I've got an 80 bulb set of 'Starlights' mains voltage outdoor tree lights that I've had set up in a tree for a few years, but this year they got rather mangled when the farmer came to trim the hedges with his tractor.
The wiring starts off at the (standard 240v plug) with two wires but that then becomes 3 wires for most of the length before dropping back to 2 wires for the last section of lights before the end.
After the hedge trimmer attack the lights are now in 2 pieces – the first section (from the plug plus about 20 bulbs) now works OK after I connected 2 of the 3 cut wires together. I then thought I could attach a plug to the cut end of the last section and use this as a separate string of lights but, regardless of which of the 3 cut wires I connect to the plug, nothing happens – and yes I have checked all the bulbs!

I know the easy solution is to get another set but I can't afford it 🙁
I'm sure there's some wiring magic that goes on with these things but I can't figure it out – can anybody help?

when the farmer cut the wires, did you see any smoke?

Nope……… apart from the stuff coming out of my ears 😡

they were unplugged at the time.

Mine got shredded by Squirrels, who chewed the wires off each bulb holder, presumably as they were acorn shaped. The lights were off at the time and are now in the bin 🙁

They tend to be in a number of sections (in parralel), each section holding a number of bulbs in series.

If they were all in 1 loop they would need to be 3v bulbs (80 x 3v = 240v) but they might be 4 loops of 12v bulbs (20 x 12v = 240v). If you can see the voltage of each bulb that will give you a clue as to how many in a loop, which may help you put it all back together properly.

Or go to Asda and buy a new set for £10.