LED Strip Lights: How to Choose Best Led Strip Lights

FACTS CHECKED BY  Bob Smith

Do you want to decorate your room using LED strip lights? If yes, then you are at the right place. LED strip lights are vital features you should add to your house to make it more attractive. Most people do not know the suitable strips to use where and when. Below is a highlight that we hope is of great help to get you out of this confusion.

1. What are LED Strip Lights?

These are small linear lights fixed on a surface mounted with light-emitting diodes. The shell contains a strip of LED chips of different sizes set on a movable circuit board. 

It comes with an adhesive backing for fixing it to a clean and dry surface.

They improve the appearance of different places and make them more decorative and appealing, whether for aesthetic or functional reasons. You can add them in the living room as accent features in furniture designs or separately. You can cut the strip and connect it to a different part to have a customized accent and exterior lighting.

2.Types of LED strip light

There are plenty of LED strip lights available in the electronics shops. You can choose any that suits your needs and install it in your room. These LED lights come in a variety of colors and brightness that you can apply in different places.

Dimmable LED strip lights

Dimmable LED strip lights

These are LED strip lights with a remote connection to the dimmer unit using two cables from the power source. The dimmer behaves like a valve, and the power source unit provides the required voltage according to the dimmer’s power settings. Nevertheless, LED strip lights sometimes become dim when the power is low, say a power drop from 120v to 12v.

Color changing LED strip light

Color changing LED strip lights

Color changing LED Strip lights is one of the best smarts LED Strip lights. These types of LED strip lights are made using a strong material that is resistant to weather changes. This product is top-notch as it offers the best performance and safety.

Its design is very outstanding and an excellent choice for improving the appearance of your porch, dining room, living room, and for events such as parties and Christmas.

Flexible LED strip lights

Flexible LED strip lights

These are LED Strip lights that give out an attractive, long-lasting, and energy-efficient solution for accent lighting and others. It comes in different lengths, brightness intensities, and color temperatures to solve your outdoor and indoor needs. Flexible LED Lights come with an adhesive backing for easy and straightforward installation.

Solar LED strip light

These are battery operated LED strip lights. Solar LED strip lights are trying to outdo the conventional light as they are easy to maintain. These strip lights are very cheap to maintain and have left everyone amazed. Additionally, they are environment friendly as they utilize natural power from the sun.

Outdoor LED strip light

Outdoor LED strip lights

Outdoor LED strip lights are installed on the outer part of your home to add color and touch and impress the neighbors, especially at night. It is crucial to choose the best outdoor LED strip light for your house.

3. LED strip light connector

LED strip lights connector

Many LED Strip lights connectors in the market include interconnecting cables, Pigtail connectors, CPS connectors, jumpers, angle connectors, and splitter cables. All these connectors connect the strip to controllers, power supplies, or even connecting to other strips.  

4. Best LED strip light list

  • Gove LED strip lights
  • DAY BETTER LED Strip Light
  • Tenmiro 65.6ft LED Strip Light
  • MINGER LED Strip Lights 16.4ft
  • PANTON VILLA LED Strip Light
  • Novostella Dimmable LED Light Strip
  • Nexillumi LED Strip Light

How to choose an LED strip light?

It is important to know how different strip lights give out lights to avoid embarrassment after installation. Below is a guide on how to choose the best-LED strip light for your apartment.

Location of Use

Once your ceiling gets done, fix the LED tape a bit far from the wall to avoid having some light-dotting. Fit your roof well and have the LED strip light about 90mm far from the ceiling and about 40mm to the wall.

LEDs/length

It is advisable to check the number of LEDs per length when purchasing LED strip lights. For maximum light and better light quality, buy the strip lights with a higher number of LEDs per meter. When LEDs are close across the strip, they give out clean lighting than when spaced far apart. Sometimes it is confusing as different manufacturers use different units of measurements. To avoid any confusion, stick to one measurement unit and convert other measurements to check the number of strips per unit.

The brightness of LED Strip Light

Currently, LED lights can offer better bright light than in the past. However, in some situations, such as accent lighting, you may need more glowing light.

Depending on your needs, you may require a given amount of lumens. However, this should never worry you as most manufacturers list the number of lumens in their LED Strip Light.

LED Strip Colors and Color Temperature

Most LED strip lights come in different colors (RGB), and others come in a single color. The color-changing strips display any combination of colors, mostly being blue-red- green. LED strip colors need to be connected to a controller to alternate colors or set to one solid color.

On the other hand, color temperature is the difference between several white colors that a LED strip light can produce. Temperature shows how cool or warm the light seems.

LED Strip Wattage and powering

Another vital thing to consider is the power required by the system you want to install. This will help you find enough power supply and know the amount of energy you will be consuming with your LED strip light.

Wiring and Connecting LED Strips

To avoid embarrassment, you should first understand how to connect the strips to install one. If you make poor connections, the lights might go off unexpectedly or fail to work ultimately.

 This process is made easier by the use of the correct strip connector. The connectors help you avoid using a soldering iron as it would cost you a lot of time if you have many connections needed. Due to this reason, many LED strip lights have solderless connectors.

Dimming LED Strip Light

All LED Strip Light can be dim when the input voltage goes down by using a dimmer. The challenge here is that the voltage is at a constant value such as 24 or 12V. This implies that using a dimmer won’t be useful to adjust the voltage since the power supply readjusts automatically to its set voltage. Therefore, dimming will only occur on lower voltage.

How to install led strip light

Installing LED strip light is very simple. You just need to know the measurements of the area you want to install and the type of strip lights you need to install. For information, please see our post on how to make LED Lights.

Common LED Strip Fails and How to Avoid Them?

LED strip light may fail to function as required due to one reason or another. During installation, ensure that you fix them onto a clean surface. You can use cleaning materials like methylated spirit to clean any dust, grease, or otherwise and give it time to dry.

Additionally, ensure you supply your LED strip light with the recommended voltage. As high voltage would make them melt and eventually fall off if not screwed well.

FAQs

How to connect multiple LED strip light

Multiple LED strips can be connected in different ways depending on your room’s design and considerations. You can join them using the series connection or parallel connection.

Series connection: this is the easiest and direct method you can use. You’re only required to join one end of the LED light strip to the other. If you want the LED strips close to each other, you can use solderless connectors copper wires trimmed to your desired length.

Parallel connection: In this approach, each LED strip is connected directly to the power source. This method reduces power consumption as the current does not need to go through every LED strip section. Nevertheless, this method requires a lot of wiring, which is an added expense.

Can LED strip light cause a fire?

Absolutely no. Since LED strip lights do not produce light using a vacuum mechanism as other ordinary bulbs, overheating may cause them to start a fire. But this is a rare case to happen with LED strip light. They might feel too hot when you touch them, but they emit light at low temperatures compared to ordinary bulbs.

What is the longest LED strip available?

This can be either 5 meters or even 50 meters, depending on the LED strip light’s power rating. You can go for the one that fits your installation well.

Conclusion

That’s all about LED strip light. Buying and installing LED strip lights should not be a problem for you anymore. When installing LED strip light, the important thing is to ensure you are aware of the area restrictions and application and then know installation options, colors, and power requirements.

With the above guide, you will get the right LED strip light for your premises. If you found this guide helpful, feel free to share it on your social media platforms, as this encourages us the most and helps build confidence for those who don’t understand the importance of LEDs.

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