LED lights in plastic tube - 10 - 20 years ago

[David]

Back in the day, when I was still young and handsome and had most of my teeth, the Christmas lights were 240V LED strings inside clear thick plastic tubes. You could even join strings together at the end to make longer strings.

Fast (or slow) forward and LED Christmas lights all seem to be LED strings (not in a thick plastic tube) powered by USB, with a fancy controller. Made in China, obviously.

For example

which are in a clear thin plastic tube. They also, although working over last Christmas, failed to work this Summer when retrieved from the bag.

I want some new lights to replace the nearly 20 year old ones which are finally failing. I would also like them to last another 20 years if possible, not 20 weeks.

Does anyone have any recommendation?

Even longer ago I had a string of Ring 240V incandescent bulbs in waterproof housings which were wonderful. However that was then and this is now.......

Cheers

Dave R

[Brian Gaff (Sofa]

Yes the waterproof ones perished eventually. I doubt they were that safe even then though. It would be interesting to find out exactly why your more recent Chinese ones stopped, Its normally a wire loose somewhere. However I have to say the wall warts that power them things are normally beyond el cheapo, and cause terrible interference and probably self destruct, so if you could find what it supplies some other way, it might be fixable. Though those little control boxes that do running lights and patterns etc are a bit of a mystery to me, and of course, lights are not very useful either these days, though I probably still have some of the pigmy bulb in a daisychain somewhere. Brian

[David]

The item came without a USB power source, and yes, I have tested it in known good USB power sources.

It has a complex looking circuit board built in, so plenty of scope for failure and very little for diagnosis and fixing especially as it is all encased in plastic.

To my mind the whole thing is over complicated and I would like something simple with fewer points of failure.

May have to wait until Christmas to see what is in the shops this year.

However if someone does have a link to a 240 V set of outside lights I would be grateful.

Cheers

Dave R