Understanding Your Pre-Lit Christmas Tree
With a mini light tester, you can troubleshoot and fix a pre lit Christmas tree with incandescent light. An understanding of incandescent bulbs and light strings is essential when trying to determine the reason why a bulb won’t light. Filaments are used to energize each bulb, which is contained within its glass casing. Almost all modern light strings operate on “one goes out, all stay on” technology, which is accomplished by using internal shunts within each bulb.
In most cases, the internal shunt is not active until the filament of a bulb burns out. At this point, it is activated to keep the bulb functioning. All the bulbs will remain lit as long as there is current flowing through them. Even if a bulb is broken, the strand will not be compromised unless the shunt also breaks. A loose bulb breaking the shunt or its dislodgement will cause the electric current to dissipate, consequently stopping the flow of electricity.
Considerations for Upgrading to a New Pre-Lit Christmas Tree
Lighting failure in a pre-lit Christmas tree can also be caused by a loss of connectivity at the socket base. Each led mini light bulb on a pre lit Christmas tree is equipped with two thin wires at its base that connect to the metal connectors, which supplies current to the bulbs and shunts. The light strand will go out, if a wire or bulb is misaligned or pulled out of the socket. Check the wires of the pre lit Christmas tree by removing the socket and folding a wire from left to right around the base. There are two small openings at the bottom of each socket through which the wires are guided, and they are folded upwards. These wires are actually part of the actual glass bulb. If one of the wires is missing, replace the bulb. The other wiring can be realigned if needed.