3528 LED Light Strips

I needed under cabinet lighting for my new shop. Lately I've been an LED advocate, so I went looking for affordable under cabinet LED fixtures. They didn't even have to look nice (it's just a shop) but affordable and good quality is a must. Well, I just couldn't find what I wanted in a fixture, but these LED ribbon lights caught my eye. 16ish feet for less than $13, can’t go too wrong. I ordered one reel and one transformer.The lights come on a reel, as shown in the picture. On one end of the 5m long strip is a barrel connector for 12v, negative on the outside. The other end is pre-soldered with short red and black leads. On the barrel end there is a plastic clip with a foam adhesive pad to provide strain relief when mounted, nice touch.Unfortunately the transformer I’d ordered with it was delayed by weather somewhere, but fortunately the barrel connector and voltage is an exact match for an old PC speaker transformer I had on hand. If you have a pair of junk PC speakers in a closet somewhere, you probably already have a transformer that’ll run these things. I grabbed the transformer, plugged it in, and I’ve got a spooky looking light-up reel - again, just like the picture.For my application I wanted to light underneath 8 feet of cabinets. 16.4 feet of ribbon LED lights cut in half gives me 2 runs of 8.2 feet. The length was close enough, but the ribbon won’t make a U-turn, so I cut it in half. You can cut the ribbon every 3 LEDs (the correct spots are marked, about 2 inches) but every 30 LEDs the cut-spot also has solder blobs (about 19.5 inches). If possible for your application, I recommend cutting right through those blobs since they give you a great place solder connecting leads. And for me, cutting the ribbon in half goes right through a set of solder blobs.I had planned on using my own hookup wire, but the cutoff end of the ribbon has those nice red and black leads already soldered there. I flipped the ribbon around and soldered the leads (red to positive, black to negative) to the blobs I’d just cut through. I didn’t even have to strip the leads, they were stripped and pre-tinned. Seriously, if you’ve ever soldered anything, you can solder two of these ribbons together.And I plugged it in. Light! A lot of light. Off of the reel and stretched out, it’s a whole lot of light being put out. A bit dazzled, I unplugged and started sticking the ribbons under my cabinets. I did clean the under surface of the cabinets a bit first, but nothing heroic like alcohol, just a damp paper towel. The 3M adhesive stuck fast, and the little bracket with the foam tape did well relieving the strain from the transformer end. If you have greasy under cabinets, do go with the alcohol.And that was it. Less than an hour from opening the package to a completed project. The lights look great under the cabinets and put out plenty of light. The color is a bit more towards daylight than warm white, but they are not at all bluish. Very acceptable and good color rendering.Seeing what I just did in the shop, and how nice it looks, there is now no way that I’m not ordering another couple of reels to do the kitchen cabinets.Full disclosure: packed with the LED ribbon is a little card that says that if I post "an informative review", I'll get a gift. Well, I hope this was informative, and they don't require a "good review", but really these are great and inexpensive LED lights, so gift or not, 5-stars.

My wife and I have always illuminated the top of our kitchen cabinets with Christmas lights. We leave them up there all year long and have them set on a timer. But year after year, the lights would die due to bulb failure. After the 3rd time, I decided to buy LED Christmas lights instead (we kept using the traditional lights). After doing a search for "warm LED lights" on Amazon, this item was the first thing that popped up. After reading the reviews, looking at other similar items and looking at pictures, I decided this was the "right way" to do cabinet lighting and ordered one strip wheel and the accompanying  HitLights LED Power Adapter Transformer with 110VAC to 12VDC, 2 Amp, 24 watt, black .When I unboxed the package, I was surprised at how small the wheel of lights were. However, upon plugging them up just to see the light output, I couldn't believe how bright these suckers were. I opted NOT to get any of the connectors because I read from other people's reviews that you could just use speaker wire to solder these strips together. After all, spending almost $6 for a 4-pack of these  HitLights 8mm (SMD3528) Any Angle LED Light Strip Connector - 6 Inch (4 Pack)  just didn't seem cost efficient. I'm a pretty good solderer so I thought I would save money.... boy was I wrong. If you're reading my review, do yourself a favor and BUY THE CONNECTORS.My installation consisted of cutting the strip into 6 pieces. The reason being is because my kitchen cabinets are staggered, causing 90 degree turns which makes it impossible to install these in a straight line. Unless you want to some of the LEDs facing the wrong direction, it's advisable to to have the LEDs face all the same direction for even/maximum light output. What I ended up doing was soldering 2 wires (positive and negative) per strip and just daisy chaining them together. The soldering took me longer than I anticipated and honestly, was kind of a pain in the butt. If I knew how long it was going to take me, I would have just bought the connectors and be done with it within minutes.The adhesive backing was just enough to stick to the tops of my cabinets after a good dusting, but I'm questioning how long they'll last because the adhesive isn't that strong.As for the brightness, holy cow. The Christmas lights I used prior provided a warm, soft illumination but these strips are so bright, they light up my kitchen to the point where I don't even have to turn on the regular lights. Because LEDs can and will fade over time, I ended up ordering the dimmer the following day so that I can save the life of the LEDs.  HitLights Led Tape Tape Light LED Strip Tape Light Dial Dimmer Black - Single Color, Easy plug-in - 5 to 24V DC, 4A Max . If you want to extend the life of your light strip, I suggest you buy the dimmer as well.Scientifically, LEDs do not last forever. A typical commercial LED will last 50,000 hours. Converted to years, that's 5.7 years or 2083 days. Any LED, no matter how good the quality, WILL dim over time. That's a fact. LED Lights operate through semiconductors and though they do not get hot to the touch or melt, a small amount of heat is released. This is why the light strip is warm to the touch when plugged in. It is important to understand how/why this happens. Light is produced because electrons are energized when electricity is introduced to the diodes. These electrons travel from one material to the next, but must dispel their energy before the other material can accept them. It is this expulsion of energy that produces light in the form of photons and a small amount of heat. Over time, usually very long periods of time, the semiconductors will wear out and the lights will begin to dim. They do not burn out in the literal sense, yet they will dim in time. LEDs have a life rating before they die just like incandescents but unlike incandescents, as they reach the end of their life, they will completely dim. Incandescents will just blow out on you.

