and this one is absolutely hilarious! Your sense of humor is greatly appreciated. Thank you for the laughs and teaching me something I've always wondered about during that time of year. Sidenote, I replaced FORTY bulbs on my pre-stranded tree this past year. I kept putting it off, but now I see why I should stay on top of that. My HMM HMMM tree thanks you!

I love these too! First discovered them back about 1988-89. My Christmas trees have been devastating ever since ;D You really can't beat the random twinkling, plus the soft glowing of the non-flashing bulbs.

I learned more about stranded lights in the first four minutes of this video than I have in over forty Christmas seasons.

You could be British with that amount of irony and sarcasm. I would know I am British! Love your videos!

Thank you for calling out those weird purple and orange bulb strans! Glad to know I'm not the only one who noticed this.

Anyone else in love with how passionate he is about these “fairy light” colors?

The scene of the lights on your balcony is so peaceful... Can you like, make a 1h-2h video of just that?

Today I found the closest approximation to this effect using LEDs I've ever seen, and they're on sale now in the UK under the name "Premier FireBrights" in Vintage Gold colour. It looks like manufacturers have been listening! The same factory in China probably makes them for other brands in the US and elsewhere. Please upvote this for visibility.

I just bought a set of these to use as background to my RU-vid channel. Thank you for the physics/engineering lesson about them.

I always thought they twinkeled thanks to the magic of christmas. Those lights you showed at the end are truly delightful

Its that time of year again. I just ordered some 'retro' fairy lights from habitat (i'm in uk) so looking forward to seeing how they appear.

ive noticed that this video is more relaxed than most of your others but still just as informative. its helped to calm my mood after the past few days. if i wasnt subbed already i would have just done so

Agreed, this is the best type of twinkling effect. Have had a Noma brand set since the mid 90s, and it's the most reliable set we've ever had. Stuff made by Noma in that period seemed to be of much higher quality than what we get now.

So this just popped back up in my recommendations. This year I have a string of these random twinkle lights mixed in with others on my tree, and two sets of random twinkle icicle lights in my windows. I love the shimmer effect talked about in this video as the flasher bulbs make the whole string shimmer. It is a truly dazzling effect!

I kept thinking how you could stand the heat of those little lights, glad you confirmed it at the end

Excellent presentation as always! How warm did your incandescent scarf get while making this video? Incidentally, last year I uploaded a video with 50 year old (tungsten filament and methyl chloride *bubbler*) and 100 year old (carbon filament) Christmas lights. They are in series string of eight and operate at 14 to 15 volts each.

Thanks for convincing me that I'm not the only picky-as-h**l guy when it comes to Christmas lights. So much so that I don't use them at all anymore, since the new ones just don't do it for me. An early Merry Christmas to you and yours.

My grandpa had a model train set that used a flasher bulb as the light on top of a water tower. I always loved that and it's currently sitting in my attic somewhere until I get a chance to set it up

You are absolutely right about the light colors.

target had them!!! my mom was on a hunt for them this year, we love twinkling lights!!!

I didnt know Menard's even sold them. I'm surely getting me some this year!! I miss the twinkle lights.

i love fairy lights and how diffused the light is, they’re so much easier on my eyes than traditional light sources that they’re slowly taking over my home :’)

Superb ! Appreciate this specific and in-depth sharing of something that delights.

Why people aren't using *_FULL BRIDGE RECTIFIERS_* (sorry, a little *ElectroBOOM* slipped out) on LED displays is maddening... driving past an auto dealer with a couple hundred feet of LED figures and fences at 35mph was migraine inducing !!!

Omg this is the kind of detail criticism that I live for! Also I completely agree with you on the multi color lights! I just want a warm white led set that does a slow fade fade out twinkle.

We have these kinds of lights on my tree, I love them so much !! I can just sit on the couch and zone out watching the twinkling of them.

It's again this time of the year. This Video is like a good christmas movie, i watch it every year.

Thanks for explaining the LED flickering. I always thought they looked almost like strobe lights when you move them.

I honestly prefer fairy lights over LED. They just seem much more Christmas-y.

I remember the old twinkle lights. I wanted them as a kid, but never had them. You brought up good memories.

Omigosh! I’ve been looking for these everywhere! No one even knows or understands what I’m talking about!! You are the best! I hope I can find this kind somewhere!!!

I've always called them string lights. Honestly, I don't even associate them with the holidays. They're an ideal year-round decoration in my book! 😁

As in your other Fairy Light video/s, every opinion you share is spot on how I feel, no matter how minute ( your opinions on yellow for example.) Funny and gratifying that someone else holds such similar and strong opinions about something so seemingly trivial. By the end, I had to say something. I will stock up on these too if ACE gives me the chance. Thanks for clarifying thought and holding a candle for all of us "analog" lighters.

I love how he gets into to the pros and cons of the types of things we just spend the least amount of money on and call it a day.

Visiting Menards when I go home to South Dakota each winter is a both baffling and rewarding experience I look forward to each year. That jingle really brings me back!

I've never seen these sets before! The operation of them is remarkably simple but I think everyone agrees (once you've drawn attention to it) that the shimmering effect they have on the rest of the set is very pleasing. It reminds me of the throw of light from a fireplace on a dark winter night. I'm one of your fan-followers over here in the UK, and in a couple of months when Christmas is round the corner I will look out for these lights to see if they are available, and if so, from where.

For preventing the cascade failure, in some "fairy lights" (I'm from Spain, so I have no idea of what that means, but I suppose they're Christmas tree lights), there are special fuse bulbs with no antifuse and lower voltage rating so it blows if the current is too high.

I just found this channel and I love listening to while i work 3rd shift custodian job. The mere fact he called out people and said fairy lights made me laugh.

I looooove incandescent twinkling lights. Thank you for this video! I hope I can still find them this year.

We're one of *those* homes. During the holidays we have a fan base for our display. We do a ton of customization and are big on repairing rather than replacing. "Cascade failure" and "shunt" are terms we use daily this time of year. Just last night we were hitting the stores and *hoarding* twinkle lights. We're transitioning to LED (love the literal headaches from the flicker) but there's no LED equivalent to twinkle bulbs we've found. Having watched this, my husband will be going out today to grab some more ;) BTW, they're referred to as "amber" not "orange" :D. In my experience, the yellow bulbs are very pale, and in a year or two are basically white and have to be re-painted or replaced.

I never knew these even existed! My favourites used to be the standard C7 or C9 incandescent Christmas bulb that had the bimetal switch and would blink at random

I enjoy the description of how these work, and our shared dislike for the orange bulbs and fake twinkle lights.

EXCELLENT info presented in a super-clear, concise manner. I’ve been searching for twinkling lights for years, so this video is gold to me!!! :)