Re-wiring fairy lights

[Pretzelz]

Hi everyone,

I don't know anything hardly about electrics.

I've bought 30 metres of white fairy lights (300 lights) which are on one long chord. The chord is made up of five wires twisted together to make the long chord.

I've got these around my bedroom (I'm a student) and I've bought a small power adapter which plugs into the wall which actives ON and OFF by remote control, thus I can switch all 300 lights on around my room by remote. Cool!

Now the problem is however, the lights have a little box at the end of the chord near the plug. And on the box is a button. Pressing it 7 times sends it through 7 types of flash sequences (ya know, standard fairy lights stuff) but all I want is for them to be on static all the time. The default is RANDOM. So when I put my lights on at any time with the remote, they go onto random and it looks like a disco. So, not generally appropriate. --Can I cut the whole control box out of the chord and somehow just connect up the 5 wires making up the chord, directly into the plug so that they'll just be continually powered with control options?

Next problem. I plugged them in and was admiring them for ten minutes yesterday. I could smell something funny though, and gradually some of them began to flicker on and off (when they were supposed to be constant). I thought there might be some dodgy wiring so looked at the start few bulbs in the sequence... they had completely melted with the transparent plastic casing around them. These bulbs now no longer worked, so I think these now need to be cut out the sequence and I need to solder the remainder of the 30 metres to the start of the chord? (And God knows why they melted?! They are standard fairy lights for UK plug socket. I just plugged them in. But I could see plastic melting off them.)

Actually it's all rather frustrating. How hard should it be just to stick 300 lights around my room without them flickeringONcontrol or melting on me!

Grrr.

Alright, hope someone can help me, really appreciated! THanks!

[Peter Andrews]

If you bought them recently take them back, they are clearly faulty, and get a refund. If you have had them some time throw them away they are potentially dangerous.

Peter

[stevelup]

I think the only thing you will succeed in doing is burning your house down!

Either throw them away or return them to the store you bought them from if still under warranty.

Steve

[Mungo "Two Sheds" Toadfoot]

That's an interesting comment - you seem to know that having 300 fairy lights around your room is stupid but you should be excused just because you're a student. I deduce, therefore, that you are trying hard to be an oddball but it does not come naturally to you. I conclude that you should stop trying to fit in with all the wankers, grow up, and throw them away. Just because they're called fairy lights does not make them run on magic fairy electricity - they can still kill you.

HTH

Si

[Cicero]

================================== Maybe he likes the sound they make, or maybe he's just a figment of his own imagination.

Cic.

[Lyndon]

It sounds like you have a set of lights that is designed for use indoors on Xmas trees, so I'm not sure why people think it is stupid to have them round the room. Sounds good to me, in theory. However, the fact that some have melted does sound like you have a serious problem. Don't try and short them out. They are probably 24V lights in strings of 10, so shorting 2 out puts

240 volts across 8 of them instead, so you'll be putting 30 volts across 24 volt bulbs, and may start melting a few more.

If you know hardly anything about electricity, I wouldn't try to cut out the sequencer. So, take them back if you can, and mutter something about them not being of merchantable quality. Get your money back, buy a string of lights that doesn't have a fancy built in sequencer, and enjoy the effect.

[Owain]

No. The lights are almost certainly low voltage (possibly LEDs) and the control box reduces the voltage. However...

Low voltage ones shouldn't be dissipating enough power to melt anything.

They're dangerous. Rather than take them back to the shop I suggest you go to your local Trading Standards - they can consider whether the product should be recalled for safety reasons. Someone else with these lights could die in a house fire.

If you don't know where Trading Standards is, ask at the nearest porter's desk. (If you haven't already realised, uni porters know

*everything*.)

Owain

[Pretzelz]

oh crap. I've just returned and read all your replies. More damn hassel then!

Firstly, the dreaded words: I bought them off ebay. I paid about =A335 for them. They don't look like fairy lights xmas-style. Well, see the pic.

you think they'll be able to give me a refund? Or send me a replacement? Or even care? To be honest I don't want to have paid =A335 for lights which shouldn't have melted on me. Why would they melt anyway?!

There ya go, check that link out. It has the technical spec on the lights, but they're 10W apparently.

--I just emailed the seller so lets see what (s)he says.

As for people complaining about my idea to put them round my room, I do like things which are kindof extreme. Thought las vegas was great.

[Clive George]

Or even hassle.

As you may have observed from looking at the ice cubes in a glass, solids can melt when they get warm. So, they melted because they got too hot. They probably got too hot because they were designed badly. Which gives you a hint about the rest of your questions : they're nasty shit, so the people selling probably don't GAF. And they're overcharging by quite a lot anyway IMO.

What you could try and do is befriend an electronic engineering student, who may be able to help knock something up from the remains in exchange for eg beer. With skill, you should be able to salvage the LEDS and make something which does what you want. Unfortunately it will take time, effort and a certain amount of knowledge - if you're prepared to put in the former and obtain the latter, you'll be a fair way ahead of your peers...

cheers, clive

[Andrew Gabriel]

They look well over-priced.

I cannot imagine an LED melting. They die long before they get hot enough for that. Are they really LEDs? If you think they are not safe, or not conformant to EU safety standards (are they CE marked? not that it means much), then you should contact Newcastle Trading Standards so they can impound the stock, although that won't get your money back.

Ask for a refund.

[Andy Burns]

Well the seller has now de-registered from ebay (and has quite a bit of patchy neutral/negative feedback) I see one person has already had a refund from them for fairy lights, so unless that's you, get in quick.

[gavinran21]

Hi can you please help me I have three separate strings of fairy lights each string has a small box to change the flashing can you cut the small boxes out and have the lights to stay on permanently

[Dave Plowman (News)]

Almost certainly not. If they're LEDs, it will also contain the power supply.

[tabbypurr]

If you do it'll go bang. it's a lot more complex than that.

NT

[spuorgelgoog]

Possibly.

Owain

[NY]

If the lights are bulbs and not LEDs, and if they are fed by a mains transformer, then you may get away with it. We had a couple sets of lights, one set all white and the other with various colours, and they both stopped working at about the same time. I managed to prise open the welded plastic boxes and confirmed that they contained timing circuits but no current-limiting or voltage drop-down components, so I thought I'd try it.

The problem was to determine which of the wires was the common and which were the various sections of the bulbs (eg the first, fourth and seventh, then the second, fifth and eighth, then the third, sixth and ninth). I did this by measuring the resistance between all the combinations of the four wires, looking for the combination where the resistance between one wire (call it A) and each of the other wires (call them B, C and D) was most similar - this only worked because I knew there had been equal numbers of lights in each flashing circuit.

I then connected one wire from the transformer to A and the other to B, C and D (connected together). I knew that the transformer could handle that load because one of the flashing patterns had all the lights permanently lit, so that was the worst-case load.

I fitted terminal blocks within the plastic box (having removed the old, non functional circuit board) and taped it back together.

[Brian Gaff]

No. It depends very much on how they are powered. if they are driven by the circuit in the box so you can get running light effects or some on and others off, then they will be driven by an electronic circuit. You dod not tell us if they are bulbs or leds, and whether they are series or parallel wired. As a rule of thumb, you can get more success with bulb types due to them being old fashioned bulbs that can run on AC. Brian

[Muddymike]

I have done so with sets that had a separate power supply. All with two wires into the control box and three wires out. It didn't take much trial and error to work out which wire was the common.

Worked with both bulbed and LEDs.

I hate those that power up in a flashing sequence, particularly when the control box is outside half way up a tree!

Mike