When you installs LED strips, you may notice that the brightness of the LED strips decrease with the distance from the power source. This voltage drop that occur in the LED strips is due to the resistance of the LED strips. In order to avoid voltage drops in your LED strips, you need to understand the relationship between wattage, voltage, and current.
LED strips is electrical circuits, and as such, will encounter resistance in its path through the LED strips themselves. If you do not account for this resistance, the LED strips will become dim at one end of the strip. The type of LED chip that you use will affect the brightness of the LED strips.
How to Stop LED Strips Going Dim
Some LED chips emits more light then others. For example, some manufacturers create LED chips to emit subtle light while others create LED chips to emit high levels of brightnesses from the LED strips. The LED chip that you use must be appropriate for the lighting task that you are performing in your installation.
If you use an LED chip with high output levels in a small area, the LED strips will create heat that is not needed in that area and will waste electricity. Use an LED chip that emits the amount of light that your installation need. Voltage is another important factor when you decide how to power your LED strips.
While 12 volt LED strips are common, 24 volt LED strips are often a better choice for longer installations. Higher voltages allows for the electricity to travel through the LED strips at a lower current. Because LED strips lose energy with higher currents, using a higher voltage helps to reduce voltage drops in your LED strips.
Using a low voltage for long lengths of LED strips will cause the LED strips at the end of the strip to be dim. Use a higher voltage then 12 volts for your LED strips. The power supply provide the electricity for your LED strips.
The power supply should be able to handle the wattage of your LED strips. However, you should not purchase a power supply that has the same wattage as your LED strips. The power supply will overheat if it is always running at 100% of its capacity.
A power supply that overheats will fail more often than one that does not reach its maximum wattage. Instead, purchase a power supply that has twenty percent more wattage than your LED strips. This provide a safety margin for the power supply to remain cool and stable.
The environment where you install the LED strips will determine what kind of protection that you need for the strip. If the LED strips will be exposed to high levels of humidity and steam, you must purchase LED strips with an appropriate IP (ingress protection) protection rating for that environment. The IP rating will tell you the protection that the LED strips have against moisture.
For instance, you should not use LED strips that are appropriate for dry rooms in bathrooms, where the steam will damage the LED strips. It is better to use an LED strip with a higher IP protection in a dry room than one with a low IP protection in a wet area. For installations of LED strips that are very long in size, you may need to use power injection technology for the LED strips.
Power injection allow for the power supply to be connected to the LED strips at more than one location. An alternative to power injection is the use of parallel wiring. With parallel wiring, electricity is supplied to the LED strips at both ends of the strip.
Because this method allows for the electricity to travel to the end of the LED strips, there is a reduction in voltage drops along the strip. This method of providing power to LED strips ensures that the brightness levels is the same from one end of the strip to the other.