by JoshT » Wed 20 Mar, 2013 12:37 pm
Hi guys, not trying to be a downer, but I'd think twice before buying these. Of course YMMV, just my experience.
I haven't used the one pictured, but bought a mains powered/transformer version of the same thing for a party at home. Within five minutes of setting the lights up, I had two minor electric shocks, which after hunting around I discovered was from exposed soldered connections along the wires. A had a further look and found 6 or 7 points of exposed metal, and three where connections had melted through the plastic coating, with small burn marks. I'm not sure if they arrived like this, or they melted after I had turned them on. I wasn't keen to find out so the whole string went in the bin. eBay seller refunded quickly, and said it would be nice if we didn't leave any eBay feedback.
A low voltage version running off AA batteries would be less of a risk, but maybe run them at home for a bit just to make sure.