Christmas Light Puzzler - HELP

[James Sweet]

And that, of course, is the whole purpose of the safety bulb. When one
shunt bulb burns out, the shunt shorts it, and each remaining bulb gets a
little bit more voltage. When another shunt bulb burns out, it happens
again - and again and again. Pretty soon, there are only a few working
bulbs left, and the string is drawing more current than it was designed
to. The question then becomes which burns up next - the remaining bulbs,
or the wire connecting the bulbs.

Bill

In my experience, one or more of the shunts does. They're a lot smaller than
the wire in the string.

 

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In my experience, one or more of the shunts does. They're a lot smaller than
the wire in the string.- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

I replace my bulbs when they burn out, so I don't have the domino
effect predicted above. Reactor's strings probably have fuses in the
plugs like mine do, and like all fuses, they're designed to protect
the wiring. By the way, I love my prelit tree, it looks awesome and
is easy to keep functioning if you apply a little common sense.

Dish

 

[James Sweet]

I replace my bulbs when they burn out, so I don't have the domino
effect predicted above. Reactor's strings probably have fuses in the
plugs like mine do, and like all fuses, they're designed to protect
the wiring. By the way, I love my prelit tree, it looks awesome and
is easy to keep functioning if you apply a little common sense.

Dish

I do too, but on two occasions I've had it happen with a short 20 or 35
light string. I wasn't in the room, but within a period of a couple hours,
it cascaded until every bulb in the string was blown, about half of them
were blackened significantly and several had open shunts. I guess it's not
that surprising since all the bulbs had the same hours on them and once one
failed the others ran hotter and so on.

That said, no harm was done, and I've still yet to see a string with a
safety bulb in the first place so by putting a normal bulb in there you're
no worse off than someone using an older string without that feature.