I have 15 strings to repair, so want to make sure what I plan to do will work. If it will work, I will solder and shrink wrap the reversed connections.I do a lot of automotive re-wiring with no problem, so should be able to handle christmas light wiring. The light organ is 40 year old Radio Shack technology, but it still works fine. Is it possible to reverse the hot and neutral after bulb 35 and have both series of 35 working? I sent an email to NOMA's customer service a few days ago, but never heard back. If I reversed the plug, the opposite 35 came on, original 35 not working. Thirty five bulbs were blinking, 35 were dead. I removed the last string to go up and tested it with the light organ. When looking closer, it was obvious quite a few lights were not coming on. I then hooked up the light organ and thought it didn't look as bright. I had all the lights on as I wound them through the tree so I could tell if any were out. I purchased 1050 Noma LED mini lights iin strings of 70 n blue, red and warm white. We used to string up 1200 or so lights in blue, red and yelow that were hooked up to a stereo system and a light organ. My daughter convinced me to bring back something that was a big part of her childhood so my grandchildren could experience it. I haven't looked to see if they represent diodes or a ballast resistor for the entire half-string. My set of lamps seems to have two molded "lumps" in the wiring. Just have to try it both ways before soldering, to get the polarity right. Maybe it would just be easier/smarter to cut out the bad LED and solder in another one from a sacrificial string. Probably ought to know that before making a decision. I haven't probed that yet, to determine whether it is a ballast resistor, or a series diode to protect the string for the other AC half-cycle or what. And my strings seem to have some kind of molded lump in each half-string. But LEDs are known to have very low resistance, but a constant voltage drop, more or less independent of current. Just one question: This calculation assumes that all the current limiting/voltage drop takes place evenly distributed across the 35 series LEDs. I could use a 1/8 watt one from my scrap box and simply cover the resistor and its two connections with a single piece of heat-shrink tubing. So instead of simply bypassing the open lamp, I will replace it with a 150 or 220 ohm resistor. The resistive equivalent to a single lamp is 1/35 of that, or 172Ω. The resistive equivalent to the half string, using R=V/I is 120/0.02 Ω = 6000Ω. consumes 0.04 amps.That's 0.02 amps per half-string. A typical 70-lamp set of 5mm LED lights like this one at Amazon (. Since you mention it, bypassing the dead lamp with an appropriate resistor helps assure longevity of the entire 35-lamp half-string. Just to make sure test for voltage between the next set of lights just to make sure. As an example, if there is voltage on the wire between light 6 and light 7, but there is not voltage between light 7 and light 8, then light 7 is likely the problem. As soon as you find a wire between the lights that no longer has voltage detected the light prior is likely the light that is fault. Keep checking for voltage between the lights. If it is the second then start at light 36 for a 70 light string. This is assuming that the first half of the light string is not working. Then check the wire that goes from the first light to second light. There should be voltage detected at the live wire going into the first light. With the lights plugged in, use the voltage detector to check the live voltage wire between each light, starting at the end that plugs into the wall outlet. The non working LED will obviously be in the string half that is not working. The fist step is to find the LED that is no longer working.
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