The present invention relates to a rope light, and more particularly to a rope light having a #-sectioned long core and a plurality of staggered bulbs radially inserted into the core to form a plurality of parallelly extended bulb strings on the core, enabling the rope light to have intensified illuminance.
FIGS. 1 and 2 show two types of conventional rope lights. The first type of the conventional rope light includes a plurality of bulbs 10 that are serially connected to one another by sequentially connecting lead wires 101 of two adjacent bulbs 10 together to form a bulb string, which is then set in a long core tube 20 to extend in parallel with the core tube 20. Lead wires 101 of a first and a last bulb 10 in the bulb string are respectively connected to a positive and a negative conductor 201, 202 pre-embedded in the core tube 20 to form a close circuit on the rope light, as shown in FIG. 1.
The second type of the conventional rope light includes a long core tube 20a having one positive conductor 201 and two negative conductors 202 pre-embedded therein, and two bulb strings formed from a plurality of groups of serially connected bulbs 10 parallelly set in the core tube 20 at the same time. Lead wires 101 of a first and a last bulb 10 in each of the two bulb strings are respectively connected to the positive conductor 201 and one of the two negative conductors 202, so that two close circuits are formed for the rope light, as shown in FIGS. 2 and 3. It is to be noted the bulb groups 10 on the two bulb strings are staggered in the core tube 20a, as shown in FIG. 2, and lead wires 101 connected between two adjacent bulb groups 10 in the same one bulb string are covered with insulated sleeves 102, so as to ensure that lead wires 101 on the two bulb strings would not contact with one another to cause a short circuit.
To set the bulbs 10 into the core tube 20, 20a of the above-described conventional rope light, the core tube 20, 20a is provided at one side with a longitudinal opening via which the bulb string or strings are put into the core tube 20, 20a. The longitudinal opening largely reduces an overall structural strength of the core tube 20, 20a, particularly that at two sides of the longitudinal opening. When the rope light is used on a stage or at places close to steps and tends to be twisted, deformed, trodden or impacted, the core tube 20, 20a with reduced structural strength is not strong enough to bear such external forces, resulting in damaged bulbs 10 in the core tube 20, 20a. Moreover, it is difficult and requires increased material and labor costs to mount the insulated sleeves 102 around the staggered lead wires 101 between two adjacent bulb groups on the two bulb strings that are set in the core tube 20, 20a at the same time. The conventional rope light with two bulb strings is therefore not economical for use.
Moreover, the lead wires 101 on the adjacent bulbs 10 are connected by way of welding or twisted together with hand tools to form the bulb string, which involves complicated procedures.
It is therefore tried by the inventor to develop an improved rope light to eliminate the drawbacks existing in the conventional rope lights.
A primary object of the present invention is to provide a rope light having a #-sectioned long core, so that separated channels are defined on the core for locating at least two parallelly extended bulb strings formed from a plurality of serially connected bulbs. The bulb strings so arranged in the long core ensure non-contact of lead wires on bulbs of the two bulb strings, and the #-sectioned structure of the long core provides the best support for the bulbs.
Another object of the present invention is to provide a rope light, in which lead wires on two adjacent bulbs of the same bulb string for the rope light are connected with a reflective holding terminal, and the bulbs and the holding terminals are alternately inserted into implant holes radially extended on the core of the rope light. Thereby, the holding terminals reflect light beams emitted by the bulbs to intensify the illuminance of the rope light, and the assembling of the bulbs into bulb strings is effectively simplified.