Your Ultimate Guide on Buying Flexible LED Strip Lights
LEDs are becoming more popular for home lighting. I’m sure you have heard the argument for LEDs over incandescent and even halogen bulbs: they are more efficient, brighter, longer lasting, they don’t produce much heat, they are easily controlled and programmed…the list goes on and on. LEDs come in extremely compact packages that are durable and resistant to shock, making it so they can be used in a variety of ways. One increasingly popular way is in strip lighting. Linear (strip) lighting has become very popular and is becoming an affordable option for home lighting. Buying LED strip lights might seem relatively straight forward, but there are actually many things you need to take into account to make sure you get the right type of light for your needs. Follow us through this post as we walk through the important factors for LED strip lighting and run through our full line of LED light strips.
Types of LED Strip lights
Our LED Strips category is a broad category that includes all different types of LED strip lights. Depending on how you plan on using the LED strips, you may actually need one type over the other. For example, our LED flex strips are better suited for outdoor and wet areas as they have a protective covering that make them waterproof. Below is just a brief description of each kind of LED Strip Light we carry, we will go into more detail on them later in this post as we do have multiple types of strips in some of these categories.
AC LED Flex Strips – Flexible strip lights that run straight from your outlet. Just plug in and they are ready to go.
LED Rope Light – Encased, omni-directional LEDs in the standard rope light packaging.
High Power LED Strips – High Power LEDs from Cree, Luxeon and Nichia mounted to rigid strips with on board drivers and circuitry.
LEDs/length
When buying LED strips it is important to not only look at the length of the strip, but also the amount of LEDs in the length. Ideally, you should look for the strip lights that have the highest amount of LEDs per foot (meter, yard, etc). If LEDs are spaced too far apart across the strips they could produce spotty lighting instead of a clean line of light. It can be confusing as manufacturers use different units of measurement in order to advertise this. My recommendation would be to stick to a certain measurement and then convert all other measurements to see what strips have the most LEDs per set unit of measurement. Below is a breakdown of LEDs/foot for our strips. Take note that this is not the only factor in determining brightness and light quality. Our LED Rope Light, for instance, has more LEDs per foot than our DC LED Flex Strips but they are dim LEDs and are much spottier than the Flex Strips, so always check on brightness of the LEDs as well which we go over in the next section.
LED Strip lights Brightness
As LED technology improves the small diodes light output continues to get brighter. This doesn’t mean all strips will be super bright, in fact in some cases you may not even want the light to be super bright. Brightness of LEDs is measured in lumens. Depending on how you are using the LED strips, you will probably want a certain level of lumens. For accent lighting you will probably not want anything brighter than 200 Lumens per foot but for other applications where you want more light it just depends on your personal preference of how bright you want them. So make sure you take note of the Lumens/length along with the LEDs/length as this will have a strong effect on light quality and the type of light the strip gives off.
LED Strip lights Colors
Our LED strip lights come in a wide range of single colors as well as multi-color strips (RGB). The most basic LED strip lights are our single colors that only emit one fixed light color. They cost less and are generally easier to install. We offer them in: Warm White, Neutral White, Cool White, Red, Green, Blue, and Yellow.
The color changing strips are called RGB strips. These LED lights can display any Red-Green-Blue combination color. These strips require a controller to change colors in flashes or stay on one selected solid color.
LED strip lights Color Temperature
Color temperature is how we differentiate the various white colors that an LED can produce. Temperature indicates how ‘warm’ or ‘cool’ the light appears. Temperature is measured in Kelvin with higher temps representing cool colors (blueish hue) and lower temps representing warmer colors (yellowish light you would expect from a bulb). See below for a more visual explanation.
Installation of LED Strip Lighting
When buying strip lights for an application you should always have an idea of how you will mount them and set them up. For some strips like the DC LED Flex Strips, it is as easy as exposing the adhesive backing and sticking them onto a clean surface, but for some installations it can be much more difficult for mounting, cutting and wiring strips together. Here are some factors you should always keep in mind, we will get more specific farther on in this post when we talk about each individual strip:
Know your strips power and voltage requirements
Flexibility of the LED strip lights
Durability of the LED strips
Decide whether other components such as connectors or extra wire are needed
Decide how you will dim, control, or program the strips you set up
Flexible LED Strip lights Wattage
Another key factor in setting up your LED strips is knowing the wattage. First you need to find out the wattage of the system you want to set up. Here at ledstripcabinet we provide you with the wattage per length of strip so it is easy to find what your total wattage will be once you know how many linear feet of strips you have. Finding total wattage will not only help you find an adequate power supply but will also let you know how much electricity you will be using with your new setup.
Once you know total wattage you just need to find a power supply. You will need a power supply for all of our strips other than the AC Flex Strips and LED Rope Light, which are plug and go so they do not need a power supply, just a standard wall outlet to plug into. First thing when looking for a power supply is knowing what input voltage your LED Strips require. Some require AC/DC, 12V/24V…just make sure you know what your strip needs and get a power supply with that output. Then make sure the wattage of the power supply is at least 10% higher than the wattage your LED strips will consume. If there is no wattage listed on the power supply (there always will be on our site) it’s a good thing to note that: Output Voltage x Amperage = Wattage of your power supply.
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