Introduction
Although these lights have a three-year guarantee, it's cheaper to fix them yourself than to pay the postage to send the lights back. I bought T1 3/4 (5 mm) LEDs from Digikey, looking for anything in the 800 mcd or up range in the proper colors. I ended up buying:
404-1096-ND (red)
404-1097-ND (orange)
C503B-BCS-CV0Z0461-ND (blue)
C503B-GCN-CY0C0791-ND (green)
404-1092-ND (yellow)
The LEDS are wired in series in groups- three groups to a strand. If one LED in the group has failed, none in that group will light. The trick is to find out which one (or ones) is bad.
Its easiest if you have one working strand or part of a strand. If so, remove one LED from the good strand, and use that socket to test each LED, one at a time, from the bad strand. If the LED doesn't work in the good strand, replace the LED according to the directions that follow. There may be more than one bad one, so after replacing,if the bad strand still doesn't light up, go on to the next LED.
If you don't have a good strand to test with, and don't have another way to test the LEDs, then remove each LED, one at a time from the bad strand, and check the leads to make sure they're not broken. If broken, replace, if not, put the LED back and go on to the next one.
What you need
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'Getting the faceted "bulb "off. The colored lamp covers snap out- some are pretty stiff but they do come out. They don't unscrew.
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Remove the bad LED from the plug so you can re-use the plug. Notice the new LED has one leg longer than the other.
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The long lead goes into the side of the plug with the key as shown in the picture.
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The bulb of the LED may not seat perfectly but who cares, it will be under the plastic faceted bulb cover.
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Bend the leads up and cut.
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Try bulb in your "good" strand if you have one. If it works, put it into your bad strand and see if that has fixed the problem. If not, you know the LED is good now, so go on to the next one.
What do you do when you have checked all the bulbs in the bad strand and all the bulbs are good?
I ran into this once, too. In my LED lights, there is a potted blob of plastic, one per section, that doesn’t open. I used a dremel tool to get into it (ground away enough of the plastic, and found a high-wattage resistor in there, and maybe a backwards diode? I don’t remember. I replaced the resistor and potted the whole thing up again with Sugru, and it worked. Sorry I didn’t record the value of the resistor or take pictures.
Are the short stubby LED’s that you are trying to replace no longer made? I have the same string of lights that I bought from Costco several years back that I can’t find. I don’t even know where to look for the caps.
Did you ever find replacements???
I'd love to find replacement bulbs in another color. Anyone find a place to buy them?
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To reassemble your device, follow these instructions in reverse order.
To reassemble your device, follow these instructions in reverse order.
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13 Comments
Hi! Can you tell me the difference between the two types of light bases you show above? The situation I have is I bought a set of the clear LEDs figuring we could get replacements since my husband prefers the colored ones. But, once we started pulling them apart, we found the different sized bases and the only replacement ones I could find had the short stubby base. Are they interchangeable if we pull the bulb out of the base? Do you have any suggestions for us? Thanks for any help!
The reason for the two different size sockets is that if you look at your strand, every so many lights three wire come into the socket instead of two. I think (and this is only a hypothesis) than the shorter sockets are to allow room for the connection of the third wire. Why they didn't just use short sockets for everything I don't know. But it seems likely to me that the short one would work everywhere. I have not tried it.
Thanks so much for posting this guide! My outdoor light strings are far from waterproof and I live in a rainy climate (yes, even in December), so my original LEDs corroded badly and the strings stopped working.
I ordered a whack of replacement LEDs using the reference numbers you provided. Replacement was simple. The results were spectacular -- better than I had dared hope. For $10 and a few minutes work, I kept $200 worth of strings from getting tossed. Thanks a bunch!
How can you tell which one is burned out??
what if you have tried your bulbs from the bad strand and they all show to be good? What would be my next step?
Thank you very much for this useful instruction, but I think the led strip light is more practical. I've recently started to use different LED lights, and I've noticed that they are very nice to light up a room and it's also economical. I do not know more practical and pleasing to light the room at the moment. If you have the opportunity to try the led strip light, I glued it to my bathroom mirror, and now I am very comfortable shaving, as the light from the strip is good.
What are the little things with light like a battery
any body know the working voltage of the LED's ?
Help! We can't get the bulb off! Did you use tools? Do you have a video? Only our blue ones are out on 6 strings. Clearly a defect of some kind in these 6 tear old strings that have inky been used twice. Ugh!
Nicole Braun Cervantes - Reply