Powering ornaments on pre-lit tree

[sengsational]

There's noises in our house about getting an LED pre-lit tree and get rid of the very old and flaky 50 per circuit incandescents. But we have lots of those Hallmark ornaments that plug into a bulb socket. And even if the LED's had the same voltage as incandescents (which they probably don't), I wouldn't want to to touch that wiring (so it remains reliable).

So those ornaments expect to see, what, 2.3 volts AC (115 ÷ 50 = 2.3)?

I figured someone here might have done this already. I figured I could butcher some of the sockets out of the old strands, wire in parallel somehow, and hook to a power supply of appropriate voltage. I wanted to wire in parallel so unplugging one wouldn't affect any others. YouTube seems to be void of such a project, but there's a lot of clutter, so I could have missed it.

 

[sengsational]

Ok, it appears I'm off the hook this year... decided to head south for Christmas and not decorating. So no pre-lit tree on the shopping list after all.

 

[PaunchyPirate]

A much easier solution to the problem!

 

[38Chevy454]

Maybe kind of related, back in late 80s, I cut a 120vac light set up to make 12vdc that was hooked to a switch to run some small lights on a vehicle. I did just as you figured, divided the 120 volts by the number of lights to figure out how many volts per light. Then just cut sections that matched that number. In your case, I would use 6 lights (2.3 x 6 = 13.8, close to actual running vehicle voltage) per section. The lights worked fine on DC, even though they were technically AC. Wired the sections of lights up and they worked nice having a lit up wreath on the grill.

Your case is kind of the opposite, using a DC source and plugging into an AC light. I still think it will work if you get the voltage matched. It's not like the small lights are a precision voltage requirement.

 

[ncbill]

How old are the OP's Xmas tree lights?

We've got some which have to over 30 years old & even those are wired in parallel.

 

[foxfirev5]

And here I thought all you had to do was keep plugging them in until you blew a fuse (or breaker in a newer house) ��

 

[ERD50]

How old are the OP's Xmas tree lights?

We've got some which have to over 30 years old & even those are wired in parallel.

The miniature lights are in series. The very old Christmas lights (the ones I know of were kind of narrow/pointy) were in series. The ones I grew up with (1950's and on), the size of a filament night-light bulb, are wired in parallel.

LEDs are in series, they drop ~ 3V each.

If any of those old Hallmark ornaments have a motor in them (some did some spinning animation stuff), I'm not sure if the motor is AC, DC, or universal.

-ERD50

 

[Jerry1]

For future reference, you can add lights to a pre-lite tree. DW add some lights that look like poinsettia. You could add a string or two and gain an interesting light and use it to power your ornaments. Still, you got the better solution for this year. Enjoy!