Electronics > Projects, Designs, and Technical Stuff
It's that time of year again... Christmas tree lights
james_s:
Another trick I have used since I was a kid is to take a known good bulb and swap it into the first socket, then take that bulb and swap it into the next and so on until you reach the end of the string. This of course only works if you have only one bad bulb and in a multicolor strand it will screw up the color ordering. You can also use a 9V battery to test each bulb individually.
Switching to LED has some advantages but it won't get you completely away from troubleshooting. I've had a number of LED strings and eventually they all failed. Some of them had individual LEDs fail and eventually the whole string crapped out, others faded and looked yucky after just a couple years. Ultimately I was disappointed to find the LED strings didn't last as long as the incandescent strings they were meant to replace. This was several years ago so they may have improved by now but the drive to keep costs low leads to cutting corners by using cheap LEDs and cheap plastics that rapidly yellow in the sun.
ebastler:
--- Quote from: james_s on December 22, 2019, 07:36:48 pm ---[...] cheap plastics that rapidly yellow in the sun.
--- End quote ---
Ah, there's your problem! In this part of the world (Northern Germany), we don't do much "sun" at this time of year. ;)
james_s:
We don't get a lot of sun in the winter but even on cloudy days there can be a lot of UV. It's also not uncommon to have cold, clear days where it's down around freezing or below but there is still strong sunlight during the day.
Zero999:
--- Quote from: james_s on December 22, 2019, 07:57:41 pm ---We don't get a lot of sun in the winter but even on cloudy days there can be a lot of UV. It's also not uncommon to have cold, clear days where it's down around freezing or below but there is still strong sunlight during the day.
--- End quote ---
Where do you live? Is it high up? Where I live the UV index never gets above 1 at Christmas time, even on clear days.
james_s:
Near Seattle WA.
I've never actually paid attention to the UV index but I have certainly had plastics yellow in the winter.
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