[geeks] How to take the flicker out of LED Christmas lights?

[John Francini]

Okay, fellow geeks...

I'm very much interested in using strings of LED Christmas lights in 
place of incandescents, especially since the prices have come down to 
something reasonable, and availability has increased (my local Home 
Depot, for example, has them).

But there's one thing about most LED Christmas lights that has 
bothered me and continues to bother me.

Flicker.

Since they're cold devices as well as diodes, they run at either 30 
Hz or 60 Hz (depending on whether there's one or two diodes in each 
"bulb", wired in parallel, and with opposite polarity).

However, from observation, they generally seem to be done the 
cheapest way possible, which means that each 'bulb' contains a single 
LED, and the whole string is fed 120 VAC.


Therefore...

What I'd like to do is to construct some sort of box that will take 
the 120VAC in, rectify it, smooth it out, and then feed it to the 
light strings.

While this is sorta-kinda like a power supply for electronics, there 
are some differences.

First, it would need to output 120 VDC.  This would require beefier 
circuits, higher-rated capacitors and rectifier diodes, etc. than if 
I needed 12 VDC or such.

Second, if I recall my electronics correctly, the 120 VAC is RMS, but 
the peak-to-peak voltage is somewhat higher, isn't it?  If I feed 
that through a 1-1 isolation transformer, rectify it, and de-ripple 
it, will I get 120VDC, or something greater?

Questions (as I see them)...

Is this worthwhile?

Can one readily find rectifiers, capacitors, etc. that can carry 120V 
at, say, up to 15 amperes (to be safe) without needing 
industrial-grade components?

Or should I just live with the flicker?

john
-- 
John Francini, francini at mac.com

"The journey is more important than the destination-that's part of 
life. If you only live for getting to the end, you're almost always 
disappointed."     -Donald Knuth