LED-Tape / LED -Stripes Kaufberatung: Gutes LED-Tape erkennen [watt24-Video Nr.156]

Hello and welcome to

watt24

, your online professional lighting store. My name is Marco Avella and today I bring you something particularly nice: LED

tape

or LED strips as he is also called. They are currently widespread and extremely popular. But the market offers a large number of offers in a wide range of qualities. This

video

aims to provide clarity on the features and advantages of LED

tape

, but more importantly: the quality characteristics of a good LED tape. That means: what do you have to consider before buying so you don't have to worry about it later? The

video

is about the basics of LED tape.

For now, let's start with the advantages of LED tape: LED tape is extremely flexible, bendable into any shape. Flexible in length, fixation and shape, you can do whatever you want with it. It is small, narrow and usually self-adhesive. Therefore, the fields of application of LED tapes are very diverse. You can use them in the bedroom, in the living room, in the kitchen, on the stairs, in clubs, bars and stores. Actually, wherever you want. Another very important advantage of LED strips is their easy installation. Basically, just place it, stick it, plug it in, and you're done. There are also LED strips that are dimmable.

This means that the glow is flexible, so you can create, for example, different moods. And there are LED strips that can produce any colors you want. Here you can also create different moods. And finally, there are special LED tapes that are waterproof. The disadvantage of LED strips is that they require a special driver. Because LED strips only work with direct voltage. As is well known, the alternating voltage comes from the plug. However, it is possible to connect several LED strips in parallel to said controller. Let's now move on to the components of an LED tape installation: Firstly, the LED tape itself, here you can see the individual LEDs that are connected to it.

Then we need a connection cable that leads to the appropriate controller. Then the connection between the LED strip and the driver. And here I have an intermediate piece to connect already separated LED strips. For example, to expand existing bands. These are available for soldering or something like this very simple solution from Tridonic that I brought here, just click. And of course, very important, as we have already said, the right driver. Important when choosing the correct driver: Make sure the driver supplies the required DC voltage for the respective tape. There are 12V or 24V. Also important when choosing the right driver is the length of the LED strip you want to feed to the driver.

For this, the information “Watts per meter (W/m)” of the LED tape is very important. For example, if you have an LED strip that is five meters long and five watts per meter, then you will need five times five, which is 25 watts, to operate it. This means that the driver must deliver at least 25 watts. However, you should make sure to add a 20% reserve. Now let's move on to something very important: the quality characteristics of the LED tape. How do I recognize high quality LED tape? First is efficiency. This Tridonic tape, for example, has a value of 130 lumens per watt.

It's a very, very good value. However, it must be kept in mind that efficiency is always achieved to a small extent at the expense of color reproduction. This brings us to the next quality characteristic: color reproduction. The CRI or Ra value must be greater than 80. Another very important quality characteristic is, of course, the service life of the LED tape. The useful life of an LED is the time in which it has lost half of its initial luminosity. 25,000 hours is a pretty good value. High temperatures drastically shorten the life of the LED. It would be really nice if the manufacturer even offered a warranty for the LED tape, like in this case Tridonic, which offers a five-year warranty for this tape.

That means it is a very good and reliable LED tape. The quality of the glue is also very important. Make sure that the self-adhesive surface is provided with a high-quality adhesive, such as in this case a 3M brand adhesive, so that the LED tape has a good and secure hold later. Another important characteristic of LED strips is the number of LEDs per unit. The more LEDs you have on the strip, the more uniform the light emitted will be. And since all this was perhaps too much, let's now review the most important numbers. First of all is the information about the volume on the LED strip: this is important for choosing the right driver.

Here they are 12 or 24V. Watts per meter: Indicates energy consumption. And they are important to calculate how much power you need throughout the application so you can buy the right controller. Light color in Kelvin (K): For each room there is a suitable light color. For living spaces it is usually warm white at 3000 K, for offices neutral white at 4000 K and in industrial daylight 5000 K. Then, the color rendering value CRI or Ra. How stable is light? A value of 80 or more is good here. The LED per meter. The more LEDs there are per meter, the more uniform the light emitted.

Lumens per meter. The intensity of the luminous flux emitted by the LED tape per meter. Then the shine. If you have any further questions about this topic, the products shown, or general questions, please feel free to contact us via phone, chat, or live presentation. Because at

watt24

we will not leave you in the dark.