LED Keeper® - LED Holiday Light Set Repair Tool

At first it was uh-oh...then Wow - I repaired all 4 sets of string lights within 15 minutes. All sets were identical with identical symptoms, that is half the string didnt light. My first string, after following the instructions, I placed the tool in the midsection of the failed half and pulled the trigger. Per the instructions, one side should light while the other side remains dark...but in my case both ends lit up! After checking the instructions and their website, there was no mention of what to do in my case...I almost gave up until I decided to just check the fuses in the power plug and noticed one of the fuses was loose. After pushing the loose fuse back into place, the light worked! Second string: I checked the fuse but they looked fine. So I tried the tool, and this time I was able to follow the instructions as one side did not light, and was able to pinpoint the faulty LED. Actually the LED itself was fine, it was just loose from its socket. Third string: The fuses were fine, and just like the 2nd string I was able to pinpoint the loose LED. Fourth string: This time the faulty LED had its connectors twisted in such a way that it missed the connection to the socket contacts. Simply straightening out the LED wire connectors with my fingernail fixed it. The tool probably saved me at least 3 hours of frustrating work trying to check every bulb!

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.

Like this companies LIGHT KEEPER PRO for incandescent christmas tree bulbs which we have been using for years to quickly and effectively show and fix burnt out bulbs, this LED version if INDISPENSIBLE If you own LED light set or LED lighted ornamentals with replaceable bulbs! WILL NOT WORK IF BULBS NOT REPLACEABLE! youll be throwing away your light set AND YOUR MONEY when cheap LED light sets burn out! YES, cheap non-replaceable LEDs DO NOT last 50,000 as LEDs are suppose to! BOTTOM LINE...ALWAYS BUY LIGHT SETS WITH REPLACEABLE BULBS!

So this tool helped me repair 3 long LED sets that were completely out. It would have cost me about $75 to replace the sets so I decided to try this tool instead. With it, I was able to find and replace many bad LEDs in the sets so that they worked again. It took me about an hour per set. In the end, I ended up replacing 15 bulbs total. Heres the BIG BUT if youre thinking of buying this. Do you have plenty of LEDs lying around to replace the bad ones? This does not include replacement bulbs. Remember that LEDs are NOT universal. Every set seems to use a different shaped base on its bulbs. I used an x-acto Knife to reshape the bases of the LEDs I had lying around to fit in different sets. On 2 of my other sets, I gave up because the bases were badly corroded. This kit includes 2 replacements for corroded bases so after that what are you going to do? Also, in my case, even though I got the sets working, what happens when they fail again? Im out of bulbs and once they are on the house, Im not taking them back down to troubleshoot in the winter. The bulbs are all the same age so it stands to reason that there will be plenty more failing soon. After this season, I will be buying new sets on clearance. So the decision is yours. How old are your sets? Do you have the patience to troubleshoot? Do you have lots of spare bulbs? Are you sure its just a bulb issue and not corroded sockets? The tool works. Start halfway up the set and work your way down the line. It lights up what works and easily tests individual bulbs once you remove them. It comes with a 9V battery installed and ready to go. If you have lots of bulbs out, test one at a time using the tool crimping the wire until you start finding bad ones (start at the end closest to the plug. Good luck!

I wondered if I needed this tool before I bought it. I had 5 Christmas LED Nets and 2 LED strings that had lights out. I bought the tool and the strings were fixed in about 10 minutes each. The Nets took longer because they were made up of three strings each and two had multiple strings out. Some of the Nets also had multiple LEDs out and I was able to fix them all saving the cost of buying new Christmas lights. The tool was well worth the cost and I am happy with the quality and how well it works and the features it has. I used the wire connector and the LED tester. I did not need to use the fuse tester. I recommend this tool to anyone with Christmas lights that do not work.

Works great, there were no instructions so I searched You Tube (how to fix LED Christmas lights) a video popped up with this tool. i watched it twice. I had a 300 string led set I purchased last year because I thought they lasted longer but low and behold I put them up and just like every Christmas some did not work. In about 15 min. I fixed my string which had 3 bulbs out. I then went outside and fixed the C6 led lights on my Christmas tree in about 5 minutes. I read other reviews who said the trigger was hard to squeeze and sometimes you had to pinch the wire a few times. I had none of those problems. Prior to buying it would have cost me $52 to buy new lights. So for $25 bucks which is a week of Dunkin Doughnut coffees I purchased the tool. Well worth the money. All my lights work now and a total of 20 minutes was spent. I highly recommend the product and look forward to more lights going out so I can fix them. JUST BUY IT!!!!!!

