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I am in the process of my yearly,seemingly neverending task of stringing up
our christmas lights.(every year I vow that next year I'm going to do it
when its warmer- it is now about 30ish degrees with freezing rain). anyways,
I am putting up the white mini lights outside . On several strands onlythe
front or back half light up. Why is this? Is there one bulb out on that
half? I have examined each bulb and they look ok. Next I suppose I'll take a
new bulb and replace each one until it lights up- but I don't know if there
is a faster way. |
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-Longer strings of mini lights are usually constructed as several strings
of 25-50 bulbs connected together. Within an individual string the
bulbs are wired in series. The individual bulbs contain a sort of fuse
that will short the bulb out if the filament fails, so a bulb burning
out usually won't take out the entire series string (though sometimes
the fuse fails to "trigger"), but if a bulb is knocked even slightly out
of its socket and doesn't make good contact then the series string will
go out. Usually the only solution is to laboriously unplug and replug
each and every bulb in the dead section. Often strings come from the factory with one bulb loose, or it gets
knocked loose during initial unwrapping. Always test strings after
opening to make sure they light correctly -- it's much easier to replug
all the bulbs before you hang the things 15 feet up. And I like to plug
the strings in and have them lit when stringing. That way, if I knock a
bulb loose while hanging the string I can usually figure out which one
fairly easily. - There are cheap devices that you can find in a lot of the junk catalogs
that alledgedly tell you where the electricity stops, by having an LED glow.
The one I have worked last year, saving me a lot of grief. But it didn't
seem to work this year (button cell batteries are fine, LED shines bright
for a second when button is pressed, but it did not glow). For the manual
effort, here's what I do. (Do this inside, it's a lot more comfortable).
Plug in the string. Then one by one, slightly twist each one of the bulbs
on the unlit half. If any make the lights flash on and off for a second,
replace that bulb, or remove it and try to reseat it correctly.
Probably you won't be lucky enough to have that work. So here's the
mind numbing part: Remove a bulb from the lighted half. Then one by one,
remove a bulb from the unlit portion and place it in the vacated socket on
the "good" end. If the lights on the good half go on, the bulb is good, put
it back in its original place and go to the next one. You should find one
that does not turn on the "good" end. Replace that one and the lights
should work. If not, you have more than one "unfused" bad bulb. Keep on
going. |
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