christmas light conundrum

[leah]

so this weekend my mom and i put up christmas lights on my house. i bought a couple strings of those old-fashioned great outdoors-style ceramic C9 lights (you know, the big primary-colored ones?) and we used gutter clips and yada yada. anyway, i'm having really weird problems with them now. when we were putting them up, we had them plugged in so we could make sure all the bulbs were lit (and some weren't, for the record, which is especially irritating coming from a brand new string of lights) and then all of the sudden, they all went out. so, we changed the fuse in the plug on the light string and they worked again, for approximately one night. the next day when i went to unplug them, i found that they were already out and wouldn't come back on. i'm assuming the plug fuses blew again, but why does this keep happening?? should i try a different brand of lights? is there a way to stop this from happening? and seriously, WHY is it happening in the first place?

for the record, the lights look AMAZING when they're lit. if i ever figure out how to get them lit again, i'll take a picture and show it off. :D

any suggestions?

[Evermore]

leah are you plugged into an extension cord or directly into a socket?

[leah]

extension cord, a white outdoor one.

[brinstar]

you need to rewire your house

be prepared to spend twelve thousand jr. bacon cheeseburgers

[Evermore]

1st try a new ext cord. then try a new plug. if it still blows get a new string and return that one.

[ClakarEQ]

how many strands do you have plugged in? For example say you have 10 strands, if you plug in 6 back to back (daisy chained), they would probably be ok, if you however did 7, you'd blow a fuse in the cord, maybe pop a breaker, etc.

The deal is when the over all draw of current for the cumulated strands goes over a set wattage, you'll pop the fuse. For c5 lights, that is around 5 strands, 6 pops the fuse anywhere from 1-10 hours later, why the lag, not sure other than the strength of the fuse in the cord.

C9 are more powerful and hence you're probably pulling too much current for the cord fuse to last. I think you've got 2 issues / options (also c9, each strand is like a 150 watt bulb, lots of power you're burning, LED use like 2 watts, just saying so you know).

1) use an extension cord such that no more than one strand is daisy chained, use the cord as the 'hub', plug in all lights directly to the hub, not into each other.
2) use different lights

EDIT
Was thinking you could also be getting moisture into the plug, this would be unlikely knowing these are outdoor lights but perhaps when the China put them together, well, it isn't like the stuff has a lot of quality

[Kramer]

be prepared to spend twelve thousand jr. bacon cheeseburgers

that craacked me up

[Narrock]

Just watch National Lampoon's "Christmas Vacation" to see how to solve your dilemma.

[araby]

It's kind of a tradition to play that movie over thanksgiving at our house.

[Iccarra]

My only problem is finding someone brave enough to get up on my roof to hang the lights. I actually love my dad so I'm not going to ask him to attempt it.

[Tuggan]

isn't that what husbands and boyfriends are for?

i like how theres always that one nice weekend before it gets all cold and shitty, but only a few smart guys get out there on that weekend. then the rest of us fall off icy ladders and bitch about how we can't feel our hands. hooray for the holidays.

[Iccarra]

Hmmm...well. Anyway...

I believe that one nice weekend has come and gone already unfortunately. I'm just glad my son got most of the leaves out of the yard this year before it snowed.

[ClakarEQ]

I got my lights on while it was 40 outside, then the next day it dumped an inch of snow WOOT .

Leah, did you get your lights fixed?

[leah]

not yet, it's been cold all weekend. tomorrow should be decent, so we'll give it a shot then.

bought some new fuses and a new extension cord, will switch out both and see what happens. if it goes bad again, we'll try different lights.

[leah]

sooo the fuse is changed and a new cord is plugged in, and the lights are now on a timer and will turn on at 5. so we'll see if they're greeting me happily when i get home from work today! if so, i'm totally taking a picture.

[Kramer]

guten luck

[leah]

so far, so good! we'll see what happens tonight . . .

[araby]

the suspense is killing me!!

[leah]

UPDATE!!!

here are pictures of A) the house, B) our christmas tree, and C) the sweater vest i chose for tomorrow night's ugly sweater party :D

[leah]

ummm strike that, reverse it.

i lose at uploading things in order, lol.

[Harrison]

Forget where the camera was when you got your picture taken?

[leah]

hehe the poses in the other sweaters were better--that one just looks like i'm irritated :P

[Iccarra]

The sweater is hideous, lights look very nice. Good job!

[Kramer]

lights look good. i am not sure i will ever desire to put lights on my house, and if i do, i will pull my dad's M.O and leave them up until July and pull them off in a pissed off rage after being nagged for 7 months