# Gemmy Fire and Ice Spotlight Bulb Going



## Saturday8pm (Sep 5, 2012)

Anybody ever replace a dying bulb in one of these rotating 
spotlights? I've got the green and orange one. This is not 
the kind of bulb one screws into an existing socket, this is 
a lightshow that is staked outside.

Thanks in advance.


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## corey872 (Jan 10, 2010)

Not specifically sure mine is a Gemmy, but I have similar stake-type 'kaleidoscope' spotlights.

Are you sure it has a 'bulb' inside? Mine had LEDs. I suspect most anything in recent years would have LEDs, too. 

You could still able to replace them, just have to get equivalent LEDs (volt/current/color wise), de-solder the old LED from the board, and solder in a new one - being sure to mind the polarity.

The other key would be that LEDs are generally very long lived, so if they are dying, it's very possible something up stream is causing that. Bad power supply, loose wire, overvoltage, etc. You may find it is something else, or something more than the LED.

Good luck!


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## Saturday8pm (Sep 5, 2012)

Hey there again, Corey!

You are on top of "problem posts", I appreciate it.

True, this is an LED issue. Cracked 'er open and discovered 
one of the three lights, a green one, had chummed. How odd. 
As you know, these lights generally take years to fail. Nope. 
For the time being, I simply closed the circuit by soldering a 
trip wire at that light's two poles, closed it up and I'm back 
in business. Fortunately we still have a "Radio Shack"-type 
company nearby and I'll try to match 'er up after Halloween.

Thanks Again!


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## corey872 (Jan 10, 2010)

Yes, I've generally been through all these failures at one time or another... usually with a few days, or hours to go until Halloween night!!

Glad it worked. One thing to keep an eye on - as you suggest having to 'jumper' one LED to get the others to work, and also based on the layout of my similar spotlight - the LEDs would be in series. I believe my light was actually putting out close to 40 volts into a series string of 12 LEDs (or 40/12, so about 3.33 V per LED - which is fairly normal)

If you jumper the bad LED out of the string, that changes to 40 V / 11 LEDs or about 3.63V / LED. That might be pushing the remaining LEDs right to their limits. If the set-up continues to work, then great. Crisis averted!

If you happen to have the option, or need the same trick in the future, you might jumper the bad LED with a 180 ohm resistor (1/8 watt or higher) instead of the solid jumper wire. That should drop the 3.3V of the 'missing' LED and keep the remaining string at the original design voltage.


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## Saturday8pm (Sep 5, 2012)

Great point. A cheat as mine has obvious limitations.

I plan to correct after The Day. Unfortunately, So New England 
has rain forecast for most of this week. We need the water, badly. 
But it COULDA rained this summer! Oh well. We've been mostly 
in positive territory for years, so can't complain. OK, I'm complaining.

Cheers!


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## corey872 (Jan 10, 2010)

Lol - I think we stole all your rain - everything has been 'flood stage' around here since early spring. Lots of local lakes hit record flood stages this summer and are still very high. Now 3 inches of snow and low temps around 20ºF moving in for Halloween. I am actually sort of curious to see how my fogger will work at those temps!


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## Saturday8pm (Sep 5, 2012)

I'm sorry for that, Corey, I truly am. New England has been extremely 
fortunate in evading hurricanes and truly crippling drought. The Midwest, 
Southwest and California look as if The Apocalypse has come. It's horrible. 
All this yap about "mismanagement", yeah sure, mistakes were made. But 
that hardly matters now ... people and an ecosystem in danger, I don't dig it.

Yeah, we're gonna need a boat tomorrow, sadly. I feel for the kids but we 
had our off years too. One year it rained either my sis or myself went out 
as a robot, under corrugated head to hip, and that helped protect. Then 
there was the smartass kid who dropped an egg from a tree and SpLaT! 
on the shoulder. Being under cardboard helps.

I'm gonna post a link that helps myself and others find the right lamp to 
replace in Gemmy Lightshow products. I'm gonna bring the light to the 
gurus there so they can find the match for my lamp. Voltage has to be 
correct. So for you tinkerers, there is a solution.

Replacement LEDs for Gemmy Lightshows


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