Repair Christmas garland. Features of repairing a Chinese LED garland

New Years is soon! Christmas trees, toys, all kinds of lights ... cheer up. But how “pleasant” is the situation when we take the ingenious invention of mankind - christmas tree electric garland, we include it in the network, but it does not work in whole or in part. What to do?

The easiest way to solve a problem is to go! But if you do not want to spend money, believe in your strength and patience, then you can try to become a "resuscitator" of the New Year's beauty.

Let's start with what we remember: the simplest garland consists of a certain number of light bulbs connected in series.

How to find a problematic place in a garland?

Here you can act methodically and consistently. Then in the worst case in the example considered, you will have to check 54 light bulbs. This is a lengthy process, especially in the case of checking non-separable garlands (the modern Chinese version of "one-time").

Another way will be more efficient and effective. The garland is divided into two parts and the faulty one is determined. The reduced part with a break is divided into two more parts, from which the faulty one is determined, and so on. until a break is found. This method will be optimal, since it involves a minimum number of measurements.

Rice. An example of using a simple troubleshooting method in a Christmas garland

As you can see, a systematic approach is important even in such a simple matter.

A few practical tips when repairing a garland.

When determining a break in non-separable garlands, you can use a tester with probes to which ordinary sewing needles are attached. Without removing the insulation from the wire, you pierce it with a needle and get to the "core" of the conductor.

In the case of repairing a garland with an electronic control unit, you should pay attention to the fact that it consists of several (usually from 1 to 4) sections connected to its own control channel.

If none of the sections of the garland works, then first of all, you should check the power cord to the control unit, and then the common wire for all the "branches" of the garland. Possible failure of the control unit itself. In this case, it is better to buy a new garland.

If you find a burnt out light bulb in a non-separable garland, then you can replace it like this: close the wires near its contacts. That is, "short" it. The electric current will bypass the light bulb, and the garland will be saved.

ATTENTION! Don't abuse it this way. This method can be used 1 - 2 times in one branch of a garland, consisting of at least 50 bulbs. Otherwise, each of the remaining working lamps will experience a voltage overload, which will significantly reduce the duration of the garland.

Dare! And it’s better to drink a new high-quality Christmas garland! Start the New Year with new things!

Margarita Sukach

On the eve of New Year's Eve, a non-working garland can spoil the festive mood. For all the trouble, there is no longer enough time to buy a new product, and you don’t want to leave the spruce without flashing lights. You can repair the garland yourself, all products are based on a certain scheme. It is enough to understand the causes of the breakdown and eliminate the identified problems.

Possible causes of failure

Before you start repairing a faulty garland, you need to identify the causes of the problem. The problem may be the following:

Some are not stopped by the burnout of one or two lamps on a garland. The product is still being used, although it does not look aesthetically pleasing. Moreover, such a problem is easy to fix.

broken lamps

One or more broken lamps are easy to replace. The garland is disconnected from the network, the broken parts are removed and new ones are screwed in their place. If there is no new spare part at hand, you can cut off the idle cartridge and connect the wires. To do this, you will need a clerical knife and electrical tape to match the color of the wires.

The cartridge of the broken part is cut off with a knife. The contacts are cleaned from the rubber sheath, the two cut parts are twisted together. The coils are tightly wrapped with insulating tape. The garland is connected to the network and its operation is checked. If the wires are connected correctly, the product should work. If the product will be used for several more years, then it is better to replace all fragile lamps with unbreakable parts.

The whole garland does not burn

In some cases, the garland does not light up completely, although all the lamps are working. Then it is necessary to check the operation of the power cord and the control unit. First, the integrity of the wire is checked - it can be broken or broken. Then inspect the contact connections of the board.

If everything is in order with the contacts and the cord, then the problem lies in the board. The control unit can be replaced with a starter from a 220 V fluorescent lamp. It is necessary to check the connection of the LEDs, they can be connected by anodes or cathodes. In the first version, the circuit is completely redone and replaced with a cathode connection. Replacement is mandatory, since the normal operation of the starter is ensured by the fact that voltage must be supplied to the anode through a five-watt resistor. Diodes are also connected to the circuit, a reverse network current passes through them.

This repair method is used if the controller has stopped working, and also when the lamps do not blink. It is better not to repair the circuit of a cheap Chinese product because of its fragility.

