We have a couple of Hallmark Ornaments (15 years old, at least) that are designed to be plugged into a string of minilights. One, for instance, is a Star Trek Shuttlecraft that has Leonard Nimoy as Spock saying “Happy Holidays. Live Long and Prosper.”
The problem is power. The sockets for the newer minilight strings are smaller than for the older ones and the plug doesn’t fit. We still have one string left of that vintage, but it may be gone soon.
Where might I find a string of minilights with the larger sockets? Am I just looking in the wrong places? And, failing that, what can I use to keep Spock from being silenced forever?
I had this problem a few years ago with a different ornament. I was able to fix it by adapting the smaller base from a spare light bulb. I just straightened the conductor wires from the light bulb and removed it from the base. The part of the ornament that plugged into the light socket used a similiar setup except instead of a single wires like the light bulb, the ornament had tinned twisted wires. I straigtened the wires, pulled them from the base and installed them in the smaller base. I switched over to LED lights for my tree this year so I don’t know if the ornament will work.
The solution suggested by racer72 always worked for me too. I have LED lights now; even though some of the strands have removable ‘bulbs’ with bases very similar to the old minilight strands, I haven’t attempted hooking up the Hallmark ornaments yet.
