Has anyone found quality Christmas Tree lights

[Lanshark]

We bought 12 strands of Philips Christmas lights from Target this year. Since DH likes Twinkling lights that is what we bought. We got our tree up and DH meticulously put on all 12 strands. Yes, that was a total of 12 hundred lights. He had them connected properly and the tree was aglow (literally). Of the 12 new strands 3 came out of the box either not working or half working. We took them back and got replacements. Problem solved....right? Oh no. It had just begun.

After a few days the top of the tree went dark. That wasn't too bad. We removed a few ornaments and replaced that strand. After a few more days a strand in the middle of the tree went out. OK, we thought, with 1200 lights we could afford to loose 100. It went downhhill from there. Within a week the entire tree was out except the top strand and the bottom strand. DH checked the fuses, and called Philips. They didn't seem too surprised at our issues and suggested DH check each socket. That would have been 900 sockets on a fully decorated tree

Needless to say, when we took the tree down we returned all of them. We have avoided the switch to LED because they don't seem to give the tree the "glowing" feel Dh is after. If they are more reliable I'm all for it.

Has anyone found any lights that stay lit?

 

[si-am]

LED. You're right, they don't have that warm glowing feel, but after a while I got used to it and really started to love the way they look. We replaced our old tree topper with an LED one, too, so the whites all matched.

 

[kiddo76]

I've been hesitating switching to LEDs because I thought they looked too 'cold'. The newer LEDs are a little better. We bought warm white C7 lights this year from Walmart and I love them. They really don't look any diffrent from the traditional bulbs. The little LED lights are inside large plastic bulbs that are slightly faceted, which gives them that sparkley look.

If you want that warm glow, make sure you look for the 'warm white' bulbs. I don't like the look of the 'cool white' bulbs at all.

 

[tvguy]

I grew up with the big old fashioned Christmas light bults.
My wife grew up with the "drive you out of your mind" kind you're talking about

26 years were went back and forth over this.

2 years ago we switched to LED's. First time in both of us have been happy.

And did you every read the labels on the packaging of those mini Christmas lights, you're supposed to toss them out after 3 years use.....

 

[wdwmom0f3]

OP I feel your pain. It seems that I buy new lights every single year for both of my trees. I did it again this year as well as lights for the outside. Why on earth these things don't last more than a holiday season is beyond me. I only wish that I had kept my boxes to return these too!!

I think next year I am going to make the dreaded switch.

 

[Melrosgirl]

Does the box say if you can put 12 strands together? Some of them have a "do not string more than 4 strands together" warning.

 

[golfgal]

Does the box say if you can put 12 strands together? Some of them have a "do not string more than 4 strands together" warning.

I was going to say the same thing, sounds like you were blowing fuses on the strands. That is a LOT of lights for one tree. When I do our large (30 foot) tree outside I don't string more than 3 strands together and use separate extension cords/timers/outlets otherwise we have issues like you had. This year I put LED's on the big tree, HATED how they look outside (the big C9's). I am going to try them on the smaller trees next year so there are more on one tree and hopefully that will help. On the LED box it says you can string 89 strands together, on the regular boxes it usually says 3 strands.

 

[Tuffcookie]

Marcie, I go thru this every year! I finally broke down and got the LEDs this year. I love them! They are so much brighter than the old style. Now the real test will be when I bring them out next year. If they all actually work next year I will be pleased as punch!

TC

 

[englishteacha]

Don't forget the "Rule of 3". No more than 3 sets of lights strung end to end. You'll blow fuses that way. We're one of those crazy Christmas light houses, with a dancing display, and I tell ya, about half of the new boxes we opened needed to be fixed in some way. We have a gadget called the Light Keeper Pro which helps find the problems. In most cases, there was a bulb that was very, very loose, and we had to find the bulb and either replace it or tighten it. When you're opening 100 boxes of lights, you find that there are a LOT of problems with quality control at the factories. We were able to use a lot of lights from last year in our display, but several did need repair of some kind. It would be great to just plug them in and have them work!

 

[plutotek]

I've got some mini-lights that I've had for years and continue to work. I try to take care in getting them put up for next year, but doesn't always work. When I get new ones, I always take the 'rack' out of the box and plug it in before pulling the individual lights out. If they don't work, back to the store they go.

As for the number of strings, for traditional mini-lights, 3 is supposed to be the maximum you can run in series. The reason you can run more of the LEDs is they pull just a fraction of the juice as traditional lights. I haven't tried to run 40 strings of LEDs together, but the thought is appealing from a logistical point of view (less extension cords/timers/etc).

 

[crz4mm2]

LED. You're right, they don't have that warm glowing feel, but after a while I got used to it and really started to love the way they look. We replaced our old tree topper with an LED one, too, so the whites all matched.

We bought three strands of white LED lights last year. Some are "whiter" than others. weird. Not really digging it.....

 

[sorcerormickey]

LED.:

I was actually very disappointed with the LED sets we bought at Home Depot last year. We spent quite a good amount of $$ replacing a lot of our lights with LEDs, especially for outside.

There was a certain type that gave me the most problems - multi-color C9 size. I bought 6 sets of them last year to go on a couple of our palm trees. They worked great....last year. When we went to use them this year, 3 of the 6 would not light. Replaced the fuses, still nothing. Each set cost $15, so that was $45 worth of lights right there that I had to pitch.

While I really like the *concept* of LED, I think I am going to wait a couple of more years for technology to catch up.

 

[lemondog]

I totally agree you blew your fuses! You should never string more than 3 strands together or it blows the fuses. We use the big, fat colored old fashioned bulbs (C7) my favorites!!! But we can only do 3 together....we use an extension cord to plug in those 3 strands, then continue on down the tree...works perfectly and no more blown fuses!

 

[Lanshark]

Does the box say if you can put 12 strands together? Some of them have a "do not string more than 4 strands together" warning.

You can't put 12 together. DH has a special extension that runs inside of the tree where we can have 2 together and plug them into an outlet.

 

[Lanshark]

I totally agree you blew your fuses! You should never string more than 3 strands together or it blows the fuses. We use the big, fat colored old fashioned bulbs (C7) my favorites!!! But we can only do 3 together....we use an extension cord to plug in those 3 strands, then continue on down the tree...works perfectly and no more blown fuses!

Fuses were checked and were fine. DH took one strand off the tree and used one of the "light guns" that is supposed to fix the strand. He checked the fuses on the strands he could . They were fine. There were Only 2 strands connected per outlet. Next year we'll need to make the switch to LED. Hopefully, they're more reliable