8/31/2023 0 Comments Half of christmas lights out![]() The bigger question is not why this failed, but why the other one is still working! You seem to have made yourself into a "QA department" for these lights and are discovering the ones which were not overbuilt. You are leaning heavily on whatever overdesign was built into the LED spec. ![]() Before you pack your Christmas decorations away at the end of the season, give your string lights a post-holiday checkup. Tripped circuit breakers, blown fuses, and burnt-out bulbs are the most common problems, and thankfully, each one has a simple fix. So you can see your "little voltage bump" is really putting the LEDs on the griller. Christmas light problems can quickly drain the joy out of your holiday decorating happiness. The resistor eases this somewhat and gives us something in between, probably in the 200-300% power range.If you had done with with a highly non-linear bare LED, check the data sheet, but it would raise current to about 300% of normal, and power to 375% and kaboom.If you did that with a linear load, that would raise current to 125% and thus total power to 156% of normal (56% more).You raised the voltage to 125% of normal. They don't regulate current, they just make the voltage-current curve somewhat less steep, which is "good enough" for working with one expected voltage. ![]() Resistors are dumb, and not magical at all. Low-voltage consumer gadgets like Christmas lights often use resistors as current limiters. These active drivers are "magical" they can input a wide band of voltages from 80 to 306 volts AC and outlut exactly the current the LEDs want. The best LED-based appliances use an active driver circuit which actively limits current. If you are driving a raw LED, a small increase in voltage will cause a big increase in current. Carefully inspect each string of lights before plugging it into an electrical outlet. But they are current-hungry, and must be current limited. That's what a ballast is, it's a current regulator. You stop that by putting a current-limiting ballast on them. They would flow infinite current if you let them, which would burn then up fast. Let Bilotto show you exactly how it's done, below.An arc discharge light, like a fluorescent or metal halide, is a dead short that happens to make light. You'll get a festive look and more time to celebrate. ![]() You'll also get a brighter effect, because the lights stay at the tips of the branches instead of sinking in toward the trunk. ![]() Once you've reached the bottom branches, start weaving your way back up.Įfficiency isn't the only advantage of using this lighting method. Simply start by placing the non-plug end of your string lights at the top of the tree and weave the cord down through the tree's branches. It turns out, there's a much easier way to get your tree lit that doesn't require you to walk in circles around the tree until your head spins.ĭesigner Francesco Bilotto showed that hanging lights vertically on your Christmas tree is much easier than the traditional way. After an emergency trip to the hardware store to pick up more, you then have to string the lights on the tree, which inevitably takes longer than expected. It seems like every year when you pull your lights out of storage, half of them don't turn on. Perhaps one of the biggest headaches of the holiday season is dealing with Christmas tree lights. ![]()
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