Fix LED Christmas Lights with One of These in a Few Minutes
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 13 ธ.ค. 2021
- Finding a broken bulb on a string of LED (or incandescent) Christmas lights can be fast.
Here's how to use a low cost Non Contact Voltage Tester along with a binary search approach to quickly zero in on the bulb that needs replacement.
The method used in this video requires a non contact voltage tester.
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For years I’ve NEVER had success fixing lights where a small section quits but with you’re method I found and replaced the burned out bulb in 5 minutes. I started to not even mess with it thinking there’s no way I’m going to get them working. YOU ARE A ROCK STAR!! Thanks a bunch!!
Excellent video. It shows you how the light strings are wired and how an inexpensive non contact voltage tester can easily pinpoint the problem bulb. I have seen other videos and articles that make it much more complicated and/or expensive to accomplish the task. Thanks for your assistance!
By now, I have viewed lots of other tutorials on YT on this subject. The bulk of the others focused on the Lightkeeper Pro. Only one of those and yours did a great job of walking through the process with a non-contact voltage tester. I feel much more confident now with fixing the lights on my tabletop tree. MERRY CHRISTMAS!!
The Lightkeeper Pro was for incandescent bulbs. The LED Keeper is what is sold now. However, my LED Keeper didn't work on this string, for some reason, but his method (which is faster), did.
Very clearly explained and you saved me having to go out and buy a special tool.
Great video. I've always been too lazy to learn how to find bad bulbs. I was finally about to buy a dedicated Christmas light tool, but turns out I already have what I need to get our lights back up and running. Now I just have to find my spare bulbs 😂
Seriously fantastic video. Great job. We all know that your many viewers are ballers who can throw that stuff away, but I really appreciate you teaching the rest of us this hack. Love it.
yes some things are worth fixing even if it’s easier to discard and buy another. I’ll just keep passing on any tips I have whether people like it or not!
That is the best explanation on how to use the dam tool! Thank you! Good Job!
Thank you for the useful info!
This is the most amazing video. I love this stuff and you explain it like a unicorn flys through the air. Keep the videos coming!
I fixed my string! First, I tested all 70 bulbs and about 6 were bad. So I replaced those and got half the string back. Then I used your method and located the bad bulb (even though it shows as good on the tester), and I'm back in business. But if you hadn't told me about the necessity of getting the polarity correct and that it was the last bulb that read good, I couldn't have successfully done this.
Worked great!!! Thank you.
Good job! nobody else i found explained how to isolate the bad bulb. i'll try this tomorrow. thanks!
simple but scientific approach, thanks!
Thank you thank you thank you a short video with great information
That was helpful, thanks... It took me a few times of watching but now I get that you were trying to say it will be hot up to the bad bulb but nothing after it in the series.
That's such a fast way! Clever!
I’ll try this method, just a little different from what I was doing, but it’ll definitely help, thanks!
I was trying to troubleshoot some net lights but with the wires going multiple directions it’s really not possible to use this method easily. I tried the standard approach to start swapping out unlit bulbs but they were so small and tight in the sockets, requiring a small screwdriver, I gave up and tossed them. But thanks for this video will keep this method in mind for the future.
yes sometimes a string is too complicated to bother diagnosing or there are so many blown bulbs it’s not really worth fixing but sometimes it makes perfect sense to do it. By the way I liked your performance in the 2001 Rockstar film!
Very helpful, thank you
Very nice informative video!
Seems like every Xmas season I come back to this videos
We have to make MIDI(musical instrument digital interface) gloves coupled with flex sensors, accelerometer, gyroscope. In this every finger gesture will play different music tones, also play music in the background by moving or shaking(trembling) our hands.
-- I am planning to use Teensy 3.5 Dev Board for it. but having problems connecting 5 flex sensors and an MPU or IMU, Accelerometer sensor. to board.
I just watched your other similar video of this and I like this version better. More to the point 👍
The original one was targeting a more technical audience and I never thought it would get viewed by the general public so it got lots of hate because nobody cared about the real reason I did it, so I decided to do one targeting people who don’t care how it works they just want it to work.
Wow.. had to come here and comment. After 3 days of massive frustration and about to just rip down my lights all together, I came across your video. I consider myself a bit of an amateur / household electrician and fix-it guy, but I would have never thought to reverse the plug to make the hot wire go all through the strand! I have an electric screwdriver that has a voltage tester on it, and that was good enough to go through and find the problem bulb, even though I had to unscrew some of them to hear the tone.. I had a Clark Griswold-type moment when I replaced the little diode and the other half of the strand finally lit up!! Thanks so much!
Great tip with the hand shielding! As an Australian, I find it really odd to see that mains voltage style of lights. They aren't available here any longer, the mains voltage is a safety compromise that is totally unnecessary. We're on 240V AC so it's a bit more dangerous, however there's special provision for these lamps in our electrical code. But they've never been allowed in exterior lighting here.
