They dont look or feel isolated, like ones inside a headphone cable
I created an account just to answer this. They can short. We had a string of these, and it shorted and nearly caught the tinsel on fire. They weren’t man-handled, in fact we were extra-careful with them, because they were so thin and fragile-looking. These are dangerous. Do not use them.
The power supplies feeding these are typically .5A at 5v so they can’t draw more than ~2.5w. Is that really enough to generate sufficient heat to start a fire? Maybe if they are wrapped around something incredibly flammable?
They’re called enameled cables, they’ve got a thin layer of insulation which prevents them from rusting or shorting.
To add, enameled wires are also used in motor windings and old CRT monitors (deflector windings). The easiest way to identify it is to scratch with a knife or burn a small portion of the wire to see if the enamel separates.
Yeah, those kinda puzzled me as well. They didn’t look like they’re varnished, but I suspect I could be wrong about that. After all, they do work, lol 😂.
It works for now, but the reason most wires have a rubber-like insulator around them is that it takes very little to Crack or abrade a thin coating such as this and turn it into a fire hazard.
I’m surprised a product with such a small safety margin is allowed for sale.
It’s usually a thin resin/epoxy coating so it’s transparent and has a similar slick feeling as the metal would. The same coating can go over the leds so it’s fully waterproof.
They are all insulated
