Spirited News, Observations & Thoughts IV

[ford91exploder]

Yep, though even the color is basically a non-issue now with improvements made from newer LED tech made to further mimic incandescent light color. Panasonic has achieved a very satisfying and convincing LED substitute for the yellowish-orange tint that traditional incandescent popcorn lights have-


I'm a huge fan of LED lighting, and it continues to improve. One of the only major things left to improve is the price, but that will just take a little time.

All bulbs at Casa exploder are LED at this point in time.

 

[ThemeParkJunkee]

Wow...this has been an interesting segue for this thread. I just hope against hope that the powers that be pay as much attention to threads such as this on reputable websites as they do to the multitude of Disney Bloggers and their "magical" adjectives and multiple exclamation points. Yes, I love Disney...but it just isn't the same anymore...

 

[Clever Name]

When they are in obvious places on the train station, town hall or emporium and you and family go back a few times on a multi-day vacation and see that they are STILL out, This might make a good photo series for my fictional 'The WDW Curmudgeon' blog - 'Dead Bulbs of The Week along with a ticker on how long each bulb took to replace.

John Hornbuckle used to run a Web site called "Walt Disney World Blues" that was devoted to burned out bulbs and other maintenance issues. http://mediocridisney.tripod.com/id39.htm

 

[ford91exploder]

Way off topic... I tried to like LED lights... but the two bulbs I tried had a slight-but-audible buzz. When I Googled it, I found this is a common complaint.

Bringing this back on topic, LED buzz is not a problem in a noisy place like outside in MK - but maybe more of an issue inside a hotel.

Buzz is caused by cheap bulbs (don't confuse with price) without a PWM driver, These are the same LED bulbs which require a 'warmup' period the driver for LED is simply a rectifier and a RTC (value changes inversely as temperature increases) resistor the buzz is caused by magnetostriction of interior components the buzz will be either 60 or 120 cycles per second depending upon design.

PWM drives emitter with high current pulses at a high frequency, Keeps average power down and emitter die temperatures at manageable levels while still providing a bright light to the human eye. A high speed camera can 'see' the pulsations of the drive circuit. This type of bulb also uses less energy.

 

[GiveMeTheMusic]

John Hornbuckle used to run a Web site called "Walt Disney World Blues" that was devoted to burned out bulbs and other maintenance issues. http://mediocridisney.tripod.com/id39.htm

LOL - haven't seen a Tripod link in awhile. Anybody have a GeoCities or Angelfire site they'd like to share?

 

[MerlinTheGoat]

Way off topic... I tried to like LED lights... but the two bulbs I tried had a slight-but-audible buzz. When I Googled it, I found this is a common complaint.

Bringing this back on topic, LED buzz is not a problem in a noisy place like outside in MK - but maybe more of an issue inside a hotel.

I know that can happen but i've rarely had this happen. I've got a ton of LED strands of Christmas lights and none of them buzz. Also have two normal LED lights for regular lamp use and didn't have any buzzing there either. I've only ever had one buzzing LED bulb out of many (in a Lemax Christmas building).

LED's are not supposed to buzz naturally, but yeah no one would probably notice in any outdoors locations like at Magic Kingdom or on the facade of the Grand Floridian. Still it is a defect when they do and I think you just had some bad luck. Or a crappy one like ford91explorer said above.

I heard inside the Grand Floridian they're using compact florescent lights, which I also know from a lot of experience can buzz (I also don't like the light they output nearly as much as LED).

 

[ford91exploder]

I know that can happen but i've rarely had this happen. I've got a ton of LED strands of Christmas lights and none of them buzz. Also have two normal LED lights for regular lamp use and didn't have any buzzing there either. I've only ever had one buzzing LED bulb out of many (in a Lemax Christmas building).

LED's are not supposed to buzz naturally, but yeah no one would probably notice in any outdoors locations like at Magic Kingdom or on the facade of the Grand Floridian. Still it is a defect when they do and I think you just had some bad luck. Or a crappy one like ford91explorer said above.

I heard inside the Grand Floridian they're using compact florescent lights, which I also know from a lot of experience can buzz (I also don't like the light they output nearly as much as LED).

Christmas lights will not buzz the series resistance of all the LED's in the string make up the necessary resistance and a driver circuit is not necessary since small LED's are just as happy being fed AC as they are DC, AC is actually better for them because they are OFF roughly 50% of the time so life is extended.

But LED bulbs would be better for Disney as maintenance is basically no longer required and a shot of 'bulb grease' should be sufficient to prevent corrosion of the sockets.

 

[PhotoDave219]

Buzz is caused by cheap bulbs (don't confuse with price) without a PWM driver, These are the same LED bulbs which require a 'warmup' period the driver for LED is simply a rectifier and a RTC (value changes inversely as temperature increases) resistor the buzz is caused by magnetostriction of interior components the buzz will be either 60 or 120 cycles per second depending upon design.

PWM drives emitter with high current pulses at a high frequency, Keeps average power down and emitter die temperatures at manageable levels while still providing a bright light to the human eye. A high speed camera can 'see' the pulsations of the drive circuit. This type of bulb also uses less energy.

It cant be worse then trying to photograph under mercury vapor lights that cycle at 60/sec.... Photograph at above 1/60th and you get all sorts of weird things

 

[ford91exploder]

It cant be worse then trying to photograph under mercury vapor lights that cycle at 60/sec.... Photograph at above 1/60th and you get all sorts of weird things

Yes I know... Hg vapor lamps are evil in more ways than one, Their nearly monochromatic spectra is also evil for color reproduction

 

[ford91exploder]

There were several " must try" items on my list when we went to MK and Epcot and I was very disappointed with most of them. Of course they all had glowing reviews on the site.

