So much choice! LED tape lights.

[Tim Watts]

This is not a question really...

Just an observation - but the things I've found are quite interesting.

No affiliation with anyone listed below.

Going to be using a fair bit of LED tape. The basic lighting circuits are now done at the bungalow. So this is "poncing about for fun".

I needed some low profile LED lights that do not need sinking into a ceiling (insulation and irregularly spaced rafters above).

Chose this profile:

which has the advantage of being nearly invisible to the casual observer against a white ceiling, and wide enough to cover a 20mm cable entry hole (more on that later).

Going to use a wood version:

in the conservatory around the "cove" area under the roof, top of the window sections. Again, it will be discrete.

I've had test sections of both up and it looks good.

Also has the advantage of being trivial to unclip to replace the tape if that fails.

On the same line, I found these:

which make perfect power connectors - strain relief, locking and screw terminal. And thin enough to poke up a 20 mm hole in the ceiling. Comes in a male and female cable mount type.

So the LEDs can be dropped off and unplugged for painting and repair.

If I used an RGBW tape I'd need 5 connections, so probably use a quality

5A rated DIN plug/socket for that.

PSUs:

Over-Everything protection, shrouded terminals and strain relief. It's amazing how much shit is sold in the sheds (and electrical wholesalers)

- stuff with single insulated mains wires coming out the end. WTF am I supposed to do with those to make them compliant?

Now for the tape - this is where it gets hard:

Had the 14.4W/m, and 9.6W/m on test in the mid -whites. The 14.4 is insanely bright. The 9.6 might do in the conservatory where I will run

8m of it around the perimeter.

But now I'm torn. Wouldn't it be cute to deploy some RGBW tape and have funky colours plus a decent white at 1000 lumens/m! Just makes the wiring much harder trying to run 5 cores of 0.5mm2 - 0.75mm2 around...

That's not a complaint - I am just amazed by how far this has come.

Those tapes are also water proof without sleeving, so they might get used for soffit lighting too.

24V versions naturally :)

Photos of real installations as I progress...

Tim

[nospam]

On 10/11/2016 14:58, Tim Watts wrote: ... snipped

Thanks for posting that link, I didn't realise extrusion for LED tape was available and it should help me solve a couple of problems.

[whisky-dave]

Over only played with lower voltage 5V strips. You don't need 5 core cable just 4 and only 2 of those are power the other data. Might be a bit expensive but....

I used an arduniuo to contol the lighting effects.

I did have some, but where is another Q :)

[Tim Watts]

The 24V is nice for lower currents and less volt drop problems :)

Well, you do for these particular ones :) R,G,B,W + -ve - they are fairly dumb.

I have come across an RGBW version - but you have to buy it direct from the states. Possibly an AdaFruit make.

The LEDs are arranged as a giant shift register chain. However, there's a clever bit where the data can be loaded then activated later, in a faster manner synchronously across the whole tape. Same LEDs as used on the Unicorn Pi "Hat".

In fact, that only needs 3 wires IIRC.

[Tim Watts]

There's another type where you lose the clips too. Has a separate extruded rail that acts as one giant but visually integrated clip.

There are a lot of possibilities - and with LEDs I see no reason to be drilling 88mm holes (etc) in the ceiling for downlighters.

[Thomas Prufer]

You know Big Clive's LED controller?

Just PWM, though.

Thomas Prufer

[whisky-dave]

Yes good for boats and caravans I suppose.

Possibley, but is that such a problem oh we don't have a trade deal I forgot ;-)

[John Rumm]

[John Rumm]

Also

and for a bit of a pose:

[Tim Watts]

Cute :)

[Tim Watts]

No - but someone did mention TLC had something funky.

The *really* smart addressable LED I mentioned earlier is the:

WS2812B

[Tim Watts]

Aye - I tried those. The problem is they tend not to fit inside the ali profile, if you choose to use it. Which is a pity as it's a neat solution.

Also for very long runs (10m at 24V or 5m at 12V typically, soldering is recommended due to the higher current).

The LED Lighthouse guys have quite a lot of stuff like that.

For my dormer (which you've seen, but is actually 3/4 plasterboarded now!) I want to use 4 x 2.5m strips of white (prolly 4000K) strips on the ceiling for overall lighting (now have a very low ceiling due to extra insulation).

But behind the purlins where these are in the open, my mate suggested some RGBW tape for wall-wash effects.

For those I fancy:

Not remote controllable, but a nice "proper fixed" affair. Not tried that particular one yet - need to see some reviews.

I considered Fibaro RGBW Z Wave controllers. However, I prefer to have wired controls available too that "just work". For dimmers this can be a simple grid momentary button. But for RGBW, you'd need 4 buttons and it would be pretty horrible to operate manually.

[John Rumm]

I soldered a bit of two core flex on to the end of mine... once heat shrunk up it was fine.

I did that with my garden building, it works very well with them tucked up under the eves:

Yup that's quite neat.

Yup.

What irritates me is all the nice kits of tape and PSU etc you can buy (often for less than the price of the tape on its own). They always seem to come with wall wart PSUs rather than wireable ones...

[Tim Watts]

Nice...