Exploring linear LED COB tape with macro PCB shots

[@Sheevlord]

This sort of tape would've been perfect for my DIY oversized 7-segment displays I made a while back. I used normal 12v LED tape, and it had to be diffused heavily to look good.

[@tookitogo]

I am planning to make giant 7-segment displays using the low-voltage LED filaments now available on Ali. (Up to 30cm in 3V, and 1.2m at 24V.)

[@tin2001]

I've been scheming to build a giant 7 segment LED clock/timer shelf unit for down the back of our church... Normally showing the time of day, but having the timer function for occasions we need to finish at a certain time. Giant size and position down the back is obviously for the preacher to see it, and the shelf design makes it double as storage for the sound/technical team to keep stuff on. Not a unique idea. I got it from someone who 3D printed such a design, but they used addressable LEDs and plastic shelving. I'm going to make it from MDF and probably use these style strips now I've seen them.

[@Sheevlord]

@@tin2001 I made mine using styrofoam and cardboard. Sadly I built a hot wire cutter *after* I built the LED clock, so I had to cut the foam with a knife. Cleanup was a chore - little polystyrene balls get electrified and stuck to everything. So, if you want to use this method - get a hot wire cutter. So much cleaner. I used 16-channel constant current LED sink drivers to control the segments without multiplexing (each chip controls 2 digits). I think they were MBI5039 or MBI5036. They work like normal shift registers - you chain them in series, so no matter how many you have they use the same number of pins.

[@NiyaKouya]

A pretty large 7-segment clock I've recently built (~20cm digit height) uses addressable 5V LED strips that got threaded into the ends of the segments (2 LEDs per end, so 4 per segment). With a "frosted" polystyrene plate (that's supposed to let ~80% of the light through) as the front cover/diffusor I got a pretty even illumination on the segments with just 2cm of depth.

[@MrMadwyn]

I haven’t seen high CRI LED strips in COB style where traditional ones can get Ra98/97 easily.

[@antibrevity]

I enjoy all of the stuff you take apart, but I really appreciate that you keep me updated on what's happening with LED technology. I immediately did a search on AE and had not realized that these high-density strips had improved and dropped in price this much. I've already thought of a use for them, so thanks! I get obsessed with other channels sometimes, but this has consistently been my favorite for years.

[@ESCcrasci]

This I'm sure will be very useful when it comes to creating unique arcade machines. And the technology like you said, really has progressed quite a bit over the years positively.

[@EthanCGamer]

I work maintenence at an arcade, I'm excited to see this new type of LED strip. The old style is really starting to show its age with the types of light shows manufacturers try to cram into the attract modes.

[@daveseddon5227]

Just what I need for a cupboard I've just refurbished! Great timing Clive! They've also come down in price a little since I last looked at them! Interesting video and well explained, thanks! 🙂

[@MyProjectBoxChannel]

To help with the volt drop along the tape, you can power positive from the one end of the tape and negative from the other end of the tape. This should help spread the load across the tape. Hopefully you can get an even brightness on longer runs.

[@robbieaussievic]

.... BC Addresses this in the next video.

[@marcse7en]

Hi Big Clive! ...... Little Clive here! 👍😂 It's AMAZING how ubiquitous the once humble LED has become! Growing up in the 60's and 70's I'd never heard of them. Incandescent bulbs were used instead. My first encounter with LEDs would have been mid-70's, when I got my space-age Texas Instruments digital watch, and my 1976 Commodore calculator. I no longer have the watch, but the £3.99 calculator, bought from Woolworths 45 years ago, is still going strong! Amazing! I don't think modern life could exist without solid state lighting! Incidentally, thinking about the tech of my childhood, circa 1974, my Dad bought me a Ferguson Stereo Record Player from the Co-op for £30.00! It was powered by Mullard Germanium Transistors! Also incidentally, my 5-Foot LED tube, which I retro-fitted to my kitchen fixture, has almost 500 LED chips I believe. I fitted it about 9 years ago, no failed chips, and it works as good as the day it was fitted! ...... All hail the LED!

[@MrHarvywallbanger]

Looks great for undercabinet lights. The discrete ones just aren't diffuse enough on a shiny counter even with a cover.

