The clear lights on the top part of my pre-lit tree are dim. What can I do?
By Anthony from RI
The little gun zapper worked great and we could only find it at Walgreens. We got most pre-lit lights back on but not all. thanks so much for the info.
I have a 7ft GE pre-lit tree that I bought in November '10. One row of lights went out just after Christmas. Discovered one of the non-replaceable bulbs blew. Lost the warranty card so I paid GE $15 for a new section of lights. Figured since I'm basically out of warranty, I would try pulling the white bulb before trying to rewrap the wires (Read some of the horror stories below).
I was just told that the 'non-replaceable' bulb has a built in fuse. When the fuse blows, they purposely don't want you to be able to remove the bulb and white base for safety reasons. That's apparently why they say replace the whole string.
That said, it seems to me that the bulb could blow without the fuse blowing. I'm assuming that the bulb in the white socket is the same as all the others. (True?). But you can't replace that bulb if you can't get the white base out of socket! Some folks have talked about forcing the base out and replacing the bulb that way, but I think you're asking for safety issues.... 'you're playing with fire'... maybe literally! :) Any time you try to bypass or play with a designed safety mechanism you're asking for trouble. You're in an unknown area where you are using something in a way which it was not designed to be used.
Bottom line, to me at least, is that all these light sets on prelit trees (and loose strings too) are not meant to last forever. Some, maybe all, of these light strings have labels that say they are only to be used for 90 days! So putting an unremoveable fused base in a light string serves the purpose of making sure that these lights are not used 'forever' and are taken out of service after a while: Either when the fuse blows or when the bulb in that base burns out.
I came across this issue and read all the online info. Found myself in a similar situation, out of warranty and with dead bulbs. Bought a light keeper pro with no improvement. Decided to try to pull the white ringed bulbs in desperation. First after unpluging the tree, I took a heat gun (a hair dryer would probably work just as well or better as I needed to be careful not to melt the actual tree) the soften the socket area slightly.
Once the white ring socket was warm I twisted the clearly burnt up bulb off. I was able to wedge a plexiglass etching tool in between the bulb socket and the base. Then a narrow/ thin needle nose was manipulated into the same space. A little tug and it was out damage free. I then inserted a new replacement bulb into the base and reinserted the white ring. Did this x 2 and my tree is fully operational! I think the heat made a big difference in making things more malleable.
No one seemed to understand the problem with my pre-lit Christmas tree. Anyway my tree has a main hot wire that runs up the center of the tree. The tree also has lots of plug-in ones that will connect to the main wire on each section, then the other plug-ins that will connect to each other so each section will burn.
My problem is getting the main one plugged in the right socket so I can work my way up the tree. All fuses and lights are OK. Will someone give me some idea how to get all these plugged in? Or tell me which one plugs to the main hot wire on each section? There are no color codes on the plug-in. Thanks
By Reba from Bristol
When I assemble my tree, I always plug in the bottom section, that way as I put each additional tier on it, I can plug it in making sure that each section is plugged into the right place. I hope this is what I understood your problem to be.
I did what redhatterb suggested, but then I made a diagram showing which branch numbers get plugged into the tree plug and which get plugged into the previous branch's plug. I keep this diagram in my tree storage container in a plastic sleeve. It's made putting the tree up each year much easier.
I need some electrical help! I am trying to replace burnt out bulbs on my tree. However with one row of branches, every time I replace a bulb, the whole branch turns off. I have even tried putting the old burnt bulb back in, the one that still kept the whole strand on the branch working originally, and it still won't turn the rest of the strand on that particular branch back on :(
I gave up on the one branch and found another burnt out bulb on the branch beside it. Guess what happened when I replaced it? Yup, you guess it, I broke the whole strand on that branch too. I thought it was just a fluke and said I'll just throw that end of the tree up against the wall, but I still didn't learn. I found one more burnt out bulb on the next branch over... and yup, I broke that strand too.
