Ahh, Christmas.
The time of year when a years worth of collusion & conspiracy by the manufacturers of holiday light strings to make my d@#%mn life miserable comes to fruition.
20 or so strings of 100, 15 which work fine when tested, only 10 of which work immediately after standing in my %$#@ uneven mulch bed on the 6th step of a &@#% 8' ladder in the freezing #@%@# cold.
Once you find the lousy offending bulb, none of the initial 5 strings have the same #@&% dimension, and the 1 spare that is provide by the manufacturers in their infinite benevolence can't be distinguished from the other 200 %@#@# spares that are in the same bag from years of not wanting to throw any away for fear of being one lousy bulb short.
So I'll send my wife to the store to buy 10- more strings of 100, which will probably be comprised of 4 different manufacturers, and all will be well until we remove them after Christmas and indiscriminately throw them into a box with all the other lights that work this year but won't work next @#$#@ year!!
Please excuse the language, and have a very Happy Holiday

[This message has been edited by Redsy (edited 12-02-2002).]

Ahhh, the joys of the holidays!

LOL!

Redsy,

I love Christmas but HATE those !@#$%^&* cheap Christmas lights. I once saw an above ground pool, with a fence around it, all adorned with Christmas lights. So this way you can sit in the pool, reach up and change the light bulb!

Harold

Decorating with lights, my favorite activity this time of year!

At least UL upped the standard for X-mas lights. My old strands with the flimsy wires and cheap sockets are headed for the landfill.

There's an electrician in my town who has been wiring the common free of charge for the towns christmas lights. He made the front page of the local newspaper a couple of years ago, big write up on how he volunteers his time. He wasn't a big outfit at the time, now I see several of his trucks,10 guys working for him and have heard that he's overloaded with work. Not sure if it's related to his act of good faith, but I'm willing to bet it didn't hurt him any.

[This message has been edited by Wirenuttt (edited 12-02-2002).]

I don't mind hangin' 'em, but I don't like taking them down. I suppose that's why you see so many people (stupid as it is) leave them up year round.

Hang 'em high,
Doc

Put em up- take em down Throw em away next year when the don"t work. Buy new for that year.
The light manufacturers have a good racket.
Or put em up and leave them - sob they all worked this yr!

Instead of getting those miniature light strings, why not try the ones that use the big screw-in type bulbs (the ones that look like candelabra bulbs but use an intermediate base)? Those seem sturdier and the bulbs are standard so you can always screw them in and out when you need to replace.

I don't care what UL says or does...those cheap little speaker-wire strings are too flimsy for my taste. I wouldn't want to put one of those outside. I've had one where the contacts pulled right out of the little sockets.... grrrr

You have to think like those obnoxious strings to fix them. Last week I made two
sets of cascading icicles out of three
(took some doing, probably more than they are worth, but since I am not really employed
at this tome, no loss to me).

Sven:
I'm with you! I grew up with lights like the type you're talking about. Much nicer, as well as more durable.

BTW...Do y'all remember using the C-8 style lights, the ones that used small screw-base lamps wired in series (usually about 8 lights to the string, complete with fabric-covered wires)? Probably not quite as miserable an experience trying to chase down a burned out bulb, since there were only eight to test on any one string...unlike 35, 50 or 100 with the miniature sets. After sitting for a while, substituting lamp after lamp, you start thinking that your time is worth something, so into the trash the #$*%&$ string goes... Almost without exception, a new string will work perfectly while laid out on the floor, then once it goes onto the tree...PPPFTT!!

Regrettably, this is also the season of increased house fires, attributed to overloaded extension cords and receptacles, and staples through the wire insulation . The fewer of these, so much the better.

Best wishes to each of you for a happy holiday season and a prosperous 2003.

Mike (mamills)

It can't happen quickly or inexpensively yet, but someday LED lamps will be readily affordable. Until that time, we're stuck with Edison's invention.

I've convinced my wife that putting lights outside exxposed to the wet weather is an electrical and fire hazard.
Just call me Scrooge, but I'm not messing with those lights.

Ah yes, a familiar scenario.....

Most series strings here are 20 lamps of 12V each. Older types had the really tiny screw bases, but all the modern ones are just a "plastic-wedge" base with two fine wires from the bulb folded over. Ugh! I've spent more hours than I care to remember removing bulbs and carefully re-aligning those dang wires!

The worst shock I ever recall getting was from one of these series chains when I was about 13. A holder disintegrated and a wire broke leaving me holding 240V hand to hand. Ouch!


BJ,
I've seen a few LED chains appearing in stores here. They're usually quite expensive types linked to a "box of tricks" to give various flash and chasing patterns.

I remember building some interesting Christmas displays using LEDS and TTL ICs when I was a kid. In the 1970s you can bet that the December issue of the hobby electronics journals would contain some such ideas.



[This message has been edited by pauluk (edited 12-03-2002).]

Thank God they are UL listed!

OK, I concede, the improved UL listing made them somewhat better.

But for $1.62 for a set of 100 at the big box they are disposable.

Sven, I'm a big fan of the c-7 and c-9 lights. They make for quite an impressive display. But, the energy conserver in me prefers the mini-lights over the big ones. Oh well, what are you going to do?

Redsy,
God do I know what you mean. LOL. My wife has learned to pull up a chair and watch the show. First she has to make sure the kids are upstairs with the TV on. Daddy says some bad words
Scott

[This message has been edited by Scotts (edited 12-03-2002).]

and the 2002 winner is.......

link

There are signs in Las Vegas that have captive 600-amp 208Y switchboards. I wonder what the Indiana guy uses?

How about those old light sets from Grandpa
that always need the missing double male cord ?

We get many requests for these bad cords and people just don't get it.

Bjarney,

Remember that movie "National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation"?

The funniest thing was watching Chevy Chase's wife go down in the basement and start wrestling with that monster blob of triple-taps and 6-way taps all plugged into each other that was barely dangling from one wall socket.

Betcha that's what's in this guy's house... propped up by a broomstick

Sven -- I'd bet five bucks that the aroma of evergreen masks the melting vinyl extension-cord fumes.

A few years ago all Christmas lights here (far up north in Europe) were in series, but today these seem to have been abandoned in favor of 12V lights in parallell with a transformer. I suppose people got tired of playing "find the broken bulb"

"Fairy lights a la DC"

C-H, get a ~$1.50 series-light string, cut out one or more "12-14 volt" sections, and
parallel them on the end of a cigar-lighter cord -- e.g., CalRad 90-607 http://www.ba-electronics.com/tc6111b.jpg or equal, with 3M
"UG" jelly splices, and have festive dashboard lighting!
... guaranteed as distracting as any cell phone.