As I mentioned yesterday, we have these two scotch pines at the back of our yard that I like to wrap lights around. It looks particularly good when I get get it done before the first snowfall of the year. I've always enjoyed the holiday scene of the Christmas tree in the woods with no one around it and no footprints in the snow, so this is my attempt to create that in my own back yard. I've been doing this for years, but this year I decided I wanted to take it up a notch (mistake 1). I'd been using the typical mini-lights that go on most Christmas trees, but I wanted to switch to bigger lights and more of them. Plus, the strands that were on the tree (which I just leave on year-round) were starting to go. Lots of half-strands or strands that were out completely. Now the smaller tree I could leave be, but I felt like I needed to upgrade the big tree.
At first I picked up two boxes of new LED multi-colored lights. I figured since I only do one side of the tree going back and forth that 50 feet would be fine. Turns out 50 feet isn't as far as you think and I didn't make it, but I had one good strand of mini-lights left that would have made it to the top and still managed to connect to the cord which lights the smaller tree. And it looked... ok. The problem with me is that I can't accept things just looking ok. The solution? More lights. So, I went back to the store, got 3 more boxes of LED lights and strung them on the tree (only breaking 3 bulbs in the process - those big lights are not what you would call sturdy). This was enough to get to the top and come all the way back down. So, I plugged it all in and it looked awesome... for 35 seconds. That was when the first fuse blew in the first strand. No big deal, as it was only in the first strand and each set came with a replacement fuse. Well, when the replacement fuse blew I figured that perhaps the problem was a fault in the first set of lights. I mean, what else could it be?
So, I simply took the first string off and reconfigured the lights. I still had plenty of coverage when I turned the lights back on. And those lights stayed on... for a couple hours. That was when the fuse blew in the new first set of lights. At this point I thought that maybe the new lights couldn't take the direct power from the house so I set the lights up again with a strand of mini-lights acting as the first connection between the extension cord and LED lights. When I turned the power on this time the fuses in the mini-lights blew out immediately. Clearly, obviously, the problem had to be with the extension cord. Again, I went back to the store and bought a new 100-foot extension cord (and more fuses). Now, before stepping outside again, I went scientific and tried that first set of lights alone in the house, to see if it was a problem with the strand. When they stayed on for an hour no problem I figured I solved the issue and this would be the last thing I needed to do. I hooked the original strand back up and plugged in the new extension cord. Again, the lights stayed on for 30 second and then blew the fuse. Son of a bitch.
Let's recap: it's not the extension cord or the strands themselves... it must be the outlet, I said to myself. I switched the cord out of that socket and ran it onto our sun porch. This was convenient because that outlet was connect to a light switch so I could also stop using the timer, which was the next thing I would have to try if this didn't work. My dad came out to see how long this experiment was going to last. When I flicked the switch the lights came on, looking great. Normally they would blow out after 30 seconds so when we were at 40 seconds I was feeling pretty good.
Dad: "How long have the lights been staying on for before the fuses blow?" (lights immediately go out upon completion of that sentence.)
Me: (deep sigh) "That long."
Alright, it's not the strands, the outlet or the extension cord. Maybe LED lights just suck (that would explain why they were on such good sale). I decided to go back to the book that came with the lights [editor's note: this is the part where my father will be talking to the screen saying, "You should have done this first. Why do none of my children read directions?"] It said that you could string up to 60 lights together. Did they mean 60 strands of lights? That had to be it, right? I mean, they couldn't mean just 60 lights total. They come in strands of 25. What good is setting up a maximum number of lights and then not making strands in a number divisible by that maximum number? Also, that only works out to two strands. What good are only two strands of lights to anybody? That won't make it around a good-sized tree and if you've got huge bulbs on a small tree you're just weird.
Still, I decided to see if that was really what the problem was. I put an outdoor power strip (that we miraculously had at the house - no more trips to the hardware store for me!) at the end of the extension cord and ran the plugs to that. No strand was more than two sets long. Now, it was not very convenient to have to have all the strands have to begin from one location, but last night I turned them on and they stayed on for the night, so I guess the number of strands that I tried to string together was really the problem. You can see the results at the bottom of this post.
Morals of the story:
1. If something is doing just fine you should leave it be.
2. Read the directions for God's sake.
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