LED Christmas Lights - Are The Wiring Harnesses Any Better?

I've been looking at buying some LED Christmas lights but I'm curious about the wiring harnesses.

I know the bulbs are brighter, last longer, etc. However, I'm curious as to whether the wiring harnesses are any different/better than traditional mini-light strings. Do LED's strings go bad in sections just like traditional strings or are they wired such that each individual socket is a stand alone entity?

I have a large number of mini-light Christmas strings. Straight, icicles and swags. Every January I put away full working sets and every December I plug the strings in to find bad sections scattered throughout. I try all the standard bulb tricks and sometimes I can get the sections working, but sometimes I can't.

I'm not talking about entire strings being bad, I mean that one or more 4' section in a 21' string will be out. Then I have to buy new strings or combine strings by cutting out bad sections and soldering in good ones. It's a constant PITA.

Replacing all my strings with LED's would be a huge up-front expense, but if I knew that I could pull them out every year and they would work, it would be worth it.

Reply to
DerbyDad03
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Unfortunately, the sockets are no better than the old ones. And, yes, they are still in series with other bulbs. I have a bunch of 60 light sets. They are made up of 2 series strings of 30 each. The bulbs do last a very long time and they don't get broken by be dragged across the driveway, but when a connection fails, all 30 light in that segment go out. Like you said, sometimes you can fix them, sometimes you can't. I would love to find a quality set with real sockets (or maybe no sockets?), but it is hard to compete with Chinese sets selling for a few dollars each. When we had incandescent, we replaced them every year. It just wasn't worth the hassle to store them. When they came out with warm white LEDs, we switched to them and started storing them again. We are in the 4th year now. They have done much better than the old ones, but I still had to swap out 4 bad strings this year (out of about 40 - yes, we have a lot of lights).

Reply to
Pat

Thanks. That sucks.

Tip: Hang new icicle light strings in the garage. While pulling down on the bottom bulb of each icicle, hit each socket with a heat gun for a few seconds. The goal is to relax the main wire of each icicle so they hang straighter.

It's much easier to do that on the ground than on a 28' ladder or hanging over the railing of a deck. DAMHIKT :-)

Reply to
DerbyDad03

I'm older than dirt, in fact I attended the Wedding of Gilgamesh and you still have more free time than I do....... ;-)

Reply to
Stormin' Norman

It's called multi-tasking. Football games on the garage TV. ;-)

Besides, it's an extra (maybe) 10 minutes per string and improves the look immensely. If I'm going to spend the time to hang a few thousand lights, they may as well look as good as possible. Maybe in the warmer temps of your area the lights will relax themselves, but not where I live.

I also don't let the winter sunset times bother me. I solved that problem with a 500W halogen work light mounted a pole that extends to about 10'. While most other people have ended their day, I'm still going strong. I quit hanging lights around 10PM last night, 5 hours after the sun went down.

Reply to
DerbyDad03

Also, colors are more intense and don't fade, since the LED actually produces that color instead of it being filtered by a coating that comes off.

I started using LED lights in 2005. There are some single-LED failures (more blue/white than other colors). Most failed LEDs will still conduct current (just won't light). There are some series (about 30 LEDs) failures, but not as many as with incandescents.

I had some (but not much) success with that.

Small bulbs are better made for a low voltage, which explains the series wiring. For miniature lights, I've seen 20,35, and 50-light series. These use different bulbs. Most of what I had were 100-light strings, with two 50-light series.

LEDs are low-voltage devices, so are also series-connected. I see series of 25,30, or 35 LEDs (commonly in 2-series strings of 50,60,70). There is also a few electronic components (at least the current-limiting resistor) in one of more bulges in the wire.

I have a few like that, sometimes a short string is useful. Something I'd like to do sometime is replace the lights (35 mini incandescent now) in the lighted canes.

LEDs themselves seem to be very reliable, but there are problems with the cheap wiring. Also, there's no reason you need to replace ALL those lights at once. I just had a few in 2005, more every year.

Reply to
Mark Lloyd
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I have about 100 LED strings. There were 2 series (one series wouldn't light. Most strings have 2 series) failures when I tested them before putting them out. Two more failed (series failure) the first day and none in the next few days.

BTW, I have posted pictures on my website (notstupid.us/winter.php) since 2000. I haven't done it this year yet.

Reply to
Mark Lloyd

True, but large groups would need to be done via a single purchase. I wouldn't want to mix and match the ~1500 on the front of the house or the ~1000 on the back deck or the 600 on the side fence or ~??? net lights on the telephone pole, etc.

(Actually, the net lights never seem to have as much of a failure issue as the strings.)

However, at this point it would actually be about the "light" itself not about the strings. Since it doesn't appear that there would be any less "string maintenance" (my main reason for switching) it's now down to the look. But - and this is a big but - string failures will be more expensive with LED's since replacements will cost more.

Reply to
DerbyDad03

I have played with LED rope light and it is in sections and I imagine LED strings are too. The up side is you don't have any lamp sockets and that is usually where those cheap peanut light strings fail

Reply to
gfretwell

DerbyDad03 posted for all of us...

Sine they are diodes they are parallel wired, no sectional problems causes by the LED.