As we slowly switch our home Christmas lighting to LED strings, some LED based strings, after only a couple of seasons have stopped working. Sure, they are relatively cheap sets, but I thought they would last longer than a couple of seasons. Right now LED strings are more expensive then filament bulb strings, so repairing them makes sense. The LED Keeper worked great. I was able to quickly identify the failed LEDs, and fixed three out of three strings, with multiple failures in each string, in about 90 minutes. In all cases, because the strings are relatively new, the cause was a broken lead at the point where the LED leads are bent around the socket. Probably jammed in quickly by automated machines which overly stressed the pin. I am a little apprehensive about the insulation piercing mechanism the Keeper uses, but so far it is effective and reliable, and is just a pin prick. Whether it will lead to premature wire failure remains to be seen. An issue only peripherally related to the Keeper is finding replacement LEDs. Big Box stores sell packs of five, but when you figure the price, you realize you are better off getting a cheap LED string on sale and use it for replacing bulbs in other strings. If the socket type is the same all the better, if not, just be careful about not stressing the pins when you unbend and re-bend them when switching sockets.

It’s amazing tool! I liked the way in which ULTA engineers have designed their bad LED searching feature. Dividing the string into the segments and then powering the selected segment from the tool instead of the AC outlet - is a brilliant idea! Before this purchase, I tried to find the broken LEDs manually, but there were too many of them. But it took me only about an hour to test and fix the entire string with ULTA tool. I found 12 bad diodes out of 300 in my string. The major problem with my LEDs were the resistors, connected to them. Unlike the LEDs themselves, resistors wires have been made from the bad metal which got corroded. I liked the individual LED and fuse testing features, found them ergonomic and convenient. I am very happy with my purchase, it is a money well spent.

I hate hate hate Xmas lights. I hate that when one bulb goes out, you have to spend ages finding the bad one. This amazing simple tool cut that process down to 20 minutes. I had to check 5 strings of 100 lights. I found bad 8 bulbs and 1 torn wire. This set had the pod replacements for the torn wire. Such a life saver. 10/10 HIGHLY RECOMMEND.

Sliced Bread has nothing on this thing. Best thing EVER. If you use LED Christmas (or other holiday) lights, they WILL go bad, and you WILL spend hours and/or money fixing or replacing them. Unless you buy this thing. Ill just give you the punch line first: Those repairs that normally take 20 to 30 minutes to find/repair --- you can do them in about 2 minutes with this thing. (If youve done this before, you probably dont believe that it can be done this quickly, but its true! I have one of those crazy light-shows: hundreds of strands of lights, almost all of them LED, timed to music. As you may know, the bulbs start to corrode/rust/fail after a year or so of use. Most consumer grade strands dont have a stay-lit feature when a single bulb burns out, and even the ones that do, dont always work as expected. When a bulb burns out (or more likely, the leads have rusted or corroded) half of the strand goes out, and you have to pull out every bulb until you can find it, often snapping off the leads to other bulbs in the process. If youve got more than one failed light, youll probably never fix the strand. I normally have 5 to 10 failed strands per year, replacing them costs about $10 per strand; fixing them takes about a half hour per strand, unless I get really lucky. Ive fixed about 8 to be repaired strands from years past and 5 strands that I was going to replace this year, in less time than it would normally take to repair one strand. You can read the instructions for the thing, or watch the online videos, but here it is in a nutshell: First you plug the strand in to an outlet to see what half (if any is lighting) you use a little marker clip to remind you which light was the last working light. Next you plug the strand into the outlet on the tool, and you use the tool to hold and pierce the light cord about half way down the burned out part of the strand. The half that doesnt light up has the bad bulb or bulbs, you mark the spot and keep finding the bad half usually in about 3 to 5 checks, youve isolated the bulb, and can replace it, and youre done. After youve done it the first time, youll be fixing them in under two minutes. The tool even has little, easy to use sockets to test the lights individually, and to test the tiny fuses that the lights come with. It also comes with a couple of easy to use jumpers in case there is a problem with the wire or socket where the light is showing failed. (Not a common problem...) I wish the little cord were a bit longer to make it easier to fix lights that are in the deployed position without having to take them down, but a decent extension cord actually does the trick. Its so fast and easy, youll enjoy it... This is a MUST HAVE if you maintain LED Christmas Lights!