LED Christmas lights: are they terrible or am I just unlucky?

[Algeh]

So, this is the 4th year I've lived in my current house, and I've had nothing but terrible luck with LED Christmas lights since moving here. (I previously lived in an apartment and didn't put up outside lights.)

The first year, 2017, I bought 4 strands of GE LED lights designed to look like C9 lights. I only put up two of them because I wildly under-estimated how much I'd hate getting up on ladders. Year two, 2018, I decided to go big and rigged up a system to let me get lights into the gutters involving a long handle and staying on the ground, so I bought enough lights to go all the way around the house. (I have ONE exterior outlet on this house, and it's in the backyard. That year I used it, since I was going to have festive lights going all the way around my house to brighten up the whole yard. 2017 and 2019 I ran an extension cord under the garage door from a garage outlet instead.)

By the end of that second season, almost all of my lights had at least one dead section. Some were entirely dead. By the time Winter 2019 rolled around, I had 2 out of the 10-ish strands of lights that could actually be put up again.

I decided to try a different brand, Fred Meyer's Holiday Home store brand, and bought 4 more strands of lights. I used the two survivors of the previous year and 2 of my new light strands (I lost interest in putting up lights before getting the rest up). The other two old light strands didn't survive the season, but both of the new light strands did.

This year, I put up the 4 strands of lights I bought last year. All of them worked initially, but this week I noticed a dead patch in one of the strands that I also put up last year.

Do Christmas lights just only last one year now? It seems like when I was a kid we used the same ones every year, but those were incandescent strings rather than LEDs. Are there other types or brands I should be considering? Is there some light maintenance I'm supposed to be doing? I am very tired of buying new lights every year.

[farothel]

First of all, make sure you buy outdoor lights as indoor use only lights might not like rain or snow or other climatic unpleasantness.

I would also check if you buy new ones that they are parallel sets instead of serial. That way if one light breaks, only that one light goes out and not the entire section. And preferably if they have it in your area, buy sets where you can swap out the individual lights. That way you can buy a set of reserve lights and change them where needed instead of having to buy whole new sets.

[factotum]

Yeah, seconding the thing to check they're for outdoor use. Also, because LEDs use DC rather than AC, they tend to fare much worse if water gets inside them, making it even more vital you have a set that doesn't tend to leak.

[Algeh]

I'm definitely buying ones that say they're for outdoor use. I do live in an area with rainy winters, so if they fail when water gets into them, that'd explain it. (You'd think outdoor use bulbs would be designed to work in rainy weather, though, particularly since I bought these in stores in the area I live in rather than someplace with dry winters.)

Should I try replacing bulbs in the sections that went out and see if that helps? I have spare bulbs for all of these strands since they come with some, but since it was whole sections rather than individual bulbs I'd been assuming it was a problem with a fuse or something.

[farothel]

Should I try replacing bulbs in the sections that went out and see if that helps? I have spare bulbs for all of these strands since they come with some, but since it was whole sections rather than individual bulbs I'd been assuming it was a problem with a fuse or something.

It can be something else of course, but they're probably put in serie per section, so if one goes out, the entire section goes out. The only disadvantage of replacing them is that you don't know which one failed, so you will have to check them all (well, until you find the one that failed of course). I remember during my youth that was a classic part of putting up the christmas tree. Checking the lights and then going through the whole string to find the one bulb that failed.

[snowblizz]

I have never seen LED Xmas light strands that let you replace the diodes ("bulbs"). Not being able to do that compared to the classic bulb ones been one a few major negatives I see in LED lighting stuff.
If you can in fact do so, the you might want to check them because that means there are failure points all along the strand where moisture can enter.

Sadly I suspect you are suffering from the China syndrome. I.e. hat used to be quality stuff is now made cheaply and if not intentinoally to be disposable far away companies have virtually no meaningful qualitycheck on the goods they ship and sell. You the customer gets the pleasure of doing the QA, for the seller it so dang cheap to operate this way it makes sense.

Interestingly enough I was recently in the hospital sharing the room with a retired electrical equipment wholesaler who opined about the quality of the Xmas light strands you get nowadays. He used to sell more expensive ones, but people wanted the cheapo versions. Then a couple years later they realise cheap ones fail and they are back asking for better ones he notes well the company that made good ones stopped trading as you all bought cheap lights.

Unfortunately I strongly suspect the strands are just terrible.

[Khedrac]

I have never seen LED Xmas light strands that let you replace the diodes ("bulbs"). Not being able to do that compared to the classic bulb ones been one a few major negatives I see in LED lighting stuff.
If you can in fact do so, the you might want to check them because that means there are failure points all along the strand where moisture can enter.

Sadly I suspect you are suffering from the China syndrome. I.e. hat used to be quality stuff is now made cheaply and if not intentinoally to be disposable far away companies have virtually no meaningful qualitycheck on the goods they ship and sell. You the customer gets the pleasure of doing the QA, for the seller it so dang cheap to operate this way it makes sense.

Interestingly enough I was recently in the hospital sharing the room with a retired electrical equipment wholesaler who opined about the quality of the Xmas light strands you get nowadays. He used to sell more expensive ones, but people wanted the cheapo versions. Then a couple years later they realise cheap ones fail and they are back asking for better ones he notes well the company that made good ones stopped trading as you all bought cheap lights.

Unfortunately I strongly suspect the strands are just terrible.

It could be worse - I remember when young very carefully arranging individual Christmas Tree Lights on the tree. You had to be careful or the flame from the candle would ignite whatever was above it...

Since electric lights did exist (I'm not that old) I am surprised our parents let us use them!

[snowblizz]

It could be worse - I remember when young very carefully arranging individual Christmas Tree Lights on the tree. You had to be careful or the flame from the candle would ignite whatever was above it...

Since electric lights did exist (I'm not that old) I am surprised our parents let us use them!

Diffn't times, man, diff'nt times. Your parents survived live candle Xmas lights, surely you must too they'd think.

I got story like that, though contextually very different, from my youth based on experiences I can't really write down here because read by modern standards scream Amber alerts all over the place. And I find it hard to even believe it myself that nothing untoward ever happened.

[Telok]

Diffn't times, man, diff'nt times. Your parents survived live candle Xmas lights, surely you must too they'd think.

I got story like that, though contextually very different, from my youth based on experiences I can't really write down here because read by modern standards scream Amber alerts all over the place. And I find it hard to even believe it myself that nothing untoward ever happened.

Leave the six year old alone home for an evening with instructions on how to microwave the tv dinner and a vcr. Yeah, people keep getting amazed at what older generations survived as kids. I miss the old playground equipment.

[gomipile]

One potential problem may be that most T package LEDs are manufactured with tin-plated mild steel leads. I've seen plenty of equipment with internal damage from rusted leads, terminals, and/or contacts.