Exterior illumination and theory

[rambojoe]

I still don't get how they wire up some of these light strands and i don't want to know either. I have just learned that the first and last light on each seperate series has a bigger base than all the others...
Funny we have some lights that are 20yrs old and the new ones don't last more than one season. One strand we bought last year didnt work from the get so after damaging another set with my trusty staple gun i cut into that broken strand for some wire. It had no actual conductor in the first 4 feet. At all. Just the insulation.. I cant make that up...

Anyway, at what point do you get a little concerned about hokey repairs and sketchy cord selection a 30yr stubborn electrician may attempt?

 

[GoldDigger]

I still don't get how they wire up some of these light strands and i don't want to know either. I have just learned that the first and last light on each seperate series has a bigger base than all the others...
Funny we have some lights that are 20yrs old and the new ones don't last more than one season. One strand we bought last year didnt work from the get so after damaging another set with my trusty staple gun i cut into that broken strand for some wire. It had no actual conductor in the first 4 feet. At all. Just the insulation.. I cant make that up...

Anyway, at what point do you get a little concerned about hokey repairs and sketchy cord selection a 30yr stubborn electrician may attempt?

The socket interface is generally the same size, but the first and last sockets will usually have an extra wire attached to split into substrings or connect the outbound receptacle.
I get at least 5 years from LED strings, with the most common tedious problem being a bad connection between socket and LED at some point in a series string.

 

[rambojoe]

The bases in question are definately different, at least on this string...