Random Leds Failing

[Luke Kamp 1]

A year or two back, my mom went to Walmart and purchased like 6 strands of white teardrop LEDs. We've used them on our indoor tree for a few years...so they've not been exposed to the elements. This year, as we plugged them in, random LEDs are really dim; others are completely off. There's no said pattern -- it's completely random. These are half wave...but it just seems bizarre that random LEDs would just shut off like this!

I've included a picture for reference.

Anyone have an idea of what is happening? I've never seen this before.

[Justin Smith 0]

It seems as if they're overpowered.

[gmac 32]

Could it be an issue of where they were stored? May be in a damp or high humidity area, Looks like what happens when moisture gets in and the contacts get corroded

[Glenn Barber 4]

My wife bought the garland with the teardrop LED lights last year (hi dollar too) and just about all of them have gone so dim that they are useless to have on.

[Jeremy Lawton 1]

Welcome to my world! Glad im not the only one having problems with LED's like this.. Really thinking incads are so much better.. even if they pull 200 amps.

[LED Keeper 0]

Don't blame the LED's, blame the manufacturers who wanted to save some money and not seal the LED's correctly. LED's have used steel leads for years and not made for outdoor use, they do not like to get wet, you know what steel does when wet.

Well the industry has finally required the leads to be a non corrosive material now, BUT what happened is there was a date that everyone had to make the change over and the manufactures started over producing light strings with the cheaper steel leads. So we are going to be troubled with the rust issue for several more years until the present and future stock of steel lead LED's are used up and we replace them with the new LED leads.

[merrymidget 42]

Problem has not gone away,only slowed down- the old led steel leads rusted quickly,newer led sets switched to aluminum leads which dont rust, but slowly develop galvanic corrosion due to the connection between the copper wire and aluminum leads....the dissimilar metals {copper & aluminum} in contact with each other guarantees this....but it will take a little longer to fail than the steel leads that flat out rusted away. why the leads cant be made of copper,like the incandescent sets,who knows.

[LED Keeper 0]

Problem has not gone away,only slowed down- the old led steel leads rusted quickly,newer led sets switched to aluminum leads which dont rust, but slowly develop galvanic corrosion due to the connection between the copper wire and aluminum leads....the dissimilar metals {copper & aluminum} in contact with each other guarantees this....but it will take a little longer to fail than the steel leads that flat out rusted away. why the leads cant be made of copper,like the incandescent sets,who knows.

Looks like we are back to the 60's or 70's when home builders thought Aluminum wire was a good replacement for copper wire. Guess what? Lots of house fires because of what you posted and not making the correct pigtails to convert from one material to another.

Now I am not saying your LED light strings will catch on fire, just creating a new problem to fix an old problem. IMHO cost is the big factor in these kind of decisions.