These assembly instructions are for our adhesive connection style of incandescent and LED rope light. Instead of compression fittings, this new line of rope uses a snug transparent outer tube or collar sealed with a quick bead of super glue.

Unpacking

If you scroll down and the hardware below doesn’t match what you received, head over to our instructions for our rope light with compression fittings.

Open the outer carton. (The rope light used in this series is the warm white LED 10mm spool.)

The accessories will be tucked into the corner of the box.

Three LED power cords.

Three incandescent power cords – note there is no inline rectifier.

Our power cords used to require a separate “power connector”. Now cords come with that hardware built in making the process of attaching a power cord easier.

Bag of clips.

Accessory baggie!

The contents of the bag. Another little bag and a box!

Here are the contents of the box. Notice that these adapters look very similar but they aren’t the same items.

These adapters are used to marry the rope light to either a power cord or to the heavy duty splice connector.

1. The 6 adapters that are “free” in the box are used with the splice connectors.
2. The 3 adapters in the baggie partner with the 3 power cords.

The contents of the “inner baggie”.

Three splice connectors.

Three end caps.

And three tubes of super glue – see image below.

The 3 tube splice connectors and their adapters.  Two adapters are required per splice – one for each end of rope light that are to be joined.

See the power cord that is already assembled onto the spool.

The spool can be plugged in at this point and for some folks, their “work is done”. If the entire spool is to be used continuously, there isn’t a need to cut the spool. Store your accessories for future projects or to use to make future repairs to the rope light if required.

Installing a Power Cord

Planning to use rope light in more than a single run? You have enough hardware to build 3 lengths of rope light in addition to the segment you’ll create when the first cut is made.

These rope can only be cut at “cut marks” located at regular intervals along the rope light.

Check the specification for your spool and then measure to find the location of the cut mark that will create a total length closest to your desired light run.

Here is a photo of the cute little scissors that show the location of the cut mark. Reading glasses may be required. Be patient. It’s there. Looking for this as a couple might create a moment of discord but work through it.

Dave cutting through the rope light with a box cutter. After taking this photo, he put it on a hard surface and pressed the new box cutter blade through the tube. He commented that it seemed easier to do than on the previous style of rope.

Use a fresh blade or a super-sharp knife to reduce pressing the rope out of shape.

Grab the power cord adapters.

Line up the pointy ends of the adapter with the bare wire (yes, those tiny little holes). The ends of the copper wiring should be visible.

Press, press, press to insert the prongs as far as you can into the rope light. If grip strength is not your super-power, grab a pair of needle nose pliars to help with this part of the assembly.

Nice and snug.

Install the smooth prongs into a power cord. Double check that the holes and pins are oriented.

Snug the rope light into the power cord.

Test your work before starting the next step by plugging in the cord into an outlet or power strip.

Grab a tube of super glue.Twist off the outer cap and the pointy cap and use the first cap to puncture the tube seal.

Seal only the edge of the outer tube of the power cord with a thin bead of adhesive. Completely coating the tube with excessive amount of glue will make it impossible to remove the glue with a little acetone in the future if the power cord is damaged and needs to be replaced.

Apparently, mood lighting was required for the rest of the job…..

Ready to install!  (The glue adheres in a few seconds.  Give it a minute and the rope light is good to go!)

Installing the splice connectors

Grab those 6 adapters. (We popped them back into the box for safe keeping.)

Using the method of installing an adapter into the end of the rope light, install an adapter the end of each section of rope light that is to be joined.

The two ends and a splice connector tube.

Install the two ends into the connector.

Test the rope before adding a thin bead of adhesive to each end of the splice as shown above.

(Keep a tube of that glue handy. I accidentally sliced my finger 30 minutes after this photo was taken trying to remove the seeds from a jalepeno pepper with my new incredibly sharp Cutco knife. The glue worked great!! #operatorerror)

Hopefully, this post answers any questions about installing power cords and splicing rope light lengths together. Be sure to use our contact page to send us any questions.

If  the hardware in this instruction set doesn’t match what you received, head over to our instructions for our rope light with compression fittings.