I had a bit of a buying spree of random LED tapes to keep in general stock for experimental purposes and testing. I got six non-waterproof 5m rolls from an online supplier called tinydeal and one waterproof roll from a UK ebay seller called lucemi-LED.
Interestingly there is a huge variation between the rolls in terms of the current per 5m length at 12V. Red had the highest current, running its LEDs at a full 20mA, while the warm white was running its LEDs at just 6mA. Possibly for longevity.
The waterproof green tape was actually 120 LEDs per metre (600 LEDs per roll) which was nice. especially as I'd ordered the 60 LED per metre version.
Interestingly there is a huge variation between the rolls in terms of the current per 5m length at 12V. Red had the highest current, running its LEDs at a full 20mA, while the warm white was running its LEDs at just 6mA. Possibly for longevity.
The waterproof green tape was actually 120 LEDs per metre (600 LEDs per roll) which was nice. especially as I'd ordered the 60 LED per metre version.
Have you ever done a walk through of your house and garden lighting effects? I imagine cool night lights, mood illumination and sort of interesting functional work lights and such.
Love your channel, I"m going to be doing a lighting system with these kinds of LED's I noticed that the voltage drop was significant due to the very thin copper on the tapes. The brightness falls off fairly rapidly around a meter, Thought you might want to do some experimenting sometime. I'm doing an indirect lighting system for my room and am running 12 awg buses to tap to so the illumination is even.
Look up the reviews on Tinydeal, you my have second thoughts…
I bought some of those China Led strips off of eBay and replaced my under cabinet fluorescents with them. We run them all night as a night light and after just one month, half of them are no longer burning. Some just fine, but other just stopped and others dim.
Love LED tape – I've replaced most of the lighting in the main room of my apartment with a 5m strip of 300 4100K LEDs, rated to yield a total of 3850 lumens. I installed aluminum angle (with 3M Command adhesive strips, so the landlord has nothing to complain about) near the ceiling with the LEDs aimed at the ceiling so I get bounce diffusion. The LEDs stay cool and I get a nice even light. The remainder of the strip went under the through-wall A/C unit as the main strip is above it and the A/C casts a shadow right beneath it. I have a dimmer on that bit, just for fun. ๐ To my eye, these LEDs produce a very neutral white light – no significant yellow or blue overtones, which was exactly what I wanted.
Differences in copper weight and/or trace width will also have an effect on the total current draw of a long segment of tape. Certainly not enough to account for the full range of currents you measured, but it would be interesting to measure the current drawn by a single meter (or less) of each tape and compare that to the value you've calculated from the current drawn by the full 5m segment.
This is a factor people often neglect when installing large quantities of led tape. With the RGB chip tapes there's a noticeable change in color from one end to the other of a >= 5m length–as the voltage drops along the tape the blue and green LEDs drop out first due to their higher Vf, while the reds drop out more gradually.
you can put Shiraz in your sodastream. its good.
Up the voltage for higher current
The variation in LED currents is most likely due to the red green and blue chips needing to have similar intensities and brightness so single colours don't stand out when mixing them together.
Aren't those the kind of the mA values you'd expect when you use the same value resistor for the different color led strips?
Thank you for the vid, I too had a spree off my own with this led tapes. from separate colars, to rgb led water proof and not. There was a lot off variations of each strand even though I had boughten them all from the same seller. I even somehow managed to get a hold of a row that went up in smoke when the 12v controller was connected. Though I recently came across some nice rgb led tape. Unlike some of the other rolls I had of it, these where a few bucks more. The color is quiet vibrant and they use about a 3rd less total energy then the other few rolls of it I have.
Another great video. JAT is there any specification for efficiency. How much of the power is converted to visible light and how much to heat.
Great videos keep up the great work
I install electrics in large modern kitchens and used to use the 5050 RGB tape for mood lighting but as you know the rgb white is poor
Now I use RGBW5050 tape with wifi controller and is great stuff
This is the stuff from Ebay 301696972142