What LED length should I Get for my room? Undoubtedly, LED strip lights offer a beautiful, cozy, and energy-efficient way of enhancing the ambiance of a room.
And there are so many ways and places you can consider placing strip lights.
For example, it could be around, underneath, or behind furniture.
But how do you determine the appropriate length of strip lights required for an installation?
Read on to learn the answer and how to cut and connect strip lights to get the length you need.
What’s LED Strip Length?
The length of strip light you can find in the market is measured in meters per reel.
Typically, LED strips come in rolls of five-meter length as the standard length.
This size of strip is convenient for 12V and 24V.
What’s great is that there are many other sizes available that you can customize to the lengths you require for a creative design.
LED Voltage and Length: What’s the Correlation?
You might have noticed voltage ratings indicated side by side on many strip lights.
That’s because the length of the strip is directly proportional to the amount of voltage it needs.
First, the longer the length of the strip light, the higher the resistance to current flow.
So the longer the strip, the higher the voltage needed to light up the room.
Therefore, with such a strip, you must increase the voltage along it to maintain consistency.
That way, it ensures no voltage drop along the strip.
From this analogy, a strip of five meters with a rating of 24 volts is better than a 12 volts rating.
What Length of LED Strip Do You Need?
You must take the measurements of your room to determine the length of the strip required.
But the question is, what length should you consider?
The perimeter measurement is enough. And often, you can use a tape measure to take measurements such as length and width to calculate the perimeter.
This is pretty straightforward in cases where the room is square or rectangular.
(Caption: Rectangular-shaped room easy to measure)
Alternatively, you can use a perimeter calculator, which you can access online for free.
This makes things easier, especially for calculating the perimeters of circular, trapezoid, parallelogram, rhombus, ellipse, semicircle, and rhombus-shaped rooms.
Remember that it would be best if you had longer lengths in cases where the room has alcoves or areas that stick out.
Thus, you’ll record the measurements as you go to get the total strip length.
Can You Cut LED Strip If It’s Too Long?
Because LED strips come in varying lengths, you’ll often find that you need to cut LED strips into lengths that fit your needs.
Also, sometimes all you need is a short strip light, shorter than what’s available in the market.
Hence, you’ll buy the shortest strip and cut it into the desired length.
Thankfully, strip lights have distinctive cutting lines, either dotted, dashed, or solid.
These cutting points ensure you can cut correctly so that you don’t tamper with the circuit.
What’s equally great is that you can reuse the remaining piece, although that’s only if you cut it correctly.
Can You Connect Multiple Strips To Make It Longer?
As mentioned earlier, it’s all too easy to find that the shortest strip available is longer than you need, so you must cut it.
In the same way, you may get a strip that’s shorter than your measurements.
The good news is connecting multiple strips to meet your length requirements is possible.
How to Connect LED Strip Lights
The following are two ways of connecting LED strip lights: :
- Using connectors: Simply open the connector, and insert the pieces of strips. At this point, the connector will be touching the pins; all you need to do is touch or press to close the connector. This is the easiest way to join LED strips together.
(Caption: Connector)
- Soldering: Now, this method of connecting is a more complex one. You’ll need a sharp knife or blade to scrape off the adhesive at the ends of the strips you’re joining. Also, a soldering iron and some lead-free rosin core solder which you’ll use to tin the copper dots on both strips. When you mate the strips after tinning, ensure you do it correctly to avoid reversed polarity.
Factors to Consider When Connecting LED Strip Lights
- Voltage rating: The voltage rating determines the efficiency of the strip light. Usually, after connecting multiple strips, a loss of voltage (voltage drop) occurs between the power source and the LED light. Therefore, increase the voltage to meet the total voltage needs of your extended strip to ensure it’s enough to power the entire strip length.
- Pin position in the case of RGB strips: Typically, RGBs have four pins. So ensure they’re all aligned correctly based on their color codes before you start connecting.
- Avoid connecting too many strips: That’s because when they’re too many, it spurs voltage drops due to the greatly increased resistance. As a result, it gets harder to supply voltage that can adequately meet the need of the entire strip. In turn, you’ll experience reduced brightness and inconsistencies along the strip.
- Ensure correct connection. To ensure correct connection, check that you have connected the positive terminals of the strips. Also the same applies to the negative terminals. Now doing this is easy for white LED strips. But when it comes to colored strips, you may need to check color codes.
- Expose the connectors: By doing so, you ensure that the link gets done correctly and that the strip gets strongly bonded.
Can You Connect Different Brands of LED Strip Lights?
Now there are several types of LED strip lights, each with varying specifications depending on the manufacturer.
For example, they may have different specifications for the power required.
So when you use different brands, it means that some light strips along your connection may be dull due to lower voltage supply.
In other cases, you’ll find overpowered strips.
And when you mix these with other brands, you’ll notice these lights appear brighter or have a slightly different shade.
Interestingly, as subtle as this difference in brightness may be, it could compromise the final outlook of your room.
FAQs
What Size LED Strip Lights Should I Get?
It depends on the size of the room you intend to install the lights on.
So take the actual measurements of your room, including any alcoves or extended areas along the wall. Then use this information to get the right length.
More often than not, the strip lights you purchase may be longer or shorter than the actual length you need.
In such cases, you’ll have to cut or connect multiple strips to get the right size.
How Long Is 5 Meter LED Light?
A LED strip light that’s 5 meters is as long as 16 feet or 197 inches, although sometimes it can be a little longer.
How Many LEDs Per Meter Is Good?
Typically, LED strip lights come with 60 to 120 diodes per meter. And those with 120 LEDs per meter offer excellent efficiency.
That said, the number of LEDs also depends on the rating of the strip lights in terms of voltage needs.
The more the LEDs, the higher the power supply ratings.
Conclusion
So that’s it on LED strip lights length. Now you’ll no longer wonder, “What LED length should I get for my room?”
You know what to measure, how, and what to include.
Also, if you need to cut or connect strip lights as often happens, you know how to go about it.
Just follow the steps outlined above to give your lighting a new, stylish facelift.