# LED strip lighting advice for accent basement lighting



## basementmonkey (Feb 14, 2017)

Guys, ladies, & trolls

Looking for guidance from the community -- we are finishing our basement and need lighting advice. The main room is 40' x 14' and we are building a floating (suspended) coffered ceiling with LED strip hiding in the crown moulding for accent. The coffered ceiling will be 3 sections wide x 7 sections long or 21 individual pockets. They are roughly 5' x 6' each. I would like to have each rectangle lit so I need ~ 462' linear feet of led strip lighting. Based on the length I'm thinking I would do (3) discrete drivers each powering 7 squares of the ceiling. After researching I would like the following features:

1) RGB diode for color manipulation
2) 24V DC for longer runs
3) Dimmable? I know this isn't truly possible but concerned this may be too much light- maybe less diodes per foot?
4) CRI? Higher the better right?
5) Warm light- 2700K ideal but is this feasible?
6) Controls? Would like to control this via bluetooth or wifi ideally. It would be cool to control each of the 3 sections independently to create team colors for a ball game for example.
7) I read about 5050 or 3528 or 5760 chips. Looking for a higher lumens/watt technology with decent CRI. 5050 seems to be the old grand daddy of the bunch

If this was your basement how would you finish the led strip lighting? Looking for a vendor to order this configuration from as well- looking for quality people first and pricing second.

Thanks!


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## Lithopsian (Feb 15, 2017)

You want RGB and white? It is possible, but just checking. RGB almost inevitably means 5050 strip since they have three diodes per SMD. 5050 is old technology, it would be pretty much obslete if it wasn't the mainstay of the RGB market. 3528 is obsolete, no reason to buy it except price, and it is strictly one colour (usually but not necessarily white). 5730 (I assume you meant) are generally used for white-only high brightness applications.

You can either make do with pseudo-white from the RGB all on at once, or have a separate white SMD on the strip (RGBW). Note that standard RGB strips can be almost any colour but the whole thing will always be the same colour. Addressable strips and controllers are available where each LED can be a different colour to produce special effects.

Warm white LED strips are generally about 3,000 K, possibly a little cooler than you're used to. It is very similar to halogen rather than older incandescent, but there is quite a bit of variation even when the specs are the same. Getting even warmer whites is possible but they are very thin on the ground, especially on an LED strip. RGB strips can generate almost any shade of white you want, but are generally considered to have poor colour rendition and are rarely used like this for general white lighting.

CRI, the more the better. Usually about 80, occasionally less on cheap strips. You can buy strips with CRI above 90, but the price goes up dramatically. It is meaningless anyway for RGB strip, but might be relevant if you want RGBW. Not that I've ever seen any RGBW except the standard CRI 80-ish white.

Yes, you can dim. Any LED strip (except rare and expensive constant current strips) can be reliably and smoothly dimmed using pulse-width modulation. This is pretty much standard on any RGB controller and usually comes with a (fairly cheap) remote. Better controllers are available. For your setup with multiple lengths of strip, you'll need a base controller and slaves. The slave controllers can also be used to supply power. I don't know what sort of power you're looking at or what sort of light you are planning on. Indirect lighting needs a shedload of lumens to get good ambient light in the room, but obviously accent lighting layered on other room lights needs a lot less. 5050 RGB strips are pretty much a standard power, nominally 14.4W/m but that's with all three diodes on at full power. The individual colours provide good levels of accent lighting, the whole lot together is good for indirect lighting but obviously depending on your room size and how much strip you run. Sounds like you have a relatively large amount of strip for the area with your separate rectangles.

24V still limits you practically to about 30' per driver/controller, with some workarounds for lengths up to perhaps double that where absolutely necessary. Plan on a lot of wire for joining all your drivers to the mains, or the drivers to the strips. Mains-voltage strips are available for very long runs from a single power supply, but they aren't really intended for indoor use and have a number of drawbacks. In your case it sounds like the design lends itself to multiple short strips. You effectively have to cut the strip at every 90 degree corner anyway even if you then join the pieces together again.


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## BobBrian (Oct 4, 2018)

I personally used the halo style can. But I used a cheaper brand when we were into (Link removed) Utilitech I think. They were $10 per can versus $16. They will work perfectly with s drop ceiling, as they clip in place. ﻿


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## adityaroy8744 (Oct 30, 2018)

Any LED lights strip can be dimmed by using pulse width modulation. When it comes to controlling the light, I suggest you to choose Wi-Fi controlled light rather than Bluetooth controlled. It is more convenient and you can control those three sections separately. There's more about LED lights at IKEA.


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## scout24 (Oct 30, 2018)

BobBrian- This is the second or third post out of your five that's had a commercial or advertising link removed- please don't post them anymore. Thanks!


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## KENN MOSSMAN (Nov 22, 2018)

basementmonkey said:


> Guys, ladies, & trolls
> After researching I would like the following features:
> 
> 1) RGB diode for color manipulation
> ...



1) WHY RGB???? what kind of activity will go on there?!

2) yep

3) ok if you want - get a package that has one remote/controller controlling several PSUs

4) depends on activity

6) Independent often means ...here 3 controllers


Frankly I would Not use strips - use ceiling lights


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