[@cujoedaman]

I didn't realize they had flexible COB tape in such a form, I wanted to do a lighting project on my car and was trying to figure out the best way to diffuse the LED's so it looked like a single light strip, this solves my problem!

[@RawTopShot]

Tron? 🤔

[@Lumibear.]

Yeah, you want that sexy ‘Tron’ CGI-smooth light look, eh? That bendy ‘LED neon’ stuff might be a more affordable compromise and some of it is addressable for cool chasing animations, or maybe EL Wire/Panels if it’s more for the look not the lighting, but if this stuff on the video is within your budget, I want pictures! Btw it drives me quietly crazy that shows like Trek Discovery and Doctor Who use normal modern LED strips everywhere and don’t hide the little LED ‘dots’ when it’s supposed to be centuries in the future (or even meant to be a bio-luminescent glow) when as this video proves in another few years these common LED strips will look antiquated. Future proof your car! ;)

[@DarthMalice50]

Hey cujoedaman, pressuming from your profile pic, have you tried these strips in a neopixel lightsaber?

[@cujoedaman]

@@RawTopShot Nah, nothing like that. My car has a strip of translucent red on the rear deck lid and I once saw a project that made it so you could light it up, sorta "completes the look" type thing.

[@cujoedaman]

@@DarthMalice50 I've seen some of the really early stuff where people were actually soldering LED's together in full lengths of the saber blades. That was way back then, now they have whole kits you can purchase :D

[@PushyPawn]

What a visual treat today, Big Clive brought out the ruler for his doodle. Haven't we all done the same at some stage in our lives. 😏 And may I say how neat, straight and wonderful it looks. 👍

[@EsotericArctos]

I had to laugh when he said "Here is my doodle" even before the ruler. No matter how technical we are, we still have school boy humour lol

[@tncorgi92]

Perhaps, but I don't deal in millimeters.

[@MrWitchblade]

@@tncorgi92 he gave it in inches as well. lol. Or did you mean you work in meters? :)

[@Silverfoxwolfen]

Hopefully the diffuser does better than what's on the older style strips. They used to discolour over time from the heat and give a yellow colour of light, not even a warm white style, as in literally the colour of platform edge lines at a station. It was the heat and not light exposure as they were behind destination blinds and shielded from the sunlight.

[@Sheevlord]

You can try running them at reduced voltage so they produce less heat. Assuming they discolored from their own heat, that is. 12 volt strips happily work when powered by 10 volts (they only have 3 LEDs in each series so anything above 9 volts should light them up).

[@Jay22222]

Don’t some the old kind have a layer of epoxy resin or something like that over the ribbon? It’s been a while since I used it. Almost all resins I’ve used discoloured to yellow to some degree, although hardly the yellow you describe.which I’m sure could be greatly accelerated by heat or UV exposure.

[@Gin-toki]

I think it is more likely to be oxygen in the air that degraded the plastic and not due to heat.

[@Sheevlord]

@@Jay22222 I think that the transparent layer on top of outdoor 12v LED strip is some sort of silicone rubber. Epoxy is too brittle and not flexible enough for this purpose. Then again, I am no chemist so I'm only guessing.

[@RawTopShot]

@@Sheevlord stinky silicone at that. No good for enclosed habited spaces with the strips powered for hours at max output.

[@wikkidselekta]

I didn`t know what COB LED was until I purchased a COB LED headlamp, months ago. Really bright & very useful!

[@DurzoBlunts]

Watching this stuff get made is really hypnotizing. They also come in two COB lines wide I've seen before. Really cool stuff

[@besenyeim]

I predict, there will be 2 and 5 cm wide and 10 m long strips (ribbons) in about two years. Something between the flexible strips like in the video and the COB panels.

[@frollard]

I'm really looking forward to playing with the addressible chip on flex /cob strip. insane pixel density for all the things needing pixels.

[@gregorythomas333]

I have lots of the older version and run them from my 12vdc systems for both primary & backup lighting. Just placed an order for some of these COB style as replacements since there are a couple places that the old ones are dying. I don't run them on the full 12vdc so I am glad that these can also be dimmed...the old ones have (mostly) lasted almost 10 years.

