It’s easy, given the right amount of guidance and patience. Use a heat gun or lighter from the center to the ends of the connection. The basic tools you need for stripping a wire and fixing them are typically the following. If you have solar fairy lights or solar string lights wrapped around trees or ornaments in your garden, they are usually subject to a lot of pulling by external conditions. Checking the wire continuity using a multimeter requires positioning two ends of the probes at ends of a circuit. Hanging the first 10 to the one side of the hook, and the last 10 to the other, and alternating the direction of the hooks, helps hold them in place also.You have to do this one light at a time because they are not all evenly spaced, but it is worth it in the end. Birds singing, squirrels being squirrely! b. I know there are probably some better ways to do some of this, but I improvised and mostly used things I already had. You can also use the … Use a helping hand to clamp the wire before soldering. When you get to where you want to put the battery/circuit box, cut the wire to reach the beam with some slack and put a male plug on it. Did you make this project? The dry wall installers chewed up the wires in a few boxes with their router when doing the cut-outs which I take to be a pretty common mistake. If you have a cable that is extremely worn out and its electrical wires keep getting exposed because of new tears in the outer jacket, it’s probably best to replace it. The switch is one of the first parts to go, from corrosion. You should be able to work out something thats stopping the circuit from working. Solar Lights~DIY Quick Fix Hallelujah! Fit it back again and put the battery back in. 7. Altair - a Tripod Mounted Refracting Telescope. Step 2 Examine the insulating material from the broken edge of the rope lights. Just clean the see-through cover in hot water and washing up liquid and wipe around the casing. Remove the broken wire piece first. Here are easy Do It Yourself steps to troubleshooting your Solar Christmas/String Lights. Ok what your going to want to do here is get yourself 12ga landscape light wire. I.AM.LOVING.IT! Here’s an example of one of our lights. I wrapped a small piece of blue painters tape around the wire a bit above where it meets the plug – just enough to make it stay together and not let it slide up & down the wire, but easy to pull out if need be. Properly tin up the tip of the soldering gun to help speed up the heat transfer from the tip to the wires. This will cause the wire to heat up. Put everything together and test it in sun and dark. You should check the rest of the wire for signs of damage or breakage. If there is a break in the wire– repair it by stripping the plastic coating off each wire, separating the earth and power wires ( 4 sets of wires) and join them up ( 2 sets of wire) SEE FOOTNOTE ABOVE – do not join the 2 sets together, wrap them individually . Aside from being an ornamental part of your garden, house or street, these lights are green lighting alternatives to your old incandescent bulbs. Highs in the 70's, sunshine! For more ideas on how to improve the design of your solar string lights, you can Sitnah’s Instructables on how to configure solar lights on your own roof design. Sometimes the wire filament inside the light bulb may be broken but when it is in certain positions it will make contact and light up, therefore a new bulb may be required. If that looks good, then the problem could be the ground wire of the solar panel, check that this goes back to the ground on the circuit board. If there are small screws connecting the wires to the electronics, there may be a chance that the wire came out of the screw. Test things after each step so you don’t get all done and it doesn’t work. Light Bulbs. I put it inside ¼” drip tubing and use drip tubing clips to attach it to the beamCut the tubing the length you need, and lay the tubing out straight in the sun for a day or so and it will be easier to put the wire inside it. Then, twist the spot where the wires join with your fingers to tighten up the connection. Add: Hengguangyao industrial parkBaoan District, Shenzhen, China. Solar Fairy Lights Trouble Shooting Guide that will help you fix nearly any set of Solar Fairy Lights, if you are having problems then please read this guide. We hope this article has helped you troubleshoot and repair broken wires on your solar lights. If it isn’t the wind, perhaps it’s the cute little squirrel who gnarled the wires on your solar lights. This is usually printed at the cable sheath. Turn the knob at a higher resistance setting than that of your solar light resistance rating. If the fuse doesn’t blow, the wire would melt and cause a fire. You can use a file or sandpaper to scrape off the lacquer at the end of the copper wires. While it may be your own fault – like when you try to cut down solar string lights by yourself or try rewiring them to configure it with your own landscape or wall shape – there’s usually a universal way of fixing broken wires. Place a piece of masking tape on each wire on either side of the damaged portion you are cutting away, about 2 inches on either side of the damage. So I put a hook on each light. Save my name, email, and website in this browser for the next time I comment. Chewed wires can be daunting to fix, so if you can, try buying solar lights that do not have exposed cables. The rest of the things I had already. At dawn, the light detector sensor will turn the lights off and start recharging the battery again. This may indicate a broken wire along the circuit. SKILL #1: How to Use A Multimeter to Check Wire Continuity String the lights on the patio – I used small screw in cup hooks w/clip because the wind can get bad here and actually blow the lights out of the hooks. Start by going back to where the (hopefully) red wire from the solar panel is soldered onto the board, in a place that ends up going to pin 1. Parallel wired light strings have two wires down the length of the string and each lamp is wired between the pair of wires. SKILL #2: How to Properly Strip a Wire The wind might also heave these lights and damage the wiring. When fixing LED string lights, you would not need to solder wire ends together. Could you tell me what the cause could be and can I repair them? Down below is an example of a solar fairy light diagram. We FINALLY have some Spring weather going on here! Twist both ends separately before intertwining them tightly together. 