Now I'm stuck with 3 dark branches and it stands out, badly.Can anyone tell me what I'm doing wrong? Please help! This tree is for a unit I work on at the hospital. My good deed is driving me crazy :p
By SincerelyReallyFrustrated
I'm not an expert, but I was having a similar issue and finally broke down and bought a Light Keeper Pro from Home Depot for $20. Problem solved! Very easy to use, and paid for itself within 5 minutes. Now I'm going back to all my old decorations that use mini lights and fixing them, too.
Hope it helps. Good luck!
I saw the answer above and purchase the Light Keeper Pro from Home Depot for $20+tax. Just as above Problem solved! Very easy to use, and paid for itself within 5 minutes. There were 9 bulbs out with 3 burnt shunts (keeping the string dead). It would have taken an hour to solve if I was able to get them all out of the string. Wow.
My pre-lit tree is 2 years old; one section is out and it seems like almost every bulb has blown at once. What causes that?
By Carmine
It may be a fuse in the light set. They have a fuse in the line. Check what kind and most drugstores and walmart sale them. Sometimes you can get one out of another old set of lights.
It is very important to make certain that none of the bulbs are loose. That is usually the problem. They can become loosened in shipment or just getting them out of the box and putting them up. If you have ONE bad bulb and it's still in tight, the others will remain lit, and of course check the fuses in the plug, if all else fails...
The top section of my newly bought tree keeps going on and off. It seems when they are on and I try to adjust the branches the lights go off. Then when they go on again they stay on indefinitely as long as I don't touch the branches. Any help would be greatly appreciated.
By Celeste O.
So I have a GE 7.5ft pre lit Christmas tree. It has a foot pedal to control three different settings. What is the foot pedal connector part called? The tree is not lighting up at all. I have replaced all the bulbs and even replaced the connector that the lights plug into.
But when I hit the foot pedal to turn it on/off I'm not hearing a click. So needless to say I believe the foot pedal portion needs to be replaced, but can not find anything online. I really don't want to cut them off and replace them if I don't have to.We bought a pre-lit xmas tree about ten tears ago. We set it up this year and all was well until a week later. We plugged it in and all the lights were out. Any first aid suggestions other than to get another tree?
By Theresa from Chicopee, MA
I have a pre-lit tree and noticed that some of the lights are out and have turned black. Does that mean that I need to replace that strand? Can you do that on these?
By pj
I don't know why the bulbs have turned black, or do you just mean they don't light up. If some of them have just burned out, you should be able to replace the bulb. Anyway any pre lit tree that I have had have been that way. I don't know if you can replace the whole string or not, to me they look like they are attached to the tree in places. I kind of decided that when this happens to mine, I will just pretend it is one that didn't come with lights and string strings of new lights on it. The pre lit trees are kind of expensive to replace.
Is there a certain way to plug pre-lit Christmas trees in.
By liz from Idaho
I'm beginning to hate my pre-lit tree 8). But this year we bought one of those 'guns' that you can use to 'restart' the lights. They have helped with about half of the un-lit strands. It's called a "Light Keeper Pro". Can't remember the cost, but well worth it! Found it at the big box store.
Our pre-lit "Barcana" artificial Xmas tree is 10 years old, and has functioned very well until this year. I just noticed that a section of the lower part of the tree doesn't light, although the rest of the tree does. I also saw that almost all the mini-bulbs in that section are burned out. I replaced maybe 30 of the bulbs, using the correct 2.5 volt bulbs. On the last one, the section lit up, but it was abnormally bright, lasted maybe 3 seconds, then went out.
Most of the new replacement bulbs were burned out. What seems to be happening is, that section of lights is drawing too much current for the bulbs, but not enough to burn the fuse; i.e., the bulbs are acting like fuses. Anyone know what is happening here, and what I can do to fix it?My dog chewed the wire on the bottom strand of lights on our prelit tree. Can we unplug this strand from the one it's connected to and replace it with a new strand?
