[Shop-talk] xmas lights, shunts, and magic

[Mark Andy]

Howdy,

So the xmas light strand only has half the lights on when we pull it out 
this year.

I hate xmas lights.

As we're in the store to buy a new replacement strand, I see a little 
pistol shaped gizmo that promises to fix it.  Its got some kinda voltage 
detector, a bulb detector, and a magical 'shunt' fixer.

The story on the box is that the shunt gets clogged up like a drain. 
Obviously isn't can't actually be the case, but it is true that we plugged 
the thing into a non-working bulb on a strand that was out, and then 
pulled the trigger a few times and the lights on the strand started 
working again.

What the hell actually happened?

Mark