One color not working

In multi-colored products, certain colors sometimes stop working. The reason for this failure is a color sector problem. First of all, disassemble the power supply and check the connection of all contacts. If everything is in order with him, then the problem is a burnt out lamp.

In modern products, LEDs of the same color are connected in series, so when one lamp burns out, the entire section stops working. Do-it-yourself LED garland repair is troublesome: it is necessary to cut it in half and check the lamps, then each half is divided into two more parts and so on until the end of the product until the damaged part is revealed.

You can use a tester with needles instead of probes to check the sections. At each section of the circuit, a current-carrying core is sequentially pierced with a needle and the resistance readings are compared. Near a broken lamp, the indicator will differ significantly from the rest. This is how non-separable electric garlands are repaired.

For Soviet products without a switch box, all LEDs are screwed into separate cartridges, so a malfunction can be found by attaching a working part to each cartridge. And also a tester helps to find a burned-out area, they measure the resistance of each light bulb.

Repair of a Chinese product

Chinese garlands with non-removable lamps can also be repaired. Pre-prepared:

The garland is disconnected from the network and the controller is disassembled, the soldering of the wires in the board is checked. Two pads for connecting a power cord are attached to one side of it, and five pads for color channels are attached to the second. Moreover, one is separated from the four, a common wire of all channels is connected to it. After checking the adhesions, the controller is closed.

Sometimes in Chinese products there are lamps that short-circuit when they burn out. Such a diode has less resistance than other lamps. The defective part is replaced, after de-energizing the garland. All connections must be soldered and insulated with tape. Due to the lack of shorting parts, the entire section of the same color goes out. In this case, check the sections of the garland by cutting it in half. Then the lamp is replaced, all cuts are connected and isolated.

Do not throw away a damaged Christmas tree garland. All breakdowns can be repaired independently. And also a broken or burned out lamp cannot be closed, as the remaining diodes will begin to receive a higher voltage. This will cause them to burn out. After repairing the product, the entire cord and connections are viewed., isolate open areas.

If on the eve of the New Year you find out that the old Christmas tree garland does not work, for example, one color does not light up, do not rush to buy a new one, because. there is a chance to repair the damage with your own hands. Fortunately, the device of these Christmas tree lights is not too complicated, and if you carefully check all possible faults, you can make repairs at home. Next, we will tell the readers of the site how to fix the garland if the contact wires come off in it, the light bulb burns out, or the modes do not switch.

One or more colors not lit

One of the most time-consuming breakdowns is considered to be the case when one or two colors do not work in the electric garland, for example, only red or yellow and blue, as in the photo below. This indicates that, most likely, the bulbs in the corresponding section have burned out.

To begin with, we still recommend disassembling the switch cover, also known as the control unit, and checking the reliability of all connections - contacts soldered to the board. We immediately suggest watching a video lesson from a young master, which clearly shows what to do if the wire from the board breaks:

How to perform the simplest repair of a malfunction?

If everything looks in order, then with a high probability it can be judged that the light bulb has burned out. The fact is that modern garlands are designed in such a way that all single-color lamps are connected in series and if any one burns out, the light will go out on the entire electrical branch. To fix the breakage, it is recommended to proceed as a good old textbook advises: cut the garland in half and ring both sections. Then proceed in the same way with the non-working section: cut by 2 and check again, and so on until the end, as shown in the diagram.

As a result, you will be able to determine which light bulb is not working and replace it. We draw your attention to the fact that it is advisable to use this repair method if the electric garland is non-separable, usually Chinese.

To quickly fix the garland with your own hands, you can take a tester and attach needles to its ends instead of probes. With the help of needles, punch through each section of the circuit in series so that the needle passes to the current-carrying core, and look for where the resistance of the section is significantly different. In this way, you can find a breakdown and repair it with less effort.

Old Soviet garlands for the Christmas tree (without a box) are more convenient in this regard, because. in them, all the lamps are screwed into the cartridges, and you can determine which bulb does not work without a soldering iron and an ohmmeter by elimination - taking a working light source and screwing it into all the cartridges one by one. Another repair method is to use a tester to measure the resistance of each lamp until you find a blown one.

An example of repairing another difficult malfunction:

Why does the Soviet electric garland not work and how can I repair it myself?

Another way to fix a broken electric garland is to check the integrity of the common wire. On the board on one side you will see 5 soldered wires: 4 for the glow of each of the colors and one common. Now, if the common wire breaks, you just need to solder it.