Everything now days is 12V DC with switchmode PSU and non-replaceable bulbs. I've just refurbished a few of the 24V AC units that use an iron-core transformer and plug-in bulbs, but they are no longer sold in stores.
i’m thinking about trying some addressable RGB LED strings that I bought last year for indoor decorating, it would be interesting to be able to change from coloured to just soft white or daylight instantly based on a programming update. I just have to see if they look natural enough. I know I bought some strings of 50 of those on Aliexpress but can’t find them right now.
I gotta sleep on this, but I think this'll be the fix.. Mercy!
Does the voltage sensitivity of the tester matter? I'm using one that has a 90V min sensitivity and it does not consistently detect the presence of voltage on a good string regardless of which orientation the plug is plugged in.
2:27 hey ... that's a binary search! 😅👍
yeah! I figured 3 years of abuse in the comments on my first light fixing video, it was about time I just did a remake.
You Da Man!
Any suggestions for when this method doesn't work? Six out of our twelve C9 LED strings went out between holiday seasons, each less than 5 years old. Tested two strings thorougly with a voltage tester. Tested the bulbs and individual wires separately. Flipped the plug and repeated. Everything's getting power.
Awesome! I still don’t get the first part about flipping the plug around though. I have to make sure I get power both ways before I move on?
The idea of flipping the plug is to make sure there is power getting to the first light so that there is something to track along the wire. If there is no power at the first light there is nothing to continue tracking so either the cable is badly damaged and there’s no power no matter what or the plug needs to be flipped around to get power on that wire
Great idea, helped a lot. One question. My set of strings IS polarized so when I get to the other half, I can't just flip the plug to switch the polarity so half the string is on the neutral leg so I get no signal from any bulb, lit or unlit. Any solutions?
i’ve never encountered a string like that, so if it’s actually polarized and half of it is hot and the other half is neutral going from light to light, there may not be anything that can be done with this method. I wouldn’t recommend trying to find a way to reverse hot and neutral on the plug, they may have done it for a specific reason.
@@GadgetReboot Thanks appreciate the advice.
A very good video. However, I purchased a contactless tester, and I found no bad bulbs on 2 strings. Every single dead bulb beeped with hot voltage. And I have replaced the fuses in the plug. Still no light. I am stumped.
What would cause all lights to flicker once then off complete? They never come back on. Wiggling the wire does nothing. Unplugging and manipulating the plug 🔌 causes the once time brief flicker
I have a set of Walmart low voltage LED lights that I want to cut apart and wire to a usb. I'm not sure of the specs on these LED's. I'm assuming they use about 3 volts?
it may vary depending on the exact LED for example white may be closer to 3 V and if it’s something like red it might be two or 2.5
We’re did u get these lights and what color are they I like
I got them at Lowes (Canada), not sure if they are available everywhere. Blue Sylvania www.lowes.ca/product/christmas-string-lights/sylvania-1225-ft-constant-blue-led-electrical-outlet-indooroutdoor-christmas-string-lights-50-count-899998
One question: Why are the lights at the end of the strip lit when the bad bulb was located towards the beginning of the strip? If there is a break in the circuit, why aren't all of the bulbs off after the first bad bulb?
it’s really two separate sets of lights on the one overall string so the first half has a bunch of lights in series across 120 V and at the same time the second half of the string you could think of as another bunch of lights in series that are just connected directly back to the plug getting another 120 V connection of its own so they operate independently.
In your demo, the defective lightbulb near the plug keeps all the other bulbs from lighting. I have a strand that is not working for 10-15 bulbs at the beginning and the other half at the end is working fine. Would you have any idea why?
some strings of lights are actually really two or three strings of lights that are all independently wired up to the main plug so one part of the string can go bad and the others can stay lit as if they were three physically separate strings with their own plugs going to the wall separately.
Thanks a lot. I'll take a closer look at the wires.@@GadgetReboot
Doesn't work on DC lights though!
What kind of lights are these???
I got them at Lowes (Canada), not sure if they are available everywhere. Blue Sylvania www.lowes.ca/product/christmas-string-lights/sylvania-1225-ft-constant-blue-led-electrical-outlet-indooroutdoor-christmas-string-lights-50-count-899998
@@GadgetReboot ok thanks!
I guess what I don't understand is how the lights BEFORE the bad one are out? And why are the lights on the good side still working? Seems to me everything before the bad bulb would work, and everything after, NOT work?
it’s really two separate light strings of around 50 bulbs each. they just happen to be connected to the same one power plug so one set will be out when the bulb is bad on that side but the other set can still operate.
within each set of 50 lights, those 50 are all connected in series so if one goes out it breaks the whole chain of 50 so none of those light up until the bad one is replaced and the circuit is complete on that side.
The other side is still working because it’s an independent string just like if it was a physically separate set plugged into a different outlet it would still work when a different string on a different outlet is bad.
Thanks! That helped me understand a lot.@@GadgetReboot
Maybe unplug it before removing the bulb ?
Probably good habit, especially if prying with a metal tool, but with these bulb bases, when pulling them out of the socket the circuit is broken with several millimeters of travel still needed before the lead is even starting to emerge so I wasn't concerned about touching anything live
It’s so hard when there’s circle bulb covers on them 😒😂 it’s a pain