Did someone in this group have a problem with a tree full o' bad bulbs?
I just found this gadget in a local Black Friday newspaper ad.
The list is $30. Most stores sell it for $15, and the ad I saw had it for $10.
I don't know if it really works, but I spoke to the company's owner, and he seemed a rat-nice feller.
The device shown will work as shown in the attached step-by-step slides only if the light string does not have a always hot lead going down the string so that there is an outlet at the end of the string to be used to attach further strings of lights. For $5.00 you can get a tester that has the continuity function. I don't know about the Piezzo-electric idea of triggering the shunt across the lamp when the shunt fails to activate. In my exoperience,m with outdoor lights, it is often a bad socket connection after several years of use that causes problems. I also use a series negative resistance thermistor on my lights, so that when they are first turned on, they are only at about 75% of full brightness, and as the series thermistor gets hot, the lights go to almost full brightness. Works very well. I have the thermmistor in a little utility box with a plug - cord and socket and keep it next to the light timer I have in the garage. The unit always starts out quite cool and I save a lot of surge at tuen-on problems using it.
H. R. (Bob) Hofmann
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