LED Light Strip Selection Guide

The LED light strip selection guide is as follows:
1. Chips used in LED light strips: There are domestic and Taiwanese chips, as well as imported chips (including American chips, Japanese chips, German chips, etc.). Different chips have very different prices. The most expensive chips on the market are American chips, followed by Japanese chips and German chips, and the most moderately priced are Taiwanese chips. What specific chips are used? What kind of effect do you want to achieve? You should have an idea before purchasing.
2. LED packaging: divided into resin packaging and silicone packaging. The price of resin packaging is cheaper because the heat dissipation performance is slightly worse, and the other things are the same. The heat dissipation performance of silicone packaging is good, so the price is slightly more expensive than that of resin packaging.
3. LED color consistency: There are many packaging factories in China, and there are thousands of them in total, of course, there are also differences in strength. Many small packaging factories do not have a spectrophotometer or color separation machine, so they either do not perform spectrophotometry or color separation, or they are outsourced, which makes it difficult to guarantee the quality. LEDs that have not been spectrophotometered and color separated have poor color consistency, and the effect after being installed on the LED light strip is not so good, and of course the price difference is relatively large.
4. LED welding effect: The assembly of LED light strips is divided into manual welding and machine welding. Manual welding is to use a soldering iron, using the most primitive method for welding. The amount of solder on the solder joints is uneven, mostly in the form of a dot that wraps the solder foot, and there will be different degrees of tin tips, which is a typical phenomenon of manual welding. The products produced by this operation method are ugly in appearance (uneven solder joint size, much flux residue, uneven solder joints, LED package burned, etc.), and secondly, the electrostatic protection measures are not good, and many LED chips are broken down, resulting in a faint or no light when powered on. Machine welding is different. It adopts SMT patch technology, solder paste and reflow soldering technology. Therefore, the solder joints on the LED light strips are relatively smooth and the amount of solder is not much. The solder joints are arc-shaped and extend from the FPC pad to the LED electrode. Not only does the product look beautiful after welding (uniform solder joint size, smooth solder joints, no flux residue, and intact LED package), but also the chip will not be burned by static electricity. At the same time, the position and direction of the LED are more beautiful. This can be seen directly from the appearance.
5. FPC material: FPC is divided into rolled copper and copper-clad. Copper-clad boards are cheaper, while rolled copper is more expensive. The pads of copper-clad boards are easy to fall off when bent, while rolled copper will not. The specific material of FPC to be used depends on the purchaser's decision based on the use environment.
6. Has the FPC passed environmental certification and UL certification? Does the LED have patents, etc. Those that have been certified and patented are more expensive, and those that have not are cheaper.
7. LED brightness: LEDs of different brightness have different prices, and the price difference between ordinary brightness and high brightness LEDs is quite large. Therefore, when purchasing, you must clearly know what kind of brightness you need, so that you can accurately position your products.
8. LED color: Different colors have different prices. White and green are more expensive than other colors because they are more difficult to match and separate; red, yellow, blue and other colors are easier to separate and have better consistency, so the price is slightly cheaper. Special colors such as purple and brown are the most expensive due to color matching.
9. LED size: LEDs of different sizes have different prices. For example, the prices of 0603 LEDs and 1210 (i.e. 3528) LEDs are quite different; and the prices of 1210 and 5050 specifications are one level apart.
10. Check the cleanliness of the surface of the LED light strip. If the LED light strip is produced by SMT process, the surface cleanliness is very good, and no impurities and stains can be seen. However, if the knockoff LED light strip is produced by hand soldering process, no matter how it is cleaned, there will be stains and traces of cleaning on its surface, and there will be flux and tin slag residue on the surface of FPC.
11. Check the packaging. Regular LED light strips will be packaged in anti-static coils, usually 5 meters or 10 meters per roll, and then sealed with anti-static moisture-proof packaging bags on the outside. The knockoff LED light strip will use recycled coils to save costs, and there are no anti-static moisture-proof packaging bags. A careful look at the coils can show that there are traces and scratches left on the surface when the labels are removed.
12. Check the label. Regular LED light strip packaging bags and reels will have printed labels, not printed labels. The labels of the knockoff version are printed, and the specifications and parameters are not uniform.
13. Check the accessories. Regular LED light strips will have instructions for use and light strip specifications in the packaging box, and will also be equipped with LED light strip connectors or card holders; while the knockoff version of the LED light strip packaging box does not have these accessories, because some manufacturers still save money.
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