Home Depot sells Home Accents Holiday (HAH) "Super-Bright" 100-ct LED xmas lights. I'm getting an early start on swapping our years-old strands of outdoor lights to these things.



Each LED strand is ~29ft long, and I'd like to save some money by making two individual strands from one. My problem is I can't figure out the wiring of these things in order to cut the wires at exactly the right spot to get two working sets.



With previous LED strands, I've been able to get two strands from one, and and the trick is to identify the resistor at either end of a some count of LEDs, then determine the two lamps that are adjacent each resistor and cut the wires there. Resistors are apparent as either a comparatively thick lamp socket or a bulbous in-line thing on the wire, but not so much with these HAH strands. I'm also confused by the conductor count: The HAH strand has four conductors between lamps with three conductors at each terminator; my older LED strands have three conductors between lamps and two exiting each terminator. Tracing voltage thru a given wire is frustrating me on a neural level. so I'm posting this S.O.S in the plaintive hope that someone might be familiar with this HAH LED xmas light product and know exactly where to cut the wires.

Better still, buy a set, figure out where to cut the wires in order to get two strands from one and let me know, and I'll reimburse you for your purchase!

 

Don’t.
Just buy two shorter lengths instead.

I know of one property that was destroyed when the Xmas tree caught on fire.

 

At one end, unplug one lamp. Half the string will go out. Where the string that is out meets the string that is lit - that is the mid point. If you must cut - cut there. Be advised, this is not recommended as Christmas lights that are out doors are rated for the weather. You could potentially be creating a shock hazard by cutting them in half and installing an aftermarket plug set.

 

Post #3 may be he solution, or maybe not. 4 wires between sockets does offer confusion indeed.
Is there a separate module someplace in the string? One set of figures had a bridge rectifier and then several series strands of 29 LEDs in series. Each strand would lite up with about 65 volts to the bridge, and then reach normal output with 120 volts to the bridge. That was quite strange.
Now we need to know what happens when one LED is unplugged. Start with #1, then try abround #35, then #50 and #51. The scheme is a bit of puzzle, maybe the 4 wires thru each is just a way of powering the second half. Or maybe not.

 

Every strand of lights I've ever seen has had multiple wires twisted to keep them in an orderly fashion. However, manipulating that string often leads to wires shifting and bunching, making an unsightly mess of wires. Here's the thing: Even though there are multiple sets of wires, there is always a place where ONLY TWO WIRES mid stream carry Live and Neutral power. I have yet to see a string with a current limiting resistor. But those two wires is the place you would cut a string and meld in a set of plugs. Until now I've never thought of cutting a string of lights. Now that I'm conscious of such an endeavor I could easily trim a string of lights to be my "End Of String" set. That way I don't end up with extra lights going around a corner I hadn't planned on. All that would be required to safely seal off the end of the wires would be some heat shrink tubing and maybe a little Hot Melt Glue (HMG) shoved into the tubing before heating and shrinking it. For that I'd shave strips of HMG and push them inside the shrink tubing. When heating the tubing it will shrink and the HMG will fill any voids and seal the end from rain and snow, or other moisture, or nosey little child fingers.

IF you want to put plug ends on the cut string use an old set of lights that are rated for outdoor use. Splice the wires using the Lap method (lapping one wire from the left and one wire from the right), slide shrink sleeving over the wires before you make the lap joint, solder the lap joint together then slip the shrink tubing over the joint and shrink it in place. Make sure you use the proper size for the wire so you get a tight seal to prevent moisture from getting in. That way you're still using outdoor rated plugs and sealing the wires to protect them from any possible water intrusion into the live wires.