Tru-Tone Accessories: Star Lites, Clear Sputnik Light Covers, Set of 5, C-7 Compatible

All the information we provide is directly from Tru-Tone's own support page. If you want to learn more of have more specific questions, you can find it here.

It can happen to the best of us – a light string slips a bit while taking it down and a bulb shatters on the ground. While tragic, it's unfortunately part of the game of decorating with vintage style glass bulbs.

But what do you do after the glass is cleaned up and you have the base of the once brilliant bulb stuck in your light string? Never fret; we'll walk you through it!

Before proceeding with any of the following instructions, please make sure the light string is unplugged, as the threads would otherwise still be connected to 120V AC mains power.

With the light string unplugged, you should be able to use a small needle-nose pliers (or something similar, though a pliers will work best) to "grab hold" of the bulb innards or brass threads and slowly twist it out, counterclockwise.

If you lose hold of it or it slips, simply re-secure it with your tool of choice, and you should be able to get it unthreaded without too much issue. You may decide to switch to your fingers once its loosened enough, but please be careful as there may be broken glass still attached to the perimeter of the brass threads.

With the broken bulb removed, you can now replace it with a new bulb and your light string is as good as new!

Tarnishing of the brass threads of our bulbs can happen when water gets inside the socket and lingers there. If it's a substantial amount of water, this can cause shorting of the bulb contacts, but more often, it will simply result in tarnishing on the threads. This is not ideal, but it's not dangerous and can easily be removed with a soft rag and some vinegar.

To prevent or minimize tarnishing, we typically suggest having the bulbs point downward so that water isn't able to drip into the sockets. If you really want your bulbs installed pointing up, Tru-Tone offers bulb gaskets as a way of keeping moisture out of the sockets when pointed in an upward fashion.

If you typically install your bulbs pointing upward, you should consider adding them to your outdoor decorating toolkit. They are available in both C7 and C9 sizes.

Our light strings use a fused plug in case of over-current exposure. You will find a little door on the plug that slides out to reveal the fuses. Using a toothpick or something similar, you can pry the fuses out and replace them with the extras that come in the little waxy white paper bag attached to the plug-end of the cord. The old fuses should have a smoky, greyish tint in the glass part of the fuse if they indeed blew.
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In the event that you had this happen while you were installing the bulbs in your light string, these style fuses are intentionally made to be sensitive to spikes in current as to protect the bulbs and the wiring. When screwing the bulbs in, whenever possible, we recommend doing it with the bulbs unplugged or any light strip they're plugged into turned off, as a small amount of arcing can happen (between the hot terminal of the socket and the bottom terminal of the bulb) when screwing in bulbs to actively-powered strings, especially if you happen to be twisting a little slow at the moment it's about to make contact. That small arc can be enough to cause them to blow, so by making sure the light strings are off while screwing bulbs in, it should prevent this.
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While replacing fuses from time to time is part of the holiday decorating game, rest assured it doesn't indicate anything wrong with the light string or bulbs, unless it happens again repeatedly immediately after changing them – which is exceedingly rare.

Fuse replacement is always the first step we recommend in any situation where no lights on the string lights up. If after replacing the fuses you still have trouble with your light string illuminating, please don't hesitate to contact us and we'd be glad to help further!

Need more fuses? Our fused light strings use 3 amp (3.6x10mm) 125V Fast-Blow Glass Fuses commonly available in the holiday decor department of big box stores around the holidays, but also commonly available online.

While rare, there can sometimes be a piece of plastic from manufacturing blocking the brass contacts inside the socket, preventing good contact with the bulbs. It's also possible is that one or both of the brass contacts inside the socket have been bent out of place.

With the set unplugged, using the image below as a reference, check the affected socket to see if it needs any adjustments. A small tool such as a toothpick or tweezers is an ideal tool for the task.

After adjusting, screw your bulb back into the socket and plug it back into power to see if this fixed the problem.

If you're still having issues, please don't hesitate to contact us for additional assistance.

Yes, this is normal. Any unevenness in light output – what we affectionately call "the ring effect" – is an inherent aspect of this type of our vintage ceramic-style coated Classicolor bulbs.

Lighter and darker areas (especially at the tip) are related to the variations in the distance of the glass shell to the light source (the LED filament). The effect is more apparent on some colors than others and you'll see this with both Tru-Tone LEDs as well as the classic incandescent bulbs that Tru-Tone are inspired by.

If, however, you notice issues with an individual bulb appearing more dim than it's neighboring bulbs, that may be indicative of an issue with that single bulb rather than any normal variations in light output across all bulbs on the string.

Christmas lights have an earned reputation for sometimes being a bit finicky, and the occasional trouble with threading bulbs into the sockets is one of the common ways they can be, but we’re glad to help.

In most cases, difficulty threading a bulb into a socket is caused by the bulb threads getting slightly misaligned, rather than an issue with the socket itself. This can happen when the bulb becomes somewhat cross-threaded while being screwed in. When that happens, the bulb may quickly become much harder to turn, or it may thread in crookedly.

The best fix is to reverse the rotation of the bulb almost entirely until you feel it noticeably “drop” into position. Once it feels properly seated, continue threading it in the normal clockwise direction.

It also helps to avoid applying downward pressure while threading the bulb. Let the threads do the work of pulling the bulb down into the socket.

The main exception would be if the bulb base threads are damaged or smooshed, though this type of defect is very rare. Deformed sockets are also extremely uncommon, but if a socket appears defective, please contact us with clear photos so we can take a closer look and help determine whether a replacement is needed.

It's a sad reality most Christmas lovers will face at some point in their lives: all holiday light bulbs will eventually fail, even high quality bulbs like those from Tru-Tone.

While our bulbs are rated to last 20,000 hours on average, it's entirely normal to have the occasional bulb die prematurely of that mark.

With traditional incandescent bulbs, that typically happens in one bright flash, never to light again. With modern LED bulbs, however, the period in which the bulb is failing can last much longer, and is usually accompanied by periods of illumination that appear much dimmer than other bulbs on the strand, or the occasional obvious flickering.

While you may perceive some amount of flicker with normal operation of our threaded bulbs (especially if you are extra sensitive to electronic/LED flickering), a bulb that is on its way out will flicker much more irregularly and out of sync with its fellow bulbs.

This is, on the whole is rare, but it does happen. If you have a bulb that dies prematurely, you can request a replacement and our team will be glad to assist from there. If the problem appears more "systemic" – that is, with the entire strand – it's likely a different issue and we encourage you to contact our support team for further assistance.