Outdoor electrical junction to be proud of

[XmasLightGuy]

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[PeterG]

Incorrect! Nearly all US Christmas lights have fuses in the plug:
3a for standard mini lights(if you run anything more than 2a through them you'll pop the fuse)
5a for commercial mini lights
7a or 5a(depending on age) for the larger C7 & C9 sets
But the older C7/C9 sets did not have fuses! (old minis also didn't, but they also didn't have an end-plug for daisy-chaining)

Not nearly all mate - I wish they did but the vast majority I've seen have no fuses sadly; just cheap Chinese moulded plastic rubbish - take the picture I posted for example - those are modern plugs on new equipment yet clearly there is no fuse in sight ...unless we count the 0.000001mm diameter cheap cable which might as well be a fuse as it'll melt and blow before anything earlier in the supply line. I imagine you probably have some decent quality sets in your collection and there is a lot of great quality stuff in the US, but just like Europe there is some shoddy, dangerous stuff which amuses me equally as much as the poor design in some connectors from the Americas.

[XmasLightGuy]

Excluding old/vintage stuff ofcourse (and a few cheap china-made ebay things)...

100% of the sets I own have fuses .. and we're talking literally hundreds of sets here!
Its been required for years (not sure if it was late 70's or early 80's when that went into effect)

And yep the one in the pic is a cheap china thing with no fuse .. probably from eBay .LOL. I recognize that cord on it from seeing them there!
eBay/Amazon stuff sadly doesn't have to meet the standards of what's sold in normal retail stores.

[PeterG]

Great stuff that yours have fuses, just a shame so many don't. Its no different to here. Stuff sold on ebay where its only fit for the trash. Its amazing they get away with it.

[XmasLightGuy]

Yeah there's even one china eBay set I got (thinking they were normal lights) .. no fuse ofcourse, and like you say thin wire! if that got a short, it'd burn right through the wire before the breaker ever had a chance to trip.

No more. I'll stick with going to the local stores!

[PeterG]

Best way really. As I always say, if its British made - or in your case USA made its going to be better quality in most cases

[Ash]

Most sets i have seen here for years, sold to the general home user (and also used by shops and restaurant) have been substandard to varying extents

No fuses - In the Incandescent sets, the packaging had claimed that the lamp shorting wires are acting as fuses, but they dont even protect the L wire that's running along the string to the far end etc

However there are very few sets that are daisy chain able, so not really a concern of overloading. The concern is really mostly about shorts in the string itself or shorts from the string to external metal objects it may be hanging from with damaged isolation

In many the wires pull out of the lamps with just a little pull, or the wire isolation is just very flimsy by itself - such that hanging it from something metal would have significant risk of shorting to that object

Also in most new units with electronic controlled effects, the box with the circuit board is easy to open without any tools and in some falls apart by itself...

Yet i have not known of any fires whatsoever caused by Christmas lights

From the "good" mini lights there are the oldest LED ones from mid 00s, that were not fused either, but made with proper thick wire and just LEDs and resistors (no electronic effects) so very little to go wrong



Besides, there are the E27 GLS strings (general purpose string lights) with isolation piercing lamp holders, that existed for many years, and really have their own story. They are generally very sturdy but would sometimes be abused in ways that are unique to them :

The cable used is 2x2.5mm2 (allmost 12AWG) rectangular cable with the 2 conductors going side by side. It's good for some 20A+ running lengthwise (if not for localised overheating near oversized lamps), which translates into some 4.5kW of lighting at 230V

But when used to light up fairs (stretched in long runs over and across walkways and stands) i think some could well be pushed to their limits

Sometimes the individual sockets would be overloaded by oversized lamps - Anything from 100W GLS and up or 160W MBFT's, in sockets that were designed for 60W GLS at most (25W in the lower end, cast resin sockets). The MBFTs would be just melting out of the sockets and falling like eggs in Super Mario

When lamped with CFLs, not all socket designs would protect the CFL vent holes - Sometimes CFLs would short out when string is powered up after being left in the rain. (But surprisingly many CFLs survived it nevertheless... There is one right now hanging for the 4th or so year straight in the nearby village, and still has many of its original CFLs still working)

The cable itself needs quite accurate cutting/stripping procedure to connect properly. It can be done correctly with just a knife, but many times the connection is not made properly and that then fails by arc tracking or by downright getting twisted and conductors shorting together

The other end of the cable is supposed to be insulated. Most commonly it is just cut off and wrapped with electrical tape, but the 2 conductors at the end are still next to each other - Which makes for nice fireworks when rain water gets under the tape

A couple times i have seen further splices being done from the string, to other strings or to other lighting (sometimes such that requires Earth, but there is no Earth conductor in the string)