LED strip application

LED strips can be seen almost everywhere. A car rides, and its headlights burn brightly LEDs. Motorists affectionately call such a backlight "cilia." The purpose of such a backlight is daytime running lights, this is a requirement of car inspection, and not the desire of the car owner to decorate his car.

Such lights are much more economical and more durable than incandescent lamps used in headlights. However, if you want to decorate your car, you can use the colored ribbon, gluing it wherever your soul desires.

You go to the store, there are also LEDs everywhere: the goods on the windows are highlighted, various cabinets are also indicated by luminous stripes. Even street advertising is highlighted with LED strips. And no one soldered these LEDs one at a time, everything is already soldered to us.

In domestic conditions, LED strip can also be used. This is the illumination of ceilings, aquariums, cabinets. You open the wardrobe to get an evening dress, and the backlight automatically turns on inside.

If in the kitchen it’s dark to wash dishes or cut vegetables, then it will also help LED Strip Light. It is enough in the right place just to glue a piece of LED strip of suitable length. And there are a great many such examples, who have enough imagination.

There are even such recommendations for the use of LED strip. It is known that watching TV or sitting behind a computer monitor in a dark room is very harmful to vision. A luminous screen against a dark background is a very contrasting sight, and it just strains your eyes to pain. Therefore, it is recommended to include at least some, even the weakest, lighting.

If you place a strip of LED strip on the back of the TV, then the light reflected from the walls will be this weakest lighting. The easiest way is to stick the tape directly on the back of the monitor or TV, then look at the screen will be much more comfortable.

How good such a recommendation will help verify only an experiment, almost a scientific study. The benefit of assembling such a system is not very difficult, we must try.

The use of LED strip is quite successful in the repair of computer monitors or televisions. If the fluorescent lamps of the screen backlight have become unusable, then replacing them with LED strips will help revive the faded monitor.

The image quality will not deteriorate at all if it does not get better, and at the same time, the durability of the backlight will be much higher, since the life of the LEDs is ten times higher than that of fluorescent lamps. The only inconvenience of such a replacement is the need for some refinement, not a very complex, electronic circuit of the monitor.

How are LED strips arranged?

LED strip is a thin flexible circuit board. SMD LEDs and limit resistors are soldered on one side of the board, which allows you to connect the tape directly to a power source.

On the same side of the tape are contacts for soldering the connecting wires. Every three LEDs, you can see the image of the scissors, and next to them a line across the tape. According to this trait, a piece of tape of the desired length can be cut with scissors. The minimum length of the segment is three LEDs.

There is a self-adhesive tape on the back of the tape, which makes it easy to attach the LED strip anywhere. No nails, screws or glue needed.

Figure 1. LED strip device

LED strip voltage

The supply voltage of LED strips is standardized. Here we are talking about voltage, and not about current, since current-limiting resistors on the tape are already installed. Tapes for voltage of 12 V, 24 V, 36 V, 48V are available. The most common tape voltage is 12 and 24V.

The rest are rare, so they can be called exotic.Therefore, the voltage of the power supply must match the voltage of the LED strip. The choice of power supply will be discussed a little further.

A variety of LED strips

LED strips are available in several types. First of all, this, of course, is a ribbon of white glow. Their main purpose is the creation of small light sources, the illumination of small areas. From here their so great popularity turns out.

The shade, like in fluorescent lamps, can be different: white warm, white daytime or cold white. This parameter is determined by the color temperature of the applied LEDs.

LEDs used in LED strips

Two types of LED strips are used. SMD LEDs. These are SMD3528 and SMD5050. These names hide the geometric dimensions in millimeters. SMD3528 has dimensions 3.5 * 2.8 mm, and SMD5050 5 * 5 mm.

But these are not all the differences. If only one LED with a rated current of 20 mA is hidden in the SMD3528 package, then the SMD5050 consists of three of the same LEDs, each of which has its own conclusions. The rated current of each LED is also 20mA. Therefore, the SMD5050 can safely be called an LED assembly.

Figure 2. SMD5050 LED

Overall dimensions and pinout (the more fashionable term "pinout" from the English pin - pin) SMD5050 is shown in Figure 3.

Figure 3. Overall dimensions of the SMD5050 LED assembly

It goes without saying that the SMD5050 can give more light power than the SMD3528. It may not be exactly three times, but 2.5 is for sure.

But in itself this does not mean that the LED strip based on SMD5050 will provide greater illumination than the strip based on SMD3528. A large role in the power of illumination is played by such a parameter of LED strips as the number of LEDs per meter.

Figure 4. Number of LEDs per meter

Thus, it is easy to see that on the basis of SMD3528 LEDs, tapes are produced in the range of 60 ... 240 LEDs per meter, and on SMD5050 LEDs in the range of 30 ... 120. It should be noted that the width of the tapes on the SMD5050 is slightly larger than the tapes based on SMD3528, which under certain conditions causes some difficulties. This remark primarily refers to the repair of monitors and TVs mentioned above.

The number of lamps per meter is also not the last factor in choosing a tape for repair. A more even illumination of the monitor screen will give a tape with 120 LEDs per meter. If you apply a tape with 60 LEDs per meter, the backlight is not very bright, and most importantly, uneven, with dark and light columns. Well, so-so, at C grade. When using LED strips just for decorative purposes, for decoration, the number of LEDs per meter does not play a special role. It is visible that it is glowing, and okay.

Continuation of the article: RGB LED Strip (device and use of color RGB tapes). How to choose the right LED strip is described here: How to choose LED strip for home