Christmas tree lights

[duke37]

I have just managed to get the christmas tree lights working from last christmas and now it is looming up again.
The lights are small low voltage bulbs in series to get up to 230V but here the mains can be over 250V, hence the life of the bulbs can be quite short.

I have placed a series diode in the plug and the lights are only a little less bright.

Would such a diode extend the life of the bulbs?

The current will be occurring for half the time but the bulb will be cooler and will have a lower resistance so a higher peak current.
I saw somewhere that bulbs last longer on AC than DC because of tungsten transference from one end of the filament to the other.

Some of these lights are heirlooms, there is an 80 year old Santa to be illuminated.

 

[Audioguru]

When the light is dimmer then the current and heating are less and the bulbs should last longer.
When does a light bulb usually burn out? When first turned on because of the huge surge of current into the reduced resistance. If you can find a suitable NTC resistance to put in series then they warm up slower.

 

[Bluejets]

Maybe startup with a dimmer set to the low end and increase after a few seconds