On Mon, 5 Dec 2016 06:03:56 -0800 (PST), DerbyDad03
wrote:

I've been looking at buying some LED Christmas lights but I'm curious about
the wiring harnesses.

I know the bulbs are brighter, last longer, etc. However, I'm curious as to
whether the wiring harnesses are any different/better than traditional
mini-light strings. Do LED's strings go bad in sections just like
traditional strings or are they wired such that each individual socket is
a stand alone entity?

I have a large number of mini-light Christmas strings. Straight, icicles and
swags. Every January I put away full working sets and every December I plug
the strings in to find bad sections scattered throughout. I try all the
standard bulb tricks and sometimes I can get the sections working, but
sometimes I can't.

I'm not talking about entire strings being bad, I mean that one or more 4'
section in a 21' string will be out. Then I have to buy new strings or
combine strings by cutting out bad sections and soldering in good ones. It's
a constant PITA.

Replacing all my strings with LED's would be a huge up-front expense, but
if I knew that I could pull them out every year and they would work, it
would be worth it.

Unfortunately, the sockets are no better than the old ones. And, yes,
they are still in series with other bulbs. I have a bunch of 60 light
sets. They are made up of 2 series strings of 30 each. The bulbs do
last a very long time and they don't get broken by be dragged across
the driveway, but when a connection fails, all 30 light in that
segment go out. Like you said, sometimes you can fix them, sometimes
you can't. I would love to find a quality set with real sockets (or
maybe no sockets?), but it is hard to compete with Chinese sets
selling for a few dollars each. When we had incandescent, we replaced
them every year. It just wasn't worth the hassle to store them. When
they came out with warm white LEDs, we switched to them and started
storing them again. We are in the 4th year now. They have done much
better than the old ones, but I still had to swap out 4 bad strings
this year (out of about 40 - yes, we have a lot of lights).