How To Find A Burned Out Led Christmas Light

how to fix christmas lights, man holding fairy lights

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The joyous holiday season is nearly upon us, but there'south one tradition I hope to avoid this yr: dealing with burned-out Christmas lights.

Each holiday flavour I unpack, untangle, and plug in the previous yr's mini lights, only to discover they don't work. Sometimes private lights are burned out, and other times the entire string seems dead. Are these lights worth saving, or should I simply toss them out and buy new ones?

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I admit that diagnosing and fixing Christmas lights tin can be frustrating, but with a trivial decision and a few specialty tools, y'all can repair most faulty light strings.

How to Fix Christmas Lights

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1. Diagnose the problem.

Carefully audit each string of lights before plugging information technology into an electrical outlet. If you run into cracked or slit insulation, frayed or blank wires, or damaged plugs, discard the string.

Now, make up one's mind if it's actually a bad bulb causing the malfunction or something else. If it's a smaller low-cal gear up, it's likely wired in series: the electrical current passes through each individual bulb in order to complete the circuit and illuminate the set.

Larger lite sets often have ii or more circuits wired in parallel, which explains why sometimes just a section of the string goes dark. In most cases, simply replacing one bad seedling volition fix the entire fix or one darkened section of it.

ii. Find the bad bulb, and swap information technology out.

Locating the i faulty bulb that's causing the problem can exist tricky. The best pick is to use either an electrician'south multimeter or a tool specifically designed for repairing Christmas lights, such as the Lightkeeper Pro. It combines a voltage detector, bulb remover, seedling and fuse testers, and shunt repairer in one compact tool.

You may be able to reveal the bad bulb by simply plugging the lights into an electrical outlet. If you're lucky, the "bad" seedling isn't actually bad at all. It may merely be loose and needs to be pressed downward more firmly into its socket.

Also, remove the seedling and look closely at the two tiny wires protruding from its base. They should be firmly fastened and non touching each other. Plus, each wire should be laid apartment against the outside of the bulb. When you lot push button the bulb back into its socket, the wires consummate the electrical connection.

Miniature Light Repairing Tool

Long String White Mini Clear Lights (100 Count)

You lot can also exam the seedling using the LightKeeper Pro, or a multimeter. If you lot notice the bulb is burned out or damaged, supersede it with a new bulb. Just be sure it has the proper voltage rating or yous gamble damaging the whole light ready.

iii. Gear up the faulty filament or shunt.

If all or role of a string of lights is night, the problem may be a broken filament or a faulty shunt. (A shunt is a device that allows current to continue flowing through a excursion by creating a path of lower resistance than the original path. In incandescent holiday lights, shunts are small wires wrapped below the filament.)

If a bulb's filament breaks, the shunt redirects current through the base of operations of the seedling, maintaining the electrical circuit. A faulty shunt may sound like a catastrophic failure, but you lot tin can often fix it with the LightKeeper Pro.

Simply plug in the low-cal strand and remove a bulb that's in or about the dark department. Next, insert the tool into the seedling'south socket and squeeze the trigger to activate a piezo excursion. A loftier-energy pulse will shoot through the set and after about twenty pulses whatever faulty shunt should exist re-activated. Pretty cool, right?

If you're notwithstanding having problem locating the cleaved excursion, endeavour using a voltage detector. You can buy one for about $10 or so, only there'due south also 1 built into the LightKeeper Pro.

four. Supplant the fried fuse.

If the voltage detector doesn't notice annihilation wrong, in that location's one more thing to effort: Bank check the tiny fuse located behind a small sliding door on the male end of the plug. If the fuse is fried (you tin check it with the LightKeeper Pro), supercede it with a new ane of the same amperage, which should be indicated on the plug. If later all the testing the low-cal string however doesn't illuminate, information technology's fourth dimension to get some new lights.

v. Upgrade your lights.

If you lot're buying new lights, consider upgrading to LED Christmas lights. There are many benefits to LEDs that make them a great choice over incandescents. They're more than energy efficient, concluding much longer, and can be programmed to brandish dissimilar colors and patterns. Plus, LED lights are more durable and less likely to break than traditional bulbs. Here are some of our favorite string Christmas lights for indoors and out.