Important Points about Christmas Lights
1. Three major types of mini lights.
2. Standard Light: Broken or shorted bulbs cause strand to go out.
3. StayLit: Strand stays on regardless of broken or shorted bulbs. (called Advanced in video)
4. LED Christmas Lights: Very durable, Use 80% less electricity.
5. Shop for Christmas Trees with StayLit Lights
6. Shop for Christmas Trees with LED Lights
Transcript:
Here we have 4 different types of lights that could go on your Christmas tree. This would work obviously for either artificial or for a fresh tree.
This is a standard; if one bulb burns out the rest stays lit light string. This is a little bit more advanced technology where you can actually pull bulbs out of the string.
This is a little bit more advanced technology from this, also you can pull bulbs out and this is the LED light. It will consume about 80 - 85% less electricity to burn.
This is the string that 90 - 95% of the lights that you see on a home, on a Christmas tree garland etcetera. If one bulb burns out the rest will stay lit. However the sentence is never completed. And that is, if you pull out a bulb out the light strings goes out. Or if this bulb breaks, cracks, shorts out or is otherwise damaged in any way the light string goes out which can definitely create frustration for you.
Next is a little bit more advanced technology where we can pull a bulb out and the lights flash for a moment but then they come back on. This technology is great, you can pull out a number of bulbs out of this string and the lights will stay on. However there is one thing that you need to watch for and that is this string has what is called a “fuse bulb.” This bulb, although it’s about the same size and shape, it has a different colored ring that most importantly if this bulb is damaged in any way this whole string will go out and it can’t be fixed because you cannot replace this fuse bulb. It’s permanently attached to the string. In my opinion that is a significant downside of this particular type of light string.
This is the most advance mini light that we know of. This light string also has the ability to pull not one, but multiple, generally up to 5 bulbs per string out or they can be damaged, broken etcetera and the light string will stay on. You can see how important this would be if it’s on a Christmas tree, if there are bulbs that are out the rest of the string stays on. So it’s very easy to identify, “Oh my bulb is falling out.”
Lastly, and this is our favorite for 2008 is the LED light. They use 80 – 85% less electricity to burn. But the great thing for this year, this wide-angled LED’s they have the same color as the traditional mini light and about the same brightness. In years past the way the LED’s were manufactured was to be the same kind of size and shape which was okay. But the color that would come out of the light, it didn’t look good. But most importantly they were so bright that you felt like you have to wear sunglasses inside every time that you look at your Christmas tree. They’ve really done a good job this year of fixing that.
The other thing that’s great about an LED is in general this may burn for 3,000 hours, this can burn for a 100,000 hours. In addition these are very, very durable. You can easily break one of these bulbs by dropping them, by catching them in a branch etcetera in a hinge on an artificial tree. These are very durable. I’ve tried, I’ve worked with them, I’ve tried to mutilate them and they do a very good job of surviving.
The other important piece though to understand is if one of these bulb is removed from the string and they’re very tight in there, the string will go out. However, if you think about the fickleness of a traditional mini light, that traditional mini light with the one bulb burns out the rest stay lit, this bulb can very easily short out which we talked about in another video about how the shunt becomes oxidized, this does not have a shunt to it. This bulb is not as fickle; it will not break as easily. And so in our opinion, due to the lower amount of electricity that’s used in these lights, the increased durability of these lights, these are a good option. We think that these are a good option as well. In our trees, in our own homes we use either this type of advanced technology with the microchip in the bottom of the socket or we use the LED lights.
In summary, we talked about the 4 different types of mini lights that one might put on their trees. We definitely recommend that you choose from these 2 types of lights.
Next we are going to talk about how to choose between a realistic tree and a more traditional manufactured tree.
