More Xmas light adventures

W. eWatson presented the following explanation :

More data would help answer your very simple question. Series? Parralel? Series parralel strings? Etc.? :-?

--
John G.

on 18/12/2011, W. eWatson supposed :

More data would help answer your very simple question. Series? Parralel? Series parralel strings? Etc.? :-?

Sorry ealier I fowarded instead of replying.

--
John G.

"W. eWatson"

** Depends of that LED fails open or short.

... Phil

I was unable to rip open the box at the store and examine the wiring. :-) The clerks were guessing. I gave up.

They're obviously series strung (they're not going to ballast each bulb individually). How many in a string is a little harder to tell; likely half are in one direction and the other half anti-parallel. The cheap ones flicker like hell, so some are likely half-wave (the others may have anti-parallel LEDs to reduce flicker). Buy a string and dissect it.

That depends completely on the lights in question.

OTOH they're much less likely to fail. Ever wonder why old fashioned lights seem to die when they're in storage? They actually die when you bash them while you're packing them away.

LEDs are *much* more bash-proof.

They're also (at least) 25X more expensive. I look every year; "nope still

25x"). I did replace a few thousand three years ago. They were *horrible* so threw them away when I took them down. A few hundred $$ wasted.