LED strips are low voltage lighting devices, typically coming at 5V, 12V and 24V. They are often used in architectural lighting, light letter lighting, concealed lighting, perimeter lighting and many other applications as a replacement for older and less efficient technologies, from incandescent, fluorescent, halogen or neon lighting and will often be at least twice as bright as other decoration options in this type of field, such as rope lighting fixtures.

The beauty of these LED strips is that they come in a variety of versions. The main manufacturers can offer single colour and RGB versions, so you will effectively get your hands on White, Warm White, Red, Green, Blue and Yellow mono colour strips.

LED Strip Types

Since LED’s are one of the fast growing areas of the light emitting diode market, there are several subcategories within this industry.

• Rigid Strips: with or without waterproof protection, with PCB board finishing, encased in plastic or with aluminium backside, using high power SMD or older LED technologies such as mounted diodes.
• Flexible Strip: with or without waterproof protection, with or without adhesive tape on the back, whilst using either SMD technology or older mounting technologies, which are becoming less and less common.

The biggest share of the category is taken up by the flexible LED strips, which consist of mainly a low profile surface mounted diodes, which are the same type of chips used in latest fluorescent LED tube T8, but in the case of the strips they are attached to a flexible conductor strip, whereby power is is applied to one end to produce a smooth lineal light.

Since the mounting base is flexible, these types of LED strips can be installed in multiples and they offer one more advantage vs. rigid strips (LED bars) – they can be cut to custom size and reattached or even interconnected if needed. This can be done by soldering a simple section at marked solder spots, or by the use of fast connectors, something easily achievable from any main supplier. Normally, flexible strip LED is manufactured in reels, typically 3 to 5 metres long, based on the chip and design of reel connectors.

The magnificence of LED strips is that the possibilities of design are literally endless, although the common uses may seem the most predominant. You should check out LED Illuminations for more information, along with a range of products, ideas and applications that will benefit from LED devices.

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