Reply to
Tekkie®

You may want to look into commercial-grade Christmas light strings. A lot more expensive, but they have much beefier wiring, since they're intended to last over many seasons. Around here you can find name-brand (GE, Nova, etc) commercial light sets in the upper-end landscape and lawn and garden stores. And yes, they're available in LED. On the other hand, if you have a problem with critters chewing the wiring, there's no point buying more expensive light sets, since they'll just chew through those, too.

Reply to
Moe DeLoughan

Thanks for the suggestion on commercial quality lights. It is something I've considered but never followed through on. I always wait too long to check the lights and then I'm running out on that day to pick up a few new strings or repairing old ones so I can get them on the house.

So far, critters aren't the issue, at least not as far as the lights are concerned. We do have to bring the cat food in from the garage every night lest the raccoons eat most of it - after washing their paws in the water bowl. I can usually tell when they've come snooping because they'll wash their paws even if there is no food available.

I've got some nice videos of them in action. My cat is pretty tough but she's smart enough to skedaddle as soon as the raccoons clear the cat door.

Reply to
DerbyDad03

Because thay are diodes and need a constant current, they are in series. There may be several long strings of lights on the same plug in parallel. If one does go out and fails open, a long string of them will go out.

Reply to
Ralph Mowery

Am I the only one who prefers the warmer and less brighter incandescent bulbs, at least for indoor use?

We picked up a set of the LED lights this year, Sylvania brand, "Stay-lit", described as being "warm white", but they are anything but warm white, especially compared to our existing incandescent strings.

Jon

Reply to
Jon Danniken

It depends what quality of LED string you buy. There is the dirt cheap crap that is as lousy as any of the cheap incandescent serial strings, and there is GOOD stuff. Bronners in Frankenmuth carry a line of LEDS with "one piece" harnesses. The "sockets" and the wires are molded together, unlike the cheap ones that are just stuck together. I cannot remember the name of the Chinese company that makes them for them - There are a couiple other companies selling what looks like the exact light strings. The big thing is they are SEALED -you can drop them in a barrel of water and no connections will get wet. I went to look but the last empty box went out to recycling this morning - -

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Reply to
clare

The Sylvania Stay-lit lights have a nice 5 year guarantee.

We have a large flagstone year round covered patio, a bar, kitchen, TV area etc and we used quite a few strings of those LED lights around the perimeter of the peaked roof cover and wrapped around all of the perimeter vertical support posts. It's been a couple of years and so far there are no defective LEDs and it is lit every night from dusk until about midnight.

Reply to
Stormin' Norman

The "warm white" LED strings I put up this year almost perfectly match the incandescents in colour. They have a nice "warm" glow to them.

Reply to
clare

We have one neighbour with a few strings on a birch tree - they almost hurt your eyes when walking past their house ! .. a piercing blue-white light. Noone would ever want them inside the house.

I cursed my old style lights for far too many years before finally buying some LED strings - no fuss - all are working perfectly after about 6 years or so. John T.

Reply to
hubops

I've never had to cobble in new sections of lights because string are bad. Yes, I've had an individual bad socket and usually can fix it. Mostly it's bad lamps. Each lamp had a shunt in it to maintain the circuit when the filament burns out. The shunt is supposed to burn through and keep the circuit going. However, many times the 120VAC or

177 volts peak won't burn through the shunt and the string won't light. Using one of the zapper guns (Lightkeeper) will usually "fix" the bad shunts by putting a higher voltage pulse through the string, causing the shunt on a bad bulb to burn through. However, multiple bad lamps and corroded sockets usually can't be fixed this way. I built a test box that allows me to probe down the string and find the bad bulb. This works great especially where you can lay out the entire string. There are resistors in the test box that prevent burning out the lamps if only a small section lights while probing.

Many years ago I bought 3 skinny trees which were factory prelit. These light strings don't have shunts ... thanks Menards! So the zap gun will not work. So, it's probe from one lamp to the other. Because the wires are wound so tightly around the branches, it's really tough to go down the string, but with some patience they are still lighting. Seems no one carries these lamps, however, I did find an Ace store in Indiana where they had some. I had them ship me their entire stock, about 10 or

15 cards of 5 lamps and until they are used up, I'm good.
Reply to
Art Todesco

I repair donated recycled lights as a hobby. Even got written up about it in the local area newspaper.

Biggest problem with the LED light strings that I pick up is the actual wir e coming out of the LED rusts and doesn't make good contact with the socket . Sometimes, when you pull out the LED and the plastic socket, the wire bre aks off inside the plastic socket. Sometimes the broken wire lead falls ou t, but sometimes the rust holds it in the socket and everything looks ok. Patience and a good game on the tv works out best for me.

I also have a variable voltage source, a variac, that I set at half voltage or lower, and then use a wire jumper to bypass half the string of bulbs. If the sting lights up, the bad bulb or connection is in the bypassed half . If the string stays out, the bad bulb is in the unbypassed lights. I rev erse the bypass and see if the string lights. If it does light, then I hav e verified the general half of the string where the problem is. I then byp ass half of the defective half to more closely locate the problem. I keep on doping this by halves until I get to the bad actor. This works fine as long as there is only one or two bad actors. If a lot of bad bulbs , good luck!!!

Reply to
hrhofmann

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