[@nothanksguy]

I absolutely love c o b LED strips. They are possibly my favorite form of lighting, especially when combined with diffuser channels. They even make diffuser channels that you can lay into drywall so that your lighting is completely integrated with the ceiling

[@AMDRADEONRUBY]

Really love that kind of videos. Quality stuff as ever

[@Salty_Balls]

That tape has some great modeling applications. Would look great in starship nacelles.

[@Kzoowallace]

Oh that would look so cool!

[@stevensimpson3252]

looks like an interesting progression in technology

[@TopEndSpoonie]

For those that are interested, 3:08, "Here is, my doodle". Hahahaha.

[@tiemanowo]

I bought a roll of these about a month ago and I'm very surprised how uniformly this light is. You can't see individual LEDs even up close. I highly recommend getting one of these.

[@DCBpower]

If applied to a metal track or building, you can ground one end and apply power to the other end for perfectly even lighting. On a 12 volt strip, a 15 volt power supply makes up for the resistive loss over a 5 meter roll.

[@or1013]

@Tim you've done that precise 12/15V @5m on metal backing?

[@Apfelloch]

Just bought a COB strip (24V, single color, 5m) a month ago and I absolutely love it! Will definitely buy more of them and install them in the kitchen and will prefer them over the "old" strips anytime. They are also pretty flexible compared to other strips that I've used.

[@Apfelloch]

And good to know that you can probably cut them everywhere!

[@STONEDay]

Love this stuff on the bottom of my electric skateboard. Much better water resistance. Far brighter than the old style. Three 12v stings wired in series can connect straight to the skateboard battery without any need for step down converter.

[@g7mks383]

Thanks for the look. On longer runs perhaps you could feed power in at the centrer. That would reduce the drop.

[@gregorhi2]

I'm using 2 of those strips for my arch table lamp, one in cold white and the other in natural white. It's a very nice light to work under without shadows.

[@DrBagPhD]

Spooky timing, Clive! Bought a 20M strip at the start of the week to make lithophane lamps as Xmas presents. Entertaining and insightful vid as always, hope you have a fantastic Xmas!

[@17hmr243]

Last minute. Rush

[@RawTopShot]

@@17hmr243 Last minute? I've not started mine yet, not even the cards 😁👍 Living dangerously.

[@17hmr243]

@@RawTopShot i asked above no 1 helped can u power the tape from the middle instead of running wires to 1 end? merry xmas

[@DrBagPhD]

@@17hmr243 needs to be at the end

[@17hmr243]

@@DrBagPhD ok ty for the reply

[@fredfred2363]

Instead of feeding both +5v and 0 at one end, feed 5 at one end and 0 at the other. Over long lengths, you get a perfect light spread.

[@Ultrazaubererger]

You can also feed them from both ends and if you see the light get dimmer in the middle, you can feed them from there too. The brightness is not as even but you get more efficiency and more light.

[@MetalheadAndNerd]

Isn't it standard for longer light strip installations to have a power cable running along with a tap every few meters?

[@jhsevs]

This is actually ingenious. And then just up the supply voltage to overcome the voltage drop.

[@casemodder89]

@@jhsevs nothing special to it. batteries in parallel config are connected that way to avoid drift of individual battery cells/blocks in the pack.

[@besenyeim]

@@jhsevs to a limit. You don't want it to be a heating strip.

[@RicardoPetrazzi]

Nice little mini lesson there. ☺👍cheers. Most informative.

[@alldave]

Imagine the supercomputer with thos fine flipchip leds

[@bigclivedotcom]

I think Samsung are making home videowalls with them.

[@alldave]

@@bigclivedotcom that would almost look like TV static with the leds being that small on a supercomputer, do they even make flashing flipchips?

[@bigclivedotcom]

@@alldave In the case of the video walls they are actually RGB clusters with video.

[@alldave]

High quality doodles

[@MrWitchblade]

Very cool stuff. Simple but extremely effective.

[@jamest.5001]

I love this type led strip it's uch like the led neon, great video, and merry Christmas ⛄🎄

[@nw7696]

Thanks and Merry Christmas! 🙂👍

[@jakp8777]

I’d be interested in seeing the machine that makes this. One day we may see unlimited length cob tape.

