LED Strip Lighting

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Hi

This barely qualifies as electronics, but anyway...

While I haven't been paying attention, someone's gone and invented LEDs on strips - and get this; you can cut them to length! Who knew? Everyone else, for about the last decade, I'm sure.

With the misplaced enthusiasm of a convert, I'm now going to plaster every available surface in my 'lab' and the kitchen with these things.


Before I do so, does anyone have any better suggestions for illuminating work surfaces, any caveats for using LED strips, and suggestions for a reputable supplier in the UK?

Thanks
John

[con-f-use]

Well good luck. Good LEDs are harder to pick than a new car and can be almost as expensive.
Not in the UK but I like leds.de very much. Don't know if they ship at a reasonable price.
If you want really bright workspaces light, get a couple of PCBed Cree MK-R warmwhites and a decent heat sink. Enlightenment indeed.

[SeanB]

Cheap ones are not exactly good, and they have a depressingly high failure rate. Then again I am using some real OHL mystery ones, and so long as you look to see that you only run the LED chips inside at the right current ( often the strips run a nominal 15mA die at 50mA or more to make it brighter and give it a corresponding ultra short life) and place them on a metal backplate to keep the die cooler so it will last longer.

I have some in a fridge that seem to be lasting well, though there they are well cooled. That application they were better than the 36W 1.2m fluorescent lamp it came with which was not very happy with low temperature, even inside an insulating jacket. Bonus is the power consumption is around 20W for the strip and the top cover lights, as opposed to the 70W before. Still has around 80W for the circulation fans though.

[Corporate666]

Before I do so, does anyone have any better suggestions for illuminating work surfaces, any caveats for using LED strips, and suggestions for a reputable supplier in the UK?

Thanks
John

I have used many hundreds of meters of those light strips.  A few things are universal...

-The strips, especially those encased in waterproof housings, do not have sufficient heat dissipation for the power running through them.  This means the adhesive on the back will fail pretty quickly from repeated heat cycling, and it means the LED's will also fail relatively quickly.  By "relatively", I mean maybe in the hundreds of hours instead of the tens of thousands you usually would expect from LED strips.

-They are cheap LED's.  CRI won't be good, and it's not like they are using 2-Macadam ellise binning on these things... so there will be a much larger variance in color temperature than there would be with LED's from a reputable manufacturer that are designed for white light illumination.


I always wanted to get some of those thin LED panel lights that Dave did a video about.  I dunno about the UK, but they aren't widely used in the USA.... but some of those hanging under shelving would be perfect, IMO, if bought from a reputable manufacturer with good light quality. 

[electronupdate]

One recent option appears to be strip lighting from LeeValley (leevalley.com).  They seem to have a good selection of strips, power supplies and  heat sink extrusions. It appears to be quality stuff.. there are actual data sheets and safety markings... not just questionable ebay specs..


I recently bought a roll of their 120 leds-per-meter product. This is bright enough for task lighting.  I put it to work in some jigs I am using for youtube video lighting.  So far, so good:

[peter.mitchell]

One recent option appears to be strip lighting from LeeValley (leevalley.com).  They seem to have a good selection of strips, power supplies and  heat sink extrusions. It appears to be quality stuff.. there are actual data sheets and safety markings... not just questionable ebay specs..


I recently bought a roll of their 120 leds-per-meter product. This is bright enough for task lighting.  I put it to work in some jigs I am using for youtube video lighting.  So far, so good:

What do you think of the colour temperature of those strips? If that is with the correct colour temperature adjusted in camera, then find them really "warm", somewhat off-putting on video.

[electronupdate]

What do you think of the colour temperature of those strips? If that is with the correct colour temperature adjusted in camera, then find them really "warm", somewhat off-putting on video.

They are about 3000K.  A cool-white 5000K option (with the same high density 120 leds/m) would be nice, but I don't see those yet on the marketplace