We own a pre-lit artificial Christmas tree. It's a really robust one, with no plastic parts to wear out.
This tree, however, is afflicted with light strands with incredibly awful bulbs. They burn out all the time, and the shunts inside the bulbs don't work a lot of the time.
When the shunt fails, you are back to the bad old days, where the entire strand goes out due to failure of a single bulb.
It's annoying enough to try to figure out which bulb is bad on a strand that is laid out on the floor. It's another level of annoying to do it while the bulbs are tucked away in the branches of a fake tree. I spent a couple of hours trying to figure out which bulbs were keeping strands from lighting. I gave up.
At wit's end, I turned to YouTube, and found this item. As a last resort, I bought one. 5 minutes later, I had the tree lights all working properly. I was absolutely amazed how well it worked.
We've been thinking it might be time to consider getting a fake tree that has lights already on it. Sadly, they are horribly expensive. What brand is the one you have and how tall is it? Not sure we'll get to an artificial tree this year but... Normally we go up to a tree farm and I cut down a tree, after we find the one we want. However, this year, after really messing up my back, things have changed a bit. Still hoping my back will heal enough, after an injection in my backside and some muscle relaxer pills, where I can still cut down the tree. Think the cheapest artificial we've found is $289 but the wife found it online and I'm not sure where (Balsam Hill brand, I think). Fully understand the frustration of trying to find that elusive bulb that needs to be replaced. Have never had an artificial, yet, so can't imagine trying to find a bad bulb while lights are on the tree. I would have given up too, after all that.
ReplyDeleteHeya Marc. Funny you should ask that. Every time we put the tree up, neither of us can recall the company we bought it from. There are no manufacturing marks on the tree at all. However I think it may be this company here: https://www.treetime.com/Artificial-Christmas-Trees/Artificial-Christmas-Trees-Christmas-Tree-Shop
ReplyDeleteThey were quite a bit cheaper than Balsam Hill, and the tree is quite a bit more realistic too! Still expensive, but quite a bit less so than the Balsam Hill brand.