Tag Archives: Noma

Noma “Super Bright” LED Christmas Lights

This season, Noma has introduced a new line of “Super Bright” LED Christmas lights. I picked up a string of 70 “Super Bright” multi-coloured LED Christmas lights last night from Canadian Tire and they really are much brighter than the older style Noma LED Christmas lights.

Noma Super Bright LED Christmas light box

The two immediate advantages to the Noma “Super Bright” LED Christmas lights are the ability to change the lights and the fact the string is fused! Included in the box were two additional fuses and two replacement LED “bulbs”. Yippee, we potentially can now have no more burned out LED lights!

Fuses and extra LED bulbs included

Oh, and by “changing the lights”, I mean you can change the order in which the lights are on the string. You just pull off the coloured plastic strawberry shaped light and swap it with any of the other lights on the string. Super!

Unfortunately the Noma “Super Bright” LED Christmas lights are not perfect. They are supposed to have yellow and orange lights but there is very little difference between the two colours. It’s sort of like bright yellow and not so bright yellow. If you notice in the (crappy) picture below, the “Super Bright” LED lights around the front window are brighter and more yellow than the others.

This is unfortunate as the biggest complaint about the older LED lights was that the blue and green were overpowering. Now you just get a whole lot of yellow.

Noma LED lights outside - Super Bright are around front window

Also, be careful with the length of this string of lights. The set of 70 is supposed to be 23′ long but that doesn’t seem to be the case. One review on the Canadian Tire page linked above says their set was only 17′ long. I didn’t measure mine before installing but the string of lights is definitely not 23′ long. Maybe if you put the thing on a rack and stretch it out completely straight it might be close.

Finally, make sure you keep your receipt! The box indicates a 5 year warranty (as does the instruction sheet inside) but it explicitly states you must have proof of purchase. Go and put that receipt in a safe spot now.

5 year warranty on the box and in the box

Noma LED Christmas Lights Sold Out!

By Jeff Ivany

2 Replies

This past weekend I went into the Canadian Tire here in Kemptville looking for two more sets of Noma LED Christmas lights. I was looking specifically for the 100 LED C6 sized multi-colour light sets. Unfortunately I was greeted by empty shelves where the lights would normally be. Turns out they were completely sold out and had been for a few days. I looked a little more and all that was left were the “white” LED strings, the silly large bulb (C9 size?) light sets and a handful of single colour sets.

I came home and did a inventory check through their website and discovered that even some of the bigger stores in Ottawa were also sold out of the multi-colour light sets.

We were in town on Monday so I took the opportunity to swing by one of the bigger stores that was supposed to have stock. Yes, they did have about 5 boxes but they must have all been returns as the boxes were all beat to shit. No way am I going to buy a set of LED lights that someone else has returned. I’ve been lucky so far with my Noma LED lights and I’m not going to take a chance on ones that someone else got pissed off with.

Anyways, I was looking for more lights to “complete” my plans for this year on the house. Looks like that will have to wait for next year now.

Amazing though, LED Christmas lights sold out by the first weekend in December.

Burned out Noma LED Christmas lights

By Jeff Ivany

48 Replies

Burned out Noma LED Christmas lights are something I read a lot about. On almost all of my Noma posts, I have at least one person talking about how they have a set of LED lights with burned out bulbs.

So, what do you do with a set LED Christmas lights that have burned out lights?

Well, I hope you kept your receipts because Canadian Tire (who sells the Noma brand) will replace your burned out Noma LED Christmas lights lights with a new set. This is because the Noma LED Christmas lights carry a 5 year warranty that covers burned out LED light sets. You must have your receipt though.

If you didn’t keep your receipt then you may need to get creative with your LED Christmas lights. Well, assuming that the entire set isn’t burned out that is. Depending on how you use your lights, you may not even have to do anything to mask your burned out lights.

If you put the lights on a tree or bush, you will hardly notice a few burned out lights. Remember that at night and from a distance, the whole tree or bush will just be a mass of lights. Take a look at my example of Noma LED Christmas lights outside from last year. The picture is very zoomed but you can still get the idea of how difficult it would be to find a few burned out LED lights.

Multi-colour Noma LED lights outside

If you put the lights along your gutter or around windows then it gets a little more tricky. If you really want to have evenly spaced out lights then one option is to double up a good light with a burned out light. Assuming of course that you only have a few lights per string that aren’t burned out. Yes, this will shorten the distance you can cover with the set of lights but it will provide the even spacing desired.

Another option for gutters or around windows is to simply add more LED Christmas lights! One of my favorite displays of LED Christmas lights was the Physicians house at the Upper Canada Village – Alight at Night display last year.

The Physician's House at Upper Canada Village

This is a very good example of how adding more LED Christmas lights can hide the fact that some of your LED lights may be burned out.

Finally, if you’re really ambitious (and know what you’re doing) you could cut the dead LED Christmas lights out of the string of lights. This would require knowledge of electrical stuff so you can reconnect everything correctly. I can’t really recommend anyone do this though as if you don’t know what you’re doing you could create a very dangerous fire hazard.

Upper Canada Village – Alight at Night

By Jeff Ivany

1 Reply

A few nights ago we went to Upper Canada Village near Morrisburg, Ontario for their annual Alight at Night display. Upper Canada Village is a heritage park that is basically a village set in the 1860s. There are many buildings in the village and it’s a great place to visit. In the summer, the village has actors who play out various roles.

In December and early January, the entire village is lit up with LED Christmas lights for the Alight at Night display. I tried taking a few pictures this year but only the following two really turned out. (Hehe, the new camera is fantastic at night shots but I didn’t have a tripod and with a 25lbs squirming toddler strapped to your back, getting a still photo can be tricky.)

Here is a picture of the School House:

The School House at Upper Canada Village

And here is a picture of the Physician’s House:

The Physician's House at Upper Canada Village

After seeing all of those LED Christmas lights, it’s got me thinking that I have a lot of planning to do for next year, and a lot more Noma LED Christmas lights to buy! :)

Example Noma LED Christmas Lights Outside

By Jeff Ivany

16 Replies

Last season I took some pictures of my Noma LED Christmas lights outside on my little blue spruce tree. Since I had to go buy three more sets of lights this year, I figured I would take another picture as an example. The main reason is to show the difference in some of the colours of the LED lights:

Multi-colour Noma LED lights outside

The tree is now about 20 feet tall and has 8 sets of 70 lights. That’s 560 LED lights on the tree. If you notice, the green LEDs at the bottom of the tree (the new lights) are much brighter than the ones at the top. In fact, the green LEDs in the old lights are really not visible at all. I happened to notice that the markings on the lights are different so I assume that the Noma LED Christmas lights are manufactured by a different company this year versus last year. This might be the reason or maybe they just decided that the green should be brighter.

Either way, I like the new green as it ads some different colour to the tree. I will have to make sure I mix up the old and new lights a bit more next year though. The orange, red and yellow all blend together so you need to have something different. This is where the blue and green come out more. There are fewer blue and green LEDs on each strand but it would be over powering to have more blue and green lights.