I really have to laugh at that link you posted. It takes dedication to make something so rough sound so awesome and full of win and love and unicorn poop...ie, rainbows.

A perfect example of the C--p the bloggers get away with, Those are not Nacho's that's a bag of tortilla chips and some cheap cheese sauce, Taco Bell does it better for pete's sake and its only 1.99 not the better part of ten bucks and theirs is FRESH not packaged and stored for 18 months.

This is the kind of stuff the bloggers need to point out that Taco Bell has better Nachos and service than the worlds premier theme park. I've had the frozen lemonaide as well and the local 7-11 does it better for 1.19

 

[djlaosc]

I guess I think of those as "news" sites instead of "opinion" sites. If I want to find out where to get a vegetarian meal or the price of a three day hopper with water park add-on, I will look at AllEars.

AllEars Blogs also disclose when they have been given something.

 

[WDWDad13]

AllEars Blogs also disclose when they have been given something.

My gosh are we still debating it this morning? lol

 

[PeterAlt]

I'm going into hybernation. Wake me up when something exciting happens. I hope that will be before Star Wars VII.


Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz out

 

[Goofyernmost]

In the case of the Grand Floridian, it's pretty easy to make an educated guess on how long some of them have been burned out because there are SO many that aren't working at all. It would be more difficult to guess if it was only one or two within a row of 50-100 bulbs. While they may or may not have fixed some in the recent refurbishments the resort has undergone, as of my most recent early 2012 visit the burnt out bulbs were in large clusters. We're not talking just one or two burnt out bulbs within a hundred or so, more like a very large fraction within a count of a hundred. That is horrible show.

I can forgive a small quantity burning out provided they keep on replacing them. Defects happen and I get that. But in the modern era they keep them that way for a very long time until a major refurb happens. It makes one wish they'd convert them all to LED's if they won't take the personal initiative. Those can die as well eventually (or suffer from defects), but at least it's more difficult for them to do so. They have made a switch to LED's in some cases apparently (Mad Tea Party apparently uses LED's for its popcorn lights now I think), though I don't know whether Main Street or Grand Floridian changed to LED's in their recent refurbishments.

I wouldn't stay at the GF at gunpoint, lights or no lights, and neither do the vast majority of people. I don't know why that place is such an issue, I really don't, but if you're going to charge that much per night everything ought to be working. Of that I totally agree. In a park with the multitude of safety factors to be taken care of it doesn't bother me if a few days go by without repair. There is just so much physically possible in overnight maintenance. But even that should have a limit. GF don't know, but since it appears to have been an ongoing problem, something I have been reading about for over a year now, I have to think that there is some other motivation involved, I don't know what it is, I doubt that anyone on this board knows, but it seems way to simple to just say...their to cheap to fix them. I have to say I don't know. LED's are definitely the answer but we tend to think of the situation in terms or the twenty or so bulbs in our homes. They are looking at in in the millions. Might be a longer process.

 

[Goofyernmost]

I'm going into hybernation. Wake me up when something exciting happens. I hope that will be before Star Wars VII.


Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz out

OMG, you go on for pages about invisible Monorail foundations and you are getting bored with our conversations? Really?

 

[asianway]

So buried way back there in the other nights excitement, did I read that there's another free blogger cruise for the reimagined Magic? Guess they gotta get one of these a year now

 

[WDWDad13]

So buried way back there in the other nights excitement, did I read that there's another free blogger cruise for the reimagined Magic? Guess they gotta get one of these a year now

well in their defense...they have had trouble filling the reimagined magic sailings from Miami this fall/winter so this is not a big deal as well

 

[alphac2005]

COUNTING DEAD LIGHT BULBS , sums it up neatly for the decline of the parks, A dead bulb is VERY visible when you see the buildings outlined at night and a bunch of them just give the appearance that no one cares about maintenance. Were there dead bulbs in the 'Disney Decade' sure there were, The difference was there was ONE dead bulb and it was replaced the next day.

Now there are dozens of dead bulbs and they stay dead for days on end, It just makes for an overall neglected look which is IMMEDIATELY apparent to even the casual visitor. This is just bad show.

Disney is SUPPOSED to be better than real life - a world where everything is perfect and one can suspend their sense of reality.

I've never stayed at a $500+ a night resort anywhere else that has dead lightbulbs all around the buildings (Hello, Grand Floridian) outside of Disney. For that kind of money, not only should they all be working properly, but they should have your name inscribed on them as well.

 

[alphac2005]

I agree if that is true, but I'm not sure how out of hundreds of thousands of light bulbs we know if one has been out for two or three days or not. Are we counting bulbs and marking locations. I can believe that bulbs burn out, I just cannot believe that people are so into it that they actually know, for a fact, the actual bulbs that are out from day to day. Just seems strange is all. You might be right.

Before we moved away from Orlando, my wife and I would go to EPCOT a night or two a week after dinner (we lived quite close) to walk around World Showcase and Future World. You know people that walk the mall in the morning, that's kinda like what we were doing. It was nice to have somewhere to just walk around. Well, we would notice burnt out lightbulbs and it would sometimes be days or weeks before they were replaced. It wasn't that we were looking for them, rather it just stood out, and then we started to be amazed how far the standards had fallen because they simply weren't being replaced or it would be a long time for them to be so. The burnt out lightbulb references from others are dead-on.

 

[flynnibus]

That's the blog I was thinking of in my previous post. This post really made the whole blog jump the shark for me.

Wow... I had a hard time forcing myself to read beyond the first picture that showed a bag of chips and a dip cup. I'm still trying to compute how anyone wrote more than 2 lines about an off the shelf bag of tortilla chips.