In addition to the light bulb, the reason that one or more colors are not lit in the garland may be a broken wire, which is responsible for just a certain color. This problem most often occurs if there are cats or dogs in the house that chew through the wires while playing. In this case, you need to find the place of damage, re-twist the current-carrying wires and insulate them. It does not hurt to provide after that.

Doesn't light up at all

If your LED garland does not shine, and you are convinced that it is not the LEDs, then you already need to look at the control unit and the power cord. First, check the integrity of the cord, it may have been interrupted or the contact on the connection to the microcircuit has broken. After that, check how all the contact connections are soldered to the board. For example, in the photo below, one of the wires burned out. If everything is working, then the board has burned out. You can, of course, buy a new garland if this one was cheap Chinese, but if you want to fix the product, now we will tell you how to do it.

Instead of a standing control unit, you can use a starter from a fluorescent lamp for 127 or 220 Volts (the difference is only in the speed of flashing the bulbs). First, check how the LEDs are connected. If it turns out that the extreme elements of the groups are interconnected by anodes, you will have to redo the circuit and connect the LEDs with cathodes. This is due to the fact that for normal operation of the starter, the voltage to the anode must be supplied through a 5-watt resistor with a resistance of 15-20 kOhm. In addition, diodes will also have to be included in the circuit, as shown in the diagram below. Diodes are needed in order to pass through the reverse current of the network. This is how you can remake and thereby fix the LED garland with your own hands at home.

As you can see, you will have to take care to repair the product, so if the electric garland is Chinese, it is better not to waste time and buy a new one. About that, we told in a separate article. By the way, it is recommended to convert it to a starter even if the garland does not blink or does not switch modes and the reason for this is the controller.

We draw your attention to the fact that if it is the LED that burned out in the Christmas tree diode lamp, after which the entire section does not light up, you need to solder the serviceable element strictly observing the polarity!

Broken light bulbs

If one or more bulbs are broken and you want to repair the product, we recommend that you simply replace the damaged one with a new one. We draw your attention to the fact that the replacement should be done only when the power is off, so as not to get an electric shock. In this, of course, unbreakable lamps are better, because. such a defect bypasses them.

If you don’t have a spare microbulb at hand, you can safely cut off the broken one and connect the wires without it.

Well, the last thing I wanted to say is that if your tubular garland (duralight) does not work, try visually and with a tester to find the problem area and cut it out in the places intended for cutting (marked with scissors). After that, connect the working sections with special connectors, on which the repair will be completed!

That's all I wanted to tell you about how to fix a garland if one color does not light up or the board burns out. Now, you know what to do to repair the breakdown yourself!

The times when garlands with small-sized incandescent bulbs burned on Christmas trees, to which a starter from a fluorescent lamp was connected to flicker, or home-made assemblies of running lights were assembled are a thing of the past. Now the market is littered with modern LED garlands for all kinds of lamps with automatic modes for switching light modes.
There is a supply, there is a demand, but what about the quality? How high is the reliability of LEDs or microlamp strings? - Like any technical device, especially made in China, Christmas tree LED garlands tend to fail. The most common breakdowns are the failure of the LED, an open circuit, and less often a controller malfunction.

We cannot harm the controller and LED bulbs, unless of course we accidentally step on them, but to cut the wires when unraveling (after all, we all unravel the garlands every year before hanging them), it is quite possible, especially since they are not wired, but thin wiring.
Let us consider in more detail the case when two garlands on our New Year tree, which were regularly serving for the third season, failed. On one, the line with red lights stopped burning; on the other, two colors yellow and blue immediately went out.


After waiting for the end of the New Year holidays, or rather, when the Christmas tree sorts out and I have access to the garlands, I decided not to postpone this issue until the end of December, but to repair the garland with my own hands now.
The electrical circuit for switching off a Christmas tree garland on LEDs is as simple as the world. The lights of each color group are connected in series by connecting in the "tail" with a common wire.


In my case it was easier. Having two problematic garlands, the one on which one line did not burn, I decided to repair it, and to use the one on which two color channels are faulty as a donor. Moreover, at the New Year's corporate party, I won a New Year's garland and it will be a replacement for the next holiday.
Troubleshooting started small, checking the integrity of the entire red line circuit using a half scientific poke. Armed with two thin needles and a multimeter, visually dividing the garland into sections, carefully piercing the wires at the base of the LEDs with a multicom, rang the integrity of the circuit. I'm lucky. Already the second section showed a break. Narrowing the search circle revealed a faulty LED.


