How to cut, connect & power LED Strip Lighting - YouTube

Hello and welcome to this LED supplies instructional video on how to cut, connect and power LED

Strip.

We'll start by looking at how to cut LED strip down to achieve the length you need

To cut the strip you simply need a pair of sharp scissors

Before cutting the LED strip it's important to understand a number of key aspects relating

to this product.

The strip can only be cut at the points that are marked.

These cut points are clearly shown by a line across the strip as you can see here

The cutting distance for LED strip varies.

In the samples we have here you can see the cut distance is 100mm for LED strips with

30 LED's per metre, 50mm for strip with 60 LED's per metre, 25mm for strips with 120

LED's per metre and 15mm for strips with 240 LED's per metre"

Once you have found the cut line marked on the LED strip simply use the scissors to cut

directly along the line as demonstrated here Its important to note that LED Strip must

ONLY be cut at the specified marks.

Cutting the strip in the wrong place will result in some of the LED's in the cut area

not working In this example, you can see that the strip

has been cut incorrectly.

There are two LED's not lit.

Whilst here you can the one that has been cut correctly is fully functional.

The LED strip in this example is warm white LED strip from our selection of single colour

LED strip lighting, although the same rules apply when cutting our range of colour changing

RGB strips Now let's now move on to how a connection

can be made to the LED Strip.

We supply our LED strip in lengths of 1 Metre or on full 5 Metre reels.

For every length of LED strip you order, it will be pre-fitted with a 2.1mm input socket

as shown here.

This input cable is part number C4229 should you wish to order additional units.

If need to cut down the strip, you will need to take steps yourself to be able to power

it as of course cutting the strip down will remove the pre-fitted C4229 input socket

There are two ways to make additional connections to the strip when you no longer have the pre-fitted

input socket to make use of.

You can either use a clip on connector or make soldered joints.

We will look at the clip on connectors first These connectors come in a range of sizes

to match standard tape widths of 8mm and 10mm as shown here, and no tools are required to

fit them Each full 5 metre reel of our LED strip is

supplied with 5 of the appropriate clip on connectors.

These types of connectors are not suitable for use our Ultra High Brightness series of

strip due to its high power output."

"To use these connectors offer the connector up to the LED strip and ensure that the RED

wire is aligned with the + mark on the strip and that the BLACK wire is aligned with the

-- mark on the strip" To fit the connector, gently pull back the

black locking bar, Insert the tape into the slot until it is fully located and ensure

that the copper connection points are within the body of the connector".

"To complete the connection push back the little black clip into its locked position

by applying equal force to both sides until it meets the body of the connector, this will

lock the tape into position" "Gently pulling on the strip will show that

it is locked into place and that a good connection has been made" .As you can see the LED strip

now has 2 wires connected to it.

You can use an LED driver which has screw terminals as input and output connectors to

add power to the strip as we show here.

Alternatively, these clip on connectors can be used in conjunction with our part number

C4349 to facilitate quick powering using a standard power supply which we will demonstrate

now You can see that order code C4349 is marked

with + and -- on its casing to indicate which way round the wires should be connected.

The LED strip is also marked with a + and -- so make sure that the wire connected to

+ on the LED strip is connected to + on the C4349 and do the same for the -- wire.

Locate the wires in the screw terminals as demonstrated and tighten up the screw terminals.

Then to power the LED strip simply plug the connector from the power supply into the C4349

We will now briefly look at soldering onto LED strip.

Soldering is our recommended method as it provides a more secure connection.

Here we are soldering our order code C4229, the little 2.1mm input socket cable, onto

a length of single colour LED strip.

As before you can now quickly power it up using a standard power supply.

All of our non-waterproof LED strip featured in this video comes with a sticky tape backing

as shown here.

This backing can be peeled off and the LED strip can then be stuck down to an appropriate

flat clean surface.

Wood, metal & plastic surfaces are generally fine.

For a quality finish you may like to consider our range of Aluminium extrusion for LED strip,

a selection of this is shown here.

The Aluminium extrusion helps to protect the strip, helps to diffuse the light and also

assists with the cool running and long life of the product.

Please see the Aluminium extrusion section on our web site for more details

We'll now look at powering LED strip.

It's important that you don't run too much LED strip as a single linear length or the

high current being drawn into the strip can cause damage.

We suggest that for 4.8W per metre strip, a maximum run of 10 metres is powered, and

for 9.6W per metre strip a maximum of 10 metres if powered.

If you do need to power more than this, then the LED strip should be wired in parallel

to the PSU to avoid any damage.

When selecting a power supply, we suggest allowing 20% headroom.

By this, we mean if your LED strip requires 48W, 20% added to 48W is 57.6W so the next

largest power supply would be our 60W power supply.

Its OK to use a power supply that can provide more than is required.

By you should never use a power supply that is rated the same as your strip requires or

less.

To calculate how much power in Watts you need.

Simply multiply the Watts per metre of the strip by the length of strip you are powering.

So if you are powering 5 metres of 4.8 Watts per metre strip just multiply 5 metres by

4.8W per metre giving you 24 Watts.

Then adding the 20% headroom onto 24 watts gives you 28.8 Watts, so a power supply rated

at 30 Watts or 40 Watts would be perfect.

Even a 60 Watt or 90W power supply is acceptable as your LED strip will only draw the power

it needs from the PSU

Here we have a selection of our most popular power supplies

The SW4010E is a 12vdc 1 amp PSU so can provide 12 Watts

SW3114-A is 12vdc 2 amps so can provide 24 Watts

SW4500 is 12vdc 3.5 amps, so 42W Sw3783A is 12vdc 5 amp so can offer 60 watts

SW4333 is 12vdc 7.5 amps so 90 Watts max

That concludes this video on cutting, connecting and powering LED strip.

We hope you have found it useful.

Please refer to our web site for other videos in the series