Decent White LED Strips?

keith204

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Jan 9, 2017
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I have ordered/used 20-30 12V LED strips over the past few years... 2835, 5050, 5630s. I typically order strips in the $10-20 range from Amazon that are rated well, and am disappointed 80% of the time. Color is wicked low, temp is way odd, etc. I found one set that I really liked, but then, I can't seem to find them again. I found another set I totally loved! But then, after a few weeks they changed to an eerie green. (then I put some color correction filters across them to bring them back-ish)

But now...door trim

I'm remodeling/streamlining two closets in my house. One is a kids clothing closet, and one is a craft room supply closet. Both pretty small, so I'm planning on building the inside door trim with built-in LED strips. I want to get decent, bright white light in a low profile sort of design. (not cool white, but 3000-3500k-ish light that produces whites, reds, blues, greens well.)

Have any of you found LED strips that you like for their consistent color output?

(I'll start another thread with a question about alternatives)
 

nanakuli

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Joined
Sep 13, 2013
Messages
6
I have ordered/used 20-30 12V LED strips over the past few years... 2835, 5050, 5630s. I typically order strips in the $10-20 range from Amazon that are rated well, and am disappointed 80% of the time. Color is wicked low, temp is way odd, etc. I found one set that I really liked, but then, I can't seem to find them again. I found another set I totally loved! But then, after a few weeks they changed to an eerie green. (then I put some color correction filters across them to bring them back-ish)

But now...door trim

I'm remodeling/streamlining two closets in my house. One is a kids clothing closet, and one is a craft room supply closet. Both pretty small, so I'm planning on building the inside door trim with built-in LED strips. I want to get decent, bright white light in a low profile sort of design. (not cool white, but 3000-3500k-ish light that produces whites, reds, blues, greens well.)

Have any of you found LED strips that you like for their consistent color output?

(I'll start another thread with a question about alternatives)

Sounds like you'll want to stay away from Amazon for this project. The LED strips sold there are from the bottom of the barrel - basically leftover cheap commodity grade LEDs that are rejected by big-name brands and then resold on the secondary market. I've seen LED strips advertised as low as 70 cents per meter.

I would recommend looking into high CRI LED strips - those are usually built with higher quality LEDs and better LED strip material in general. A quick google search should turn up quite a few options...
 

keith204

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Jan 9, 2017
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Sounds like you'll want to stay away from Amazon for this project. The LED strips sold there are from the bottom of the barrel - basically leftover cheap commodity grade LEDs that are rejected by big-name brands and then resold on the secondary market. I've seen LED strips advertised as low as 70 cents per meter.

I would recommend looking into high CRI LED strips - those are usually built with higher quality LEDs and better LED strip material in general. A quick google search should turn up quite a few options...

Alright, that makes sense.

However, there is a spot lower than bottom of the barrel. I ordered a few LED strips from AliExpress for $3-5 each out of curiosity. The strip felt as thin as a strip of wax paper.
 

ssanasisredna

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Oct 19, 2016
Messages
457
Sounds like you'll want to stay away from Amazon for this project. The LED strips sold there are from the bottom of the barrel - basically leftover cheap commodity grade LEDs that are rejected by big-name brands and then resold on the secondary market. I've seen LED strips advertised as low as 70 cents per meter.

I would recommend looking into high CRI LED strips - those are usually built with higher quality LEDs and better LED strip material in general. A quick google search should turn up quite a few options...

I like how people just make up explanations like above with no clue what they are talking about ....

Cheap LED strips are NOT made up of "commodity" leds rejected by the big guys then resold on secondary market.

These are LEDs purpose built to be cheap, built with small die and cheap packages, with questionable phosphor, operated at too high a current to achieve adequate life when coupled with the wafer thin copper in the strip expected to remove heat.

The LEDs inside a cheap strip were never going to see the inside of a fixture for a name brand lighting company.

That said, almost any LED operated at reasonable parameters will last a long time. Cheap strips dimmed will last quite a bit longer.
 

keith204

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Jan 9, 2017
Messages
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I like how people just make up explanations like above with no clue what they are talking about ....

Cheap LED strips are NOT made up of "commodity" leds rejected by the big guys then resold on secondary market.

These are LEDs purpose built to be cheap, built with small die and cheap packages, with questionable phosphor, operated at too high a current to achieve adequate life when coupled with the wafer thin copper in the strip expected to remove heat.

The LEDs inside a cheap strip were never going to see the inside of a fixture for a name brand lighting company.

That said, almost any LED operated at reasonable parameters will last a long time. Cheap strips dimmed will last quite a bit longer.

interesting...and good news.

Please checkout these RGB LED Strip (https://www.saving-light-bulbs.co.uk/led-strip-lights/rgbw-strip/24v-16w-m-ip20), they produce white light as well as RED, GREEN and Blue. However their white light reproduction is in the range of 4000K-4500k (Natural white).

The strip can be controlled using the RGBW- RF contollers or using many other methods like DMX. The DMX signals are sent from a master controller which are used to control the taoe via a RGBW DMX Decoder.

I ended up going in a direction similar to this.

I found on Amazon a type of strip that had both WW and CW LEDs. Every other LED was different. I put both channels on dimmers so that I can mix and match as time goes on if they shift color. The quality of the strip was better than any of the other LED strips I've had, and at this point I'm pretty thrilled.
 

KENN MOSSMAN

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Sep 11, 2018
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15
I like how people just make up explanations like above with no clue what they are talking about ....

Cheap LED strips are NOT made up of "commodity" leds rejected by the big guys then resold on secondary market.

These are LEDs purpose built to be cheap, built with small die and cheap packages, with questionable phosphor, operated at too high a current to achieve adequate life when coupled with the wafer thin copper in the strip expected to remove heat.

I dare say I DO KNOW ...I have lived in China for TEN years and been to MANY electronics factories and they do use rejects and as you stated.
 

MeMeMe

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Aug 27, 2018
Messages
125
I dare say I DO KNOW ...I have lived in China for TEN years and been to MANY electronics factories and they do use rejects and as you stated.

I would have to agree with ssanasisredn on this one, if simply for the fact that cheap LED strips don't use the type of packaged LEDs that "the big guys" use. General illumination does not use the type of parts used in LED strips. Cell-phones, TVs and monitors do not use the type of LEDs used in LED strips. Automotive supply chains require vastly different supply chains/suppliers (and mainly use different parts). That leaves you mainly with markets where the volume of production would not be sufficient to generate enough "rejects", that just happen to be in the same package as LED strips use. I would even question whether there would be sufficient small rejected die to support the market. LED strips are a fairly large market and the number of LEDs used per strip is very high. The majority of the volume is in "cheap strips", not the high quality strips.

There are lots of low end LED die and packaging vendors in China with questionably processes, business practices, and margin requirements that support these kinds of markets. (And there are lots of really well run ones too).

This is not to say that there are not vendors, products, etc. made with LEDs that rely on rejects for a good portion of their production, but they will tend towards lower volume products ..... like flashlights :)
 
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