LED Keeper® - LED Holiday Light Set Repair Tool

I received this yesterday. After reviewing the instructions I was able to repair a strand of lights within 20-25 minutes. The repair of next 5 strands went much quicker. Well worth the money to salvage lights, otherwise theyd of went in the trash.

Not as easy to use as the red Light Keeper (for incandescent light strings), but if you follow the directions carefully, it does resurrect most of your defunct LED strings. I had seven or eight strings that didnt work at all, or only half the lights worked (you know what I mean). At first, try after try, I simply could not get it to work, so back to the instructions -- and VWAHLAH!!! Theres a note to keep your hands well away from the part of the string you are testing, because your hands can provide enough conductivity to give faint, intermittent beeps...and you just cant find the bad bulb. Of course, its natural for you to want to hold the string exactly in the wrong place, so you get very frustrated with inconsistent, intermittent, faint beeping. When I finally learned to keep my ham hands at least six inches away from where I was testing, suddenly the thing worked perfectly. I did have one string where I just could not find the fault...I think there may have been several bad bulbs or a broken wire. But all the rest are now working. Where the problem isnt a bad bulb, but a bad socket, you can cut out the faulty socket, and they give you a couple of pods you can use to jump the wires across the gap. SECRET: two pods dont last long. Theyll gladly sell you more for about $2 a pod. Forget it. Use cheap screw-on wire nuts. The ones I had were a little to big to screw down tight, so I inserted a piece of toothpick into the hole in the nut, and it tightened them just dandy.

Very impressed with this product. I first thought it was a gimmick item, but the videos are clear and easy to understand, and they explain the products functionality. You do need to watch the video, and it will not only explain how the product works but provides you the knowledge on how the light sets function. After watching the video, it took me less than 10 minutes to fully diagnose and repair my prelit Christmas tree! I am a hero now!

IT DOES WHAT IT SHOUD

Found and fixed the broken led bulb within seconds. Must have product if your buying LED lights.

I wasnt sure if it would work with icicle light sets but it does. It works, is easy to use and is worth the money spent. This is one time saving multi tool that I never knew I needed.

I had one fairly long LED icicle string that had a 4ft section go dark last year. When I started putting up my lights this year, that section was still out. I decided to try this tester and within about 5 minutes I had isolated the problem down to a single LED. I replaced the LED and the section came back to life. It definitely saved me from having to buy a new string. I would prefer a pistol grip for holding it and squeezing the trigger... I felt holding this in my hand somewhat awkward. I will add that I am an Engineer who spent most of my career fixing computers, so the logical process of elimination required to use this was very intuitive for me. You have to keep track of what works and what doesnt while youre testing so you can gradually narrow it down to the failed LED(s)/socket(s). For me, it was absolutely worth the money.

I was going bonkers last weekend because of the 11 light strands we use during Christmas, 6 of them had a section out. I googled fixing Christmas lights and thankfully this product came up. I watched one of the videos the company has and decided to give this a try. There certainly is a bit of a learning curve (watch the videos!), but I was able to fix four of the strands tonight until I ran out of replacement bulbs (a fifth one randomly started working again). I accidentally tore the entire housing off of the first strand because the bulb was stuck, so put one of the pods on and it lit right up! I went to our backyard, which has a different kind of lights, and I had to fix at least three bulbs, which took a while. But the strand eventually worked again! On these strands, the wires were wound very tightly, so it was hard to fit the keeper in sometimes, but I was able to unwind the wires after pulling on them a bit. Thankfully, I found the bulb on the fourth strand very quickly, probably also because I had some good practice under my belt at this time. I saved about $100 in new Christmas lights by getting the LED Keeper!

I was very frustrated using this tool with my LED lights. First of all, my string from Menards had not one, but three wires connecting each bulb and I had to test all three each time, so that was time-consuming. After narrowing it. down to one bad bulb, I tried swapping that out with a good one from the end of the light string. Well that didn’t work- turns out you need to have working bulbs in ALL the sockets in order for your string to work. I think the written instructions could have used more illustrations as they were hard to follow, but watching the YouTube video helped. Also, I don’t think the black pods would work with three-sting lights like mine because I couldn’t tell which wire was live. If you’re a handyman or good with electric repairs, this is your tool, but the layperson could use a little more guidance.

This is the ultimate spoiled American tool. Who else would need a specialized tool to fix Christmas lights? But there you have it, and I needed one of these after I bought what I thought were excellent quality outdoor Christmas lights on sale after the Big Day. I put them up, and within a few weeks they started to malfunction. This tool really does the job of isolating which light is not working. There were multiple lights malfunctioning on my light strings, and I was able to fix all of them through critical thinking and a little patience. If you are one of those arrogant people who want everything fixed for them by imported workers for next to nothing, this tool might not be for you. But if you are willing to take your time and learn how to use this tool, then its perfect. All my light strings work and are ready to go for next season. You need to center the metal point which will puncture the wire to make the electrical connection which is how the fault is diagnosed. Since Im not a Christmas/Holiday (i used this term so I dont enrage somebody) light manufacturing expert, it took me a little bit to get the swing of what was going on with the wiring, and to realize just how many of my lights had malfunctioned. So, as you can see, I am trapped in my house during this Covid 19 lock down, and have nothing better to do than to review past Amazon purchases. Next, I will give a scathing review of the toilet paper I purchased from China in March 2020, but it hasnt arrived yet as of 5-17-2020, so I will wait before I unleash my tongue and blame China for all of my problems, because blaming Obama just doesnt seem right at this point. :)