Before anyone blurts out, "Why didn't you just buy a new strand of lights/get a new one, etc."
I will explain briefly that the decoration in question (a 6' swag style bow with a red bow/white swags with matching lights) has hung from the front of the house for some years. When the store bought one of plastic started to literally disintegrate my wife was somewhat distraught. I told her I would make a new one and did so from plywood which was then painted and 150 holes later we have success. Here's a pic:
So after only one season, the left swag was completely dead! It was passing power through to the rest of the decoration, but no light on the left. I was severely vexed as this was supposed to be one of those strands that stay lit when a bulb burns out
I found the application of computer science to be quite helpful in this problem: Binary Chop, LOL!!
I tested continuity from the first bulb to the last bulb and then from the middle bulb to the ends to divide and conquer. From there I was able to continue to reduce by halves until I was able to replace all the broken bulbs. There were 15! Almost a third had burnt out!! I also found it useful to measure resistance between the beginning and various points and soon found that there was only roughly 1-2Ω increase per bulb. This was useful for ferreting out potentially bad or soon to be bad bulbs with higher resistance (probably oxidized wire leads).
I will explain briefly that the decoration in question (a 6' swag style bow with a red bow/white swags with matching lights) has hung from the front of the house for some years. When the store bought one of plastic started to literally disintegrate my wife was somewhat distraught. I told her I would make a new one and did so from plywood which was then painted and 150 holes later we have success. Here's a pic:
So after only one season, the left swag was completely dead! It was passing power through to the rest of the decoration, but no light on the left. I was severely vexed as this was supposed to be one of those strands that stay lit when a bulb burns out
I found the application of computer science to be quite helpful in this problem: Binary Chop, LOL!!
I tested continuity from the first bulb to the last bulb and then from the middle bulb to the ends to divide and conquer. From there I was able to continue to reduce by halves until I was able to replace all the broken bulbs. There were 15! Almost a third had burnt out!! I also found it useful to measure resistance between the beginning and various points and soon found that there was only roughly 1-2Ω increase per bulb. This was useful for ferreting out potentially bad or soon to be bad bulbs with higher resistance (probably oxidized wire leads).