9. Broken fairy lights are frustrating and it can take hours to fix them. We let it charge in the yard for about a day and a half (which is usually enough). A good indication is rust or broken wires. If a fuse is black or has a broken wire inside, gently pry out the blown fuse with a thin screwdriver. As it heats up, use a damp sponge to wipe the tip and remove all the oxidation. Make a small square cut out at the top of the pole that holds the solar panel case.Thread the bottom wire thru the pole, line up the wire with the square cut out, put the pole on. Dirty Solar Panels. Knowing absolute nothing about how they work, I went searching on the internet and found a lot of info, some great, some totally wrong. 1. Clamp down on one of the wires with a wire stripper. I have spent as much time outside as I can. So some of the pictures I took may seem to be from something else, but they are all from the solar rose lights.Be gentle, these wires come loose pretty easy. Solar lights on my 3 light lamp. Let it coat and don’t touch it until it cools. Rosin paste flux – for cleaning and preventing oxidation and corrosion on soldered areas. Is the solar light still not working after battery replacement, repositioning, and checking the … New solar panels with 225mA output, batteries better and lights stay lit all night long !Easy to take down suspected part if a problem comes up, as all the “sections” unplug from each other. Once and a while you might experience problems with your lights and you might have to do something called troubleshooting. 10. Repeat with the other section of cut wire. Don’t worry if you’re not an electrician, as repairing wires is not rocket science. Fix minor damage on any type of electrical cable with electrical tape, repair damaged charger cables with Sugru putty, or fix more serious damage on electrical cables with heat-shrink tubing. They aren’t next to each other and I can’t see any obvious reason ie broken wires. Help? Remove 1/2 inch of the outer insulation. Sitnah’s Instructables on how to configure solar lights on your own roof design. Sitting there I remembered I needed to put out my solar lights into the garden. That’s why you would naturally be upset the moment they fail working. Cut the wire that goes to the lights about 8” OUTSIDE the box, Cut the solar panel wires about half wayCut the battery wires close to the battery terminal, as you will be putting the panel and battery in the new battery boxRemove the circuit board from the case – there may be 1 or 2 small screws holding it in place. Note: Don’t let any copper wire stick out as it might jab the heat shrink tubing and cause shorts. Here are the steps to connect the multimeter: 1. Step 2 There is a paper tab you are supposed to pull and remove from light before use, but sometimes that tab doesn’t come all the way off. To make sure your wiring connection is safe, you can cut the wire again and re-strip it. It is a little difficult to see what is going on unless you do what I did with a string that was damaged beyond repair. Solar post lights are some of the most common types of solar lights you can expect to find in home improvement. Then twist and tightly secure them together. Your case may be different, probably is, so you will have to improvise hereMake a hole in the bottom back of the old case (this spot is based on mine facing south on the front edge of the patio roof, and the hole doesn’t show from the ground. If you bought your solar lights at the dollar tree, and they don’t work when you get them home after you charge them up, it is a very easy fix. Quick tip: You can cover the sharp ends of the alligator clips with heat shrink tubing so they won’t cut through the wire. This year, when about to put up the Christmas lights, I spotted that one set wouldn’t turn on and had a brainwave for fixing them. Use a match or fine sandpaper to remove about 1/2 inch of the enamel coating insulating the wire. And one good AAA battery for testing. If they are held up by wire, use a wire stripper to cut the wire. You can either: a. I’ve had them about 8 months but didn’t keep the packaging … Remove any bugs too! a. Look for the wire gauge specification of the solar light wire you have. To understand it more comprehensively, you can watch this video: You can either replace the faulty wire with the same wire gauge or cut the part that’s causing discontinuity and simply rewire it. We’re getting ready for festival season and have a series of solar string lights that need care, feeding and repair. Be careful not to break the copper strands of the wire as removing some strands would increase the resistance. This will leave you with two pieces of tape on each wire strand--most Christmas lights have two strands, but some have three or more. Rose lights shown unlit during the day, and lit up at midnight. When I tested the lights, they give off a faint, anaemic glow, nothing like when they were new. How to Fix a Rope Light By Renee Gerber Things You'll Need. Take out the batteryOpen the battery/board case for the solar lights, If your lights have an on/off switch on the circuit board, set it to on. Your email address will not be published. If this is the case, bring down those solar string lights to fix the broken wires. 6. Replaced batteries and did the clear polish trick. Some silicone would be pushed outside the connection as the heat shrink tube compresses on the connection by heat. On my string of 12 solar lights only 2 now light up. You may be able to fix the string light wire in a pinch by individually taping bare spots of each portion of the wire with electrical tape. Make the Correction: Repair the damaged wire and clear the fault. Gently clamp the stripper on the wire and twist back and forth a few times until you feel the insulation cut off. 4. 13. 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