Patent ID: 7279809

Claim:
A series-wired incandescent miniature light string, comprising: at least 20 miniature light bulbs wired in electrical series connection; at least one silicon diode in series with said series-wired miniature light bulbs for half-wave rectification of standard house current, and a current limiting resistor in series with the silicon diode; at least one Zener diode respectively connected across each of said miniature light bulbs in said miniature light string, said Zener diode acting as a shunt to the respective miniature light bulb across which it is connected so that, if the respective miniature light bulb is missing or becomes inoperative, current will continue to flow through the series-wire light string and the remaining miniature light bulbs in the light string will remain lit; and an electrolytic filter capacitor between 5 and 100 microfarads coupled across said light string for filtering the half-wave rectifier voltage output from the silicon rectifier diode.