Christmas lights: why must you be so complicated?
Why can't you - and I mean all of you - just be plain old parallel circuits?
Oh sure, you might *claim* to survive a bulb failure or two, and maybe you do, but not 3 or 4!
And you're not fooling me - I can spot your extra wires. You should only need *2* to run the whole length. I'm guessing some of you are still series circuits at heart, just that you are a combination of 2-3 of them.
Why does this have to be so complicated?
My guess is you are using your bulbs as a poor-man's voltage regulator, and that's why if too many bulbs go a whole bunch more go up in smoke.
And I'm going to further guess that while one can make a large (or medium) 120V bulb, no one knows how to make a 120V miniature, and no one wants to bother putting a bonafide voltage regulator in there along with a dual circuit (one low-voltage regulated for bulbs, one line voltage for the daisy chain socket on the end).
