Types of Outdoor Christmas Lights Checklist

So you have decided to put on the best Christmas outdoor lighting display on the block this year. You have started a plan, measure the places the lights are to go. The next important step is to decide what types of lights to use.

Here is a checklist

- C7bulbs 2 inch long, large, bright, visible, traditional, and easy to change. Their big advantage is that when one light fails the rest of the string stays alight. This style of light comes with a number of different sockets on a string, which makes it easy to determine how long a string you need to fit the space for the lights. These lights can also be purchased with the cord separate to the bulbs, enabling you to choose the lighting effect required. They can be expensive to run with high power consumption, unless you choose the C7 bulb shape fitted with LED's. A twinkle style is also available for this type of string (this is where every say 6th bulb will turn on and off giving a twinkling impression).

- C9 bulbs 3 inch long with the same comments and advantages as the C7, only with a larger bulb and thus larger light source.

- Mini-Lights- These are the smaller lights traditionally using small incandescent bulbs, but many now come with LED's for outdoor Christmas tree lights. The major problems with this type of light string is that when a bulb fails it takes out a section or the entire string, making it difficult and time consuming to find the dead bulb and replace it. The cords come in white, green or brown to match the background you wish to put them against. Mini lights are great in that, the sets can be easily connected together or connected to a controller that will turn them on and off to music, or a programmed flashing display. There are many different color options for fairy lights from clear and white through to almost any color you can think of.

- LED lights are available in both the traditional C7 and C9 styles and also in mini or fairy lights. Led have the advantage of being low on power consumption and cool to the touch, much safer with children around. LED lights also last a very long time and are sturdier than incandescent bulbs, avoiding the need for bulb replacement. Mini Lights are the most common form of outdoor LED Christmas lights about, although more types are arriving each year as technology and cost improves. The most amazing LED lights are the color changing ones, generally in blue/green shades or red/orange shades where the lights gradually change through a number of colors. A very cool effect.

- Solar Lights- solar outdoor Christmas lights are becoming more and more common. They are good for places where it is hard to get power to. They are usually LED lights, charged up by the sun during the day and alight at night. In places where there is not much sun during the day they are unlikely to get charged up sufficiently.

- Net Lights - these are great for bushes and shrubs, the lights are connected together in a grid arrangement, making it easy to just drape over a plant giving the effect of equally spaced lights effortlessly. Usually LED lights.

- Rope lights - This style has LED lights encased in vinyl cord looking like a rope, hence the name outdoor Christmas rope lights. It makes storage and installation very easy and produces a softer light. These have the advantages of LED lights, without the storage issues of fairy or mini lights. As mini lights this style can also be selected to have different light display patterns such as flashing, twinkle or chaser.

- Animated Lights - These are shapes such as angels, stars, nativity scenes that have LED lights placed around the edge in varying colors to illuminate the shape. There are many different shapes available.

- Shimmering Spheres - These glowing balls and come in several different sizes. The ball consists of 100 or so mini lights connected together to make a ball shape, when illuminated it produces a shimmering effect to add to you Outdoor lighting display.

I hope you find this check list useful to help you find the right type of outdoor Christmas lights for your yard.

Types of Outdoor Christmas Lights Checklist

String Lights

Types of Outdoor Christmas Lights Checklist

Types of Outdoor Christmas Lights Checklist
Types of Outdoor Christmas Lights Checklist

String Lights

Mini Lights - Their Non Working Bulbs Are Easier to Find and Replace by Knowing How They Work First

Mini-light strings, the marvel of modern decorating, can be difficult to repair when their bulbs begin to burn out, especially if a whole set of them goes dark at once. To help find and replace these small incandescent candle-shaped bulbs gone bad, here is a description of how they work.

Main sockets. These sockets are permanently attached in series to the main bulb wire. The bulbs themselves are first seated into their own small plastic bases, which fit into these sockets where contact is made with the their wire. The inner cores of these sockets are somewhat rectangular in shape. The final string of lights, which includes this wire of sockets and their contents, are twisted together with the two 120-volt power wires in a rope-like manner.

Bulb set. The bulb set is mentioned above, which usually contains 50 bulbs connected in series on one wire. Each end of this set is connected in parallel to the two power wires that plug into an electrical outlet or into another string to make the whole string longer. Often, a single string of 100 mini-lights consists of two 50-bulb sets, each one connected separately in parallel to the two power wires. Thus, each of two 50-light sets operates separately from the other one in the same string.

Bulb base. To confuse things a bit, the bulbs are held by two form-fitted sockets so to speak: 1) the small plastic rectangular base holding the bulb itself, and 2) the permanent socket on the bulb wire into which it and its base are seated. Thus, before a bulb can be seated into its main socket, its two bare wires must first be inserted through the two holes in the bottom of the plastic base, and then wrapped vertically around the two grooves on the outer sides of this base. This bulb and its base are then seated into the socket where its two bare wires make contact with this wire via two metal side-strips inside the socket.

Bulb. When a new candle-shaped glass bulb stands alone, it has two bare lead wires protruding straight down from its lower end. These are the ones that wrap around its plastic base. From there, peering upward into the sealed bulb itself, these wire leads become small metal posts held steady buy a glass bead attached between them. Just above this glass bead a small wire is wrapped horizontally around both posts several times. It is called a bypass shunt. It passes the wires electricity onward if the light's filament burns out. Above the shunt, the two posts protrude further up into the bulb where they are connected together by the fine-wire filament.

The filament produces the light when the string is plugged in or turned on. In time, however, the filament will burn itself out. At that moment, its current or electricity starts crossing through the shunt to keep the rest of the lights in the series set lit. However, if that shunt goes bad after the filament does, the entire 50-bulb set will go dark because the electricity no longer passes through it. Thus, the whole light-set goes dead. In this case, to repair the light set, one needs to find that bad bulb, and then replace it with a new one. Normally, a new one will be rated near 2.4-volts for a 50-light set.

Finding the bad bulb. Unless one buys a special testing device, the fastest way to find a bad bulb with a broken or missing filament is to look at each one with a magnifying glass in front of a mild background light. The background light enhances this process for the colored ones whose filaments can be hard to see with naked eye. Also, a darkened or color-changed bulb might indicate a burnt-out filament, which will be easier to spot outright than by using the magnifier.

Otherwise, to locate the bad bulb, the repair person might have to remove and replace each one in the set, one at a time temporarily while the string is plugged in, with a new bulb known to be working okay. Normally, one or two extra bulbs come with a new string of mini-lights. When the bad one has been replaced with a good one, presto, the whole set comes back on.

Conclusion. Much repair time can be saved by replacing a bad bulb soon after it goes out, i.e., before the whole set goes out. That is, the bad one is much easier to spot and replace while its shunt is still passing electricity to the rest of the set, which is still lit at this time.

For information and diagrams on incandescent mini-lights and the testing of their bulbs, see the following sites.

Mini Lights - Their Non Working Bulbs Are Easier to Find and Replace by Knowing How They Work First

String Lights

Mini Lights - Their Non Working Bulbs Are Easier to Find and Replace by Knowing How They Work First

Mini Lights - Their Non Working Bulbs Are Easier to Find and Replace by Knowing How They Work First
Mini Lights - Their Non Working Bulbs Are Easier to Find and Replace by Knowing How They Work First

String Lights