They were only lighting up half way, only lighting up one node and light up part with with a node at the end blinking....
...
panic set in ... OMG, there nodes say tm1809 ... checked rays site, ok, thats normal/ok
...
still not working, whats going on?
...
wires getting really hot, oh no !!!!
....
turns out that I didn't trim the wires off on the end of the string, and they must have been making contact, causing
all sorts of nasty problems ... lucky I didn't blow them up.
...
so they all work now
Moral of the story: trim off the ends of your flex strings and seal them up ... if they touch, bad things WILL happen and
will make your flex strings appear to be bad !!!
I was about to send them back, when I realized the ends might be touching (just how they came from factory) ... and sure enough,
that was the problem on all the strips!
Ahhhh ... peace returns