LED TapeSo what is LED tape exactly?

Well, it’s an incredibly versatile innovation in mood lighting technology that will change the way you think about lighting your homes and businesses.

Often and hereafter known as LED strip light, simply put, it’s a thin ribbon of circuit board that incorporates tens of high quality surface-mounted LEDs (Light-Emitting Diodes) along its length.

Initially, LED strip lighting was utilised to provide accent illumination, backlighting and decorative lighting, however, recent developments that have increased its luminous efficacy and produced its extended longevity have enabled people to use it in applications such as high-brightness task lighting, fluorescent and halogen lighting fixture replacements, as well as for indirect lighting applications.

There’s A Huge Variety On Offer

As with LED lighting generally, LED strip light has many attributes that mark it as a superior product, easily able to replace its lighting predecessors. One of the foremost of these is the huge range of different types in which it’s available:

  • Single Colour – This type of LED strip light comes in 12-volt and 24-volt options, with choices between 4.8-watts, 7.2-watts, 9.6-watts and 14.4-watts. It’s to be had in a variety of different colours to include blue, red, purple, yellow, green, as well as cool white (6000K), warm white (3000K) and daylight white (4000K) colour temperatures that will enable you to tailor the ambience of your room or space according to its function.

Many people use the cool white to emphasise the sterility of a room like the kitchen or bathroom, as it’s a bright, precise light that’s great for task-centric activities. The conviviality of the warm white is perfect for living areas like the bedroom or lounge, as it emits a much mellower, more relaxing quality of illumination.

  • Dual Colour 12-volt LED Tape – Whereas the single colour LED strip light is available in different colour temperatures, the Dual Colour incorporates both. Able to shift easily between cool white and warm white, you’ll be able to precisely control your lighting mood with the flick of a button on the Dual Colour Touch Remote Controller.
  • RGB Colour LED Tape – This type of LED strip light can be had in either 12-volt or 24-volt types, the red, green and blue will enable you to create an enormous spectrum of colour-changing light with the RGB Colour Touch Controller, reverting to a default cool white setting when not specifically programmed.
  • RGBW LED Tape – Similar to the standard RGB, you can change its colours, but with the extra option of a completely separate white LED. This white LED allows you to achieve a wider range of pastel shades by combining different colours with white. This type of LED tape also has its own, dedicated RGBW Remote Controller to enable you to achieve the desired effects.
  • RGB LED Pixel Tape – Available in 7.2-watts, this colour-changing tape is the most spectacular of them all.  When controlled by the 16 Key LED Pixel Tape Remote you’ll be able to achieve the entire spectrum of colours, and combine them to create countless dazzling effects.

It’s Flexible And Versatile

Incredible versatility is another fantastic feature of LED strip lights, meaning you’ll be able to install it, with the very minimum of difficulty, wherever you please.  Part of its innate flexibility is down to the choice of IP (Ingress Protection) Ratings with which it’s imbued.

Here’s a table to help you decide on the level of ingress protection you’ll require, based on your intended use for your LED tape and the environment in which you intend to install it:

IP Rating Usage
IP20 Mainly for indoor usage, beneath kitchen plinths and as cabinet lighting. It can also be used in living spaces as back-lighting for televisions.
IP65 This means that the tape is completely protected against dust and able to withstand splashes of water from any direction. IP65-rated tape will be perfect for use in the bathroom and the kitchen.
IP67 Completely dust-tight and capable of being immersed in 1 metre of water, LED strips with this level of protection are most often to be found outdoors illuminating people’s garden or patio areas, although it’s still possible to install it indoors in wetter environments.
IP68 & IP68 Nano Hermetically sealed, this level of protection is best suited to applications that require the LED strip to be fully immersed in water, at depth. Many people have used this in their swimming pools and in large fish tanks, although it’s perfect for commercial applications too.

Customise Your LED Tape

Its adaptability doesn’t stop with its protection levels either, as you’ll be able to customise the length of your LED strip light using nothing more complicated than a pair of household scissors.

Marks have been thoughtfully placed, usually at 10cm intervals, along its length, indicating the optimum cutting locations, so you’ll be able to execute as many or as few cuts as you wish, with the absolute minimum amount of fuss.

It’s incredibly simple to achieve, however, should you run into difficulties or if you simply feel unsure, remember that Wholesale LED Lights is the only UK LED lighting company to offer its customers a completely free-of-charge, bespoke cutting service, so why not take full advantage of that?

Greater lengths of LED strip light are available, from 1-metre right up to 5-metres and, for the ultimate in convenience, there are a wide variety of LED strip light kts on offer, incorporating the desired length of tape, with the appropriate power source and controller all in one handy pack!

Once tailored to your own, individual requirements, you can affix your lengths of LED lights in place either with the 3M adhesive tape on the rear of the strip, or, to create a more permanent fixture that’s super secure, you can use an LED profile.

Crafted from robust aluminium, an LED profile will ensure your LED strip light achieves its incredible 50,000 hour life-expectancy, by effectively dissipating any heat the LEDs may produce.

A Great Money-Saving Opportunity

Its amazing longevity guarantees that your LED strip light  will considerably out-strip the life-expectancies of both incandescent bulbs and the halogens it replaces, allowing you to forget about having to purchase any new ones for more than 17 years!

As if all these superb developments and innovations weren’t already enough for you to seriously consider switching to LED strip lights to replace your existing light sources, we’ve saved one of the very best for last, because they’re substantially more energy-efficient too.

Thanks to the fact that LED lights produce up to 90% less heat than their traditional counterparts, they require just a fraction of the electricity to power them.

A Single Colour 60 x 3528 SMD LED Strip Light for example, requires just 4.8 watts of power to produce 400 lumens of brightness, which is the equivalent of a 50 watt incandescent light bulb. That’s less than 10% of the electricity for the same level of illumination, so just imagine the savings you’ll make on your next electricity bill!

LED tape’s flexibility, versatility, availability and energy-efficiency are all compelling reasons to consider installing it in your home or commercial setting, but if you’d like to chat with the experts, call our customer service team on 0116 321 4120 today.

Or, if you’d prefer, you can send an e-mail enquiry to cs@wled.co.uk.

You can also view all the varieties of LED Tape mentioned above on our website.