Many a Yuletide has been ruined by the blight of premature Christmas light burnout. So for those who have experienced the trauma of having one burnt-out bulb turning your rainbow of illumination into a cave like darkness, we have one word of advice for you. Upgrade. If you experience this problem, your Christmas lights are series-wired. In series wiring, each bulb acts like a fuse: if one bulb burns out, the circuit is broken. Some sets have a shunt wire that allows the electricity to pass into the next socket if one bulb burns out, but no series-wired set will work if a bulb is removed from its socket. If your set does not have a functioning shunt wire, all you need to do is locate the missing bulb and replace it in order to close the circuit. E.H. Scott of Hofert Co., a leading supplier of Christmas trees and decorations, says that many consumers are confused about how to replace bulbs in series-connected sets. To find the appropriate bulb, you merely divide the voltage standard (120 volts) by the number of bulbs in the set. If you have a set of 20 lights, you would need a six-volt bulb. Of course, most families keep Christmas lights as old as the Stone Age. Most contemporary Christmas light sets have forsaken series wiring for parallel wiring. In this configuration, each bulb burns independently, so that 120 volts are directed to each bulb and burns independently, so that 120 volts are directed to each bulb. The current will flow even if one or more bulbs burn out. Why did manufactures use series-wiring when parallel wiring was so much more convenient? Hy Greenblatt, a representative of the Manufacturers of Illuminating Products, gave the answer you were probably expecting:: Parallel wiring is harder to manufacture and is considerably more expensive to produce. Submitted by OJJR Jennings of Henderson Nevada. |
