Electricity Mystifies Me

On Tuesday I told you/ranted about how I really messed up the string of Christmas lights I was using for my chandelier/light fixture made out of small plastic milk jugs. It turns out I just needed to replace the second fuse in the string of lights. Here is a picture of my progress and below is another rant about electricity.

After heading out to a few stores hoping to find some lights in the Valentines section I was able to find a Christmas garland on clearance. There were a couple problems with it: first it was attached to a faux evergreen garland, it was green and I preferred white, and it wasn't nearly long enough. I decided that I could buy the garland and use the end piece to attach to my string of lights.

Once I get home, I cut off the end piece from the garland and attach it to my string of lights. Then I plug them in. Nothing happens! Finally I decide to replace the other fuse even though it didn't look burnt out and it worked. I removed the end piece to continue assembling my chandelier/light fixture and thought I might as well try plugging them in without that end piece attached. So after putting a bit of electrical tape around each end of wire I plugged the lights in and ta-da, they worked!

It turns out that there is nothing magical inside the end piece that completes the circuit without blowing the fuse... the circuit is already complete without it! Now I am speeding along with my assembly and will show off the finished project next week.