Category: Technical

So LED tape light sizing got you down? What one’s brighter? What do those numbers mean?

Don’t worry we got you covered.

First the numbers are about the size of the LED chips themselves. Two examples are shown below. 3528 LEDs are named like that because the height of the chip is 3.5 mm by 2.8 mm wide. So 3.5 by 2.8, shorten it down and it’s 3528.

The 5050 chips are my favorite because they are easy since the height and width of the chip is 5.0 mm it’s easy to remember.

Sadly the chip size doesn’t tell you anything about the tape it’s mounted on. In our experience the 5050’s are usually mounted on a 10 mm tape, but the 3528’s are mounted on 8 mm tape. The current flexidaisy mounting strip is designed to work with 10 mm tape. So if you have LEDs already make sure they are on the right size tape to fit.

Now regarding what LEDs are brighter. That gets a little more complicated. Chips in the same size can have different brightness levels, power usage and 3528 or 5050 doesn’t describe how many LEDs are on the reel.

A good general rule is that bigger chips tend to be brighter and more LEDs on a reel tend to be brighter. Common numbers of LEDs at the moment are 150 or 300 LEDs on a reel.

Keep in mind that all that extra brightness usually means more power, so make sure your power supply is rated correctly if you aren’t buying a kit with one included.

TLDR: 32 feet, with 12 volt system using 150 or 300 LED tape.

The issue that always seems to come up with LED tape lighting is; “How many strips can be run together?”

Searching around on the internet doesn’t present a simple answer. Especially because there are reels with 300 LEDs and reels with only 150 LEDs. Surely if two reels of 300 LEDs can be run on a single 5 amp power supply 4 reels of 150 LEDs should be able to run on the same set up, but that’s not quite how it works.

As the length of the LED run grows the brightness of the LEDs furthest from the power supply will decrease due to internal losses no matter how much power is supplied. Our recommendation is to keep your install lengths under 32 feet (2 reels) then bump the brightness back up using an amplifier. This will allow longer runs without noticeable dimming. Another option to go further without amplifiers is to work with a higher voltage which we will talk about next time.