Carnival float LED lighting – tungsten to LED complexities.

In the UK we have Carnival Clubs, who make spectacular floats to compete in competitions every year. Many of the floats use literally thousands of high power tungsten lamps to create a blaze of light, but with the phasing out of tungsten lamps they are being forced to pay a lot more for lamps and potentially have to switch to different lamp technologies.
Aside from the fact that nothing really has the richness and physical radiance of tungsten lamps, there is a whole layer of complexity that results from switching to other light sources like LED. A significant issue is power factor, which skews load calculations, and the failure mode of some LED lamps that can go stubbornly short circuit, making it tricky to pinpoint the culprit amongst a run of hundreds of lamps.
The best option is probably to divide the lighting into lots of smaller circuits and test new styles of lamp for as long as possible before using them on a parade.

Here’s a link to Ben’s channel:-

A link to the very impressive Gremlins CC “Day of the Dead” float:-

A link to the Marketeers CC incredible LED-heavy “Space machine”.

Here’s a list of most of the carnival clubs in the UK to make sure you’re on YouTube for most of the night.

British Flag, Cavaliers, Centurion, Cobra, Crusaders, Eclipse, Gemini, Globe, Gremlins, Griffens, Harlequin, Hillview, Hot Rock, Huckyduck, King William, Lime Kiln, Marina Sydenham, Marketeers, Masqueraders, Mendip Vale, Newmarket, Nunsford Nutters, Pentathlon, Ramblers, Renegades, Shambles, Sid Vale, Toppers, Vagabonds, Westonzoyland, Wills, YMCA.

It’s particularly interesting to look at older YouTube videos and see how the floats have evolved.

If you enjoy my videos you can help support the channel with a dollar for coffee, cookies and random gadgets for disassembly at:-