Further easier. I bit off a red diode with pieces of wire from the donor and soldered it to a garland to be repaired, insulating it with a heat shrink tube. Turned on, all four lines are flashing bright lights.
I tried to make a video to make it clearer and more understandable, but it’s somehow inconvenient to repair and shoot. It turned out what happened.

To have to do if the line was in good condition - “dig” further by disassembling the control controller. At the output of each line there are installed (depending on the model, the number of groups and the efficiency of Chinese manufacturers) two, three, four triggers. And along with the donor garland, I also have a control unit in stock from which you can always unsolder the necessary elements.

Although the price of garlands is low, sometimes there are situations when you have to repair it. And there are not so many opportunities. The following will talk about simple repair methods.

Tips for maintenance and repair are usually given in excess on the back of a beautiful packing box. The process of replacing light bulbs is described in great detail, although there are no spare ones in the kit. There are also many safety warnings, instructions for using the garland.

One of the wonderful properties of such garlands is that after lying on the shelf until the next New Year, they most often do not want to light up, and they have to be repaired. Figure 1 will help explain how to do this.

All malfunctions of such garlands come down to three types: wire breakage, loss of contact in cartridges, burnout of lamps. After the garland was crushed in the hands, shaken, probed all the cartridges, quarreled with obscene words and did not achieve results, one has to take the matter seriously.

To facilitate the procedure, the garland should be laid out on the floor, literally, as shown in Figure 1, and instrumental measurements should be made. But first, lightly pull the wires, suddenly fly out of the cartridge, try to twist the bulbs a little.

This is best done with the garland on, but don't get too carried away, don't crush the bulbs. Otherwise, you can just get an electric shock! The method is unsafe, but quite effective and effective.

Figure 1. An example of repairing a New Year's garland

If these actions did not help, and the garland did not light up, then you will have to move on to instrumental measurements. First, the upper and lower (as shown) halves of the garland. The half that turns out to be faulty should be “ringed” a few more times, each time reducing the length of the measured section by exactly half. This will greatly reduce the number of attempts. Such is the magical power of the number two.

To check how magical it is, try double-folding a notebook or A4 sheet ten times. You can even bend a whole newspaper, but it still won't work, because two to the tenth power is 1024! This is how many layers should be in a folded sheet of paper. Therefore, even on New Year's Eve, you can argue with anyone about this "intellectual" exercise. Still, the victory will be yours. If you don't believe me, try it right now!

But, before you “ring out” the entire garland with a multimeter, you should make sure that the wiring has not broken off right near the outlet from the mains plug. This is a fairly common defect, and not only for garlands, but for almost all plugs, especially with a one-time termination.

After the faulty "half" is found, it remains to check the light bulbs and soldering in the lamp sockets. From time and high temperature, soldering simply oxidizes, or wires break off, and they are quite thin, and here you are, repair.

It happens that the New Year's garland itself fails, it's already clear that there is nothing to replace it with. It happens that weekends explode, leaving black spots of soot on the board.

Thyristors can be changed, fortunately, they are sold on radio markets and in online stores. The issue price is 13 rubles apiece. And this is at the price of a new garland of 38 rubles! Although, in fairness, it should be noted that there are similar garlands much more expensive. So all repair options come down to finding broken wires, as described above.

Garland repair probe

Checking with a multimeter is undoubtedly good, but poking the probes of the device through the insulation of wires is a thankless task. Special probes created for this purpose will help speed up the troubleshooting process. A diagram of one of them is shown in Figure 2.

Figure 2. Scheme of a probe for repairing garlands

Working with the probe is very simple. You need to start with the garland wire that is included in the phase. In this case, if the antenna WA1 is affected by an electric field, a high-pitched sound is heard from the speaker BF1. When the antenna passes the break and goes to the side of the neutral wire, the squeak in the speaker stops.

Here, as they say, options are possible. If you start from the neutral wire, then after a break in the garland, the phase wire will fall under the antenna, and naturally, the sound will appear. As a BF1 speaker, a DEM-4M capsule or similar with a coil resistance of 100 ... 200Ω is used. Similar capsules are used in telephone sets.