I got a few of these to do a cabinet lighting project after being totally appalled by the cost of standard LED fixtures. I was a little skeptical since it seems like most of the reviews here on Amazon were posted by employees of the company... Turns out these really are a GREAT product, and pretty easy to use if you're willing to put a little work into it. A few helpful things to note:* The strip comes with a female DC plug on one end, but you'll need the 12 volt DC transformer to actually plug it in to an outlet. ([...])* They are really bright for an accent light, so I would also recommend the dimmer ([...] The strip, transformer and dimmer are available in a package here: [...]* Unless you plan to use a solid 16' strip, you'll need to cut it down and use these PCB Strip Connectors to daisy-chain separate strips ([...] I also used these to splice in extension wires to route around appliances and other cabinet pieces that didn't need to be lighted.* The LEDs are warm white as promised, but the light has a slightly acidic yellow quality compared to standard incandescent or halogen light. I think they look great, but might be helpful to know going in.Overall these are a fantastic, cost-effective lighting option. They're pretty easy to figure out, but it's not a total breeze as some reviews indicate. Make sure you're comfortable doing some minor low-voltage electrical work, have electrical tape and wire strippers handy, and plan some extra time to play with the parts and figure everything out before installing (my cabinet job took about 3 hours all in).4 stars just for the lack of instructions and the extra effort needed to figure this whole system out. Good luck!

Compre esta tira de luz led para poder adaptarla a unas repisas tipo flotantes y el resultado fue increíble ya que la tira de luces es super delgada por lo que incluso parecía que estaban empotradas, la tira de leds parece ser de papel, esto de momento me pareció mal ya que pareciera ser de una calidad inferior pero resulto ser algo muy bueno ya que al ser tan delgado me permitió hacer una instalación casi invisible y aunque la calidad del material pareciera no ser la mejor, tiene una iluminacion muy buena la intensidad me pareció mejor de lo que esperaba.PROS:-Excelente intensidad de luz-Material muy delgado por lo que es fácil esconderlo-Facilidad para recortar y volver a unir a conveniencia usando la extension con conectores mara HitLights, puedes recortar poner la extension y unir varios tramos según el proyecto que tengas en mente, una sola tira de 5 metros me permitió iluminar 3 repisas y aun me sobro un tramo para algun otro proyecto futuro.-Producto excelente para proyectos DIYCONTRAS:-Necesitas usar un adaptador de corriente ya que lo único que recibes es la tira de luces con un conector.-El pegamento que incluye la tira es muy malo, no pega casi nada y si logras que se adhiera créeme se caerá pronto, yo recomiendo usar un pegamento "Resistol 60 Segundos" puedes poner un poco sobre la tira ponerlo en la posición que quieras fijarlo y usar un masking tape para que no se mueva al menos unos 10 minutos, realmente puedes usar el pegamento que quieras pero ese Resistol me resulta fantástico por que pega como Kola Loca (Incluso huele como Kola Loca) pero tiene una consistencia tipo silicon por lo que es mas manejable.

Pedí está tira de led por precio y al ver las calificaciones ya sabía que se vería frágil, pero al ser tan delgado como papel es mucho más fácil de ocultar. Lo mejor es que el color es el que esperaba, pues había comprado otras y me dejaban muy decepcionado en ese aspecto. La luminoso es la correcta para el tipo de chip que es. 100 % recomendado

Buenos

Este debe ser uno de los mejores inventos en la historia de la iluminación, especialmente por el precio.La tira es muy fácil de instalar y su funcionamiento es adecuado, ilumina muy bien con luz cálida y no es necesario el dimmer. Pude usar solo lo necesario y cortar la parte restante.

Las luces son geniales, alumbran muy bien, y su diseño permite instalarlas en mucho sitios. Lamentablemente el adhesivo no es muy bueno, y se despegan fácilmente, aunque no lo veo como un gran inconveniente, pues se soluciona usando cinta doble cara que si tenga una mayor adherencia, creo que es algo que se debe considerar.