Dusk to Dawn and Blinking Lights

We have this all-white Christmas tree that we installed outside more than a week ago. And when it is lit, it looks so nice and pretty illuminated because of all the tiny clear christmas lights on it. So this christmas tree looks really nice when the lights are on in the night.

Last week, i noticed my hubby re-arranging the christmas tree and adding lighted deers on the side of it to complete the outdoor display. He also decided to install an automatic timer so that it will turn off and on automatically without having to go outside everyday to do it manually.

The first night came since i saw my hubby did the re-arranging and we noticed that the Christmas tree started to blink on and off every one-second interval. So we started thinking, we could not recall the tree having a blinking lights. We know for a fact that we bought a non-blinking lighted christmas tree. That night, the christmas tree was blinking the whole time it was on, and we could not figure out why. The next night, and the night after that, the same thing happen, it is still blinking. So we tried to recall what we did, when my hubby first install the christmas tree, there wasnt any blinking, but since the timer was put on, the lights blinking every second.

Then my hubby started to realize that he installed the Dusk-to-Dawn timer. This type of timer has a built-in sensor that can detect darkness and brightness. When it is getting dark in the night, the timer will toggle to turn on the lights, and when the early dawn starts, when the sun started to rise, the timer toggles to turn off the lights. We then finally figure out the reason for all the blinking after analysing how the Dusk-to-Dawn automatic timer works. When it get darks in the afternoon, the lights turn on, but then the lights are so bright, the timer thinks it is daytime, so it turns off again, and then it is dark again, so lights turn on again, and the same cycle continues over and over! So my hubby ended up rotating the automatic timer with the sensor facing away from the christmas tree so that when the lights are on in the night, the lights wont hit the sensor and mistakenly think it is bright and daytime. Problem solved.