[@uzlonewolf]

There is nothing stopping you from making "unlimited length" cob tape today. Due to PCB assembly equipment limitations, most tape is simply 500mm long sections soldered together end-to-end. They limit the final strip length to 2m or 5m due to voltage drop and the current all those LEDs draw. If you really wanted you could just solder together multiple reels of the stuff.

[@electronic7979]

Very informative video 👏

[@Mark_B544]

Always an interesting video big man thanks

[@charlesmoore456]

Can't wait for addressable RGBs!

[@erisgath7688]

I recently got some variable colour temperature white LED tap using this design. The way they did variable colour temperature was especially intriguing. Every second LED (or pair of LEDs) had a spot of orange phosphor on it, and then the whole strip had a coating of pale yellow phosphor. Quite interesting the way they mixed phosphors so when unlit is maintained a seemingly uniform yellow coating

[@bigclivedotcom]

That's an interesting approach.

[@lexluthor3890]

Hmm, haven't seen this style yet. I like it!!

[@ranger175a2w]

Thanks from Texas Clive.

[@UhrwerkKlockwerx]

I love the linear LED strips ngl

[@Totalinternalreflection]

Oh this is cool I’m going to have to buy myself some of this.

[@nrdesign1991]

I'm so going to get a few meters of these!

[@qwaqwa1960]

Love these strips. Replaced all the crappy old discrete ones in my basement, and I swear the COB strips are 4x brighter for less power!

[@chrishartley1210]

Perfect timing, I've got 2 of the old style strips on my van but some sections are getting a bit flaky so I think a replacement is overdue. Hopefully just a straight swap if I get the 12V version.

[@fatblokes_ferguson]

Very detailed doodle, I'm installing some strip LEDs in my kitchen, I have reals of many different types some of which are RGB, I was going to install these and tell the missus she had to have green lights, this is great for my daughter's gaming set up but I don't think the other half would be happy with a green kitchen. Lol

[@BRUXXUS]

I really love the look of these. Very Tron style. I suppose something like this with aRGB wouldn't really work since each color needs its own special phosphor?

[@oasntet]

I see aliexpress carries a couple non-addressable RGB versions, though I can't tell if it's just three alternating colors of LEDs, or if each chip has three emitters. They're probably not quite as bright since they can't do the UV->shared phosphor trick, but 840 LEDS/m (!) is still significantly more dense than the SMD versions.

[@Sekir80]

@@oasntet Never came across such an LED strip, could you please link it?

[@punker4Real]

@@oasntet I just recycle LEDS from car head lights and fog lights and brake lights they are WAY brighter and more reliable then the cheap stuff on ebay they also typically include the driver, projector lens and cooling

[@annoyingbstard9407]

I thought I’d watch this as I understood one of the words in the description. I shall now broadcast my expertise all over the inter web.

[@pauljs75]

With a bit of heat-sink panels as a backing, and some custom clear resin molding work for the lens cover of an enclosure, that LED strip stuff would be neat for adding customized lighting to a vehicle interior. I could see where it'd work as lights for doors, foot wells, and the trunk.

[@MrAnderson4509]

Big Clive, thank you, too cool👍

[@RawTopShot]

I used 5x1metre 50/50 rgb strips to replace a light unit on a fish tank. Took a few versions until it was waterproof ; but this cob strip looks like it might be better suited since all leds and resistors are covered. Looks like it may only take a thin conformal coating to seal, or perhaps a thin coating of clear silicone. I've just convinced myself to try, thankyou Clive 😊👍

[@bigclivedotcom]

I've seen LED strip threaded into clear hose for water protection.

[@dcallan812]

NICE STUFF look so much better than naked LEDs

[@charleslambert3368]

Do they make an IP65 weatherproofed version? I figure that night cycling (aka any time after 16:30 this time of year) would be a lot safer if I was lit up like a christmas tree.

[@calmeilles]

Robus do an IP67 version but it's 24V.

[@bigclivedotcom]

In my experience the weatherproof versions aren't that weatherproof.

[@jaro6985]

I use these for cycling, its OK, just brush some conformal coating on the exposed copper and dry them off after every ride.

[@JUANKERR2000]

When you offered to show us your doodle I wondered what we were going to be treated to!

[@EcoMouseChannel]

Just got myself 3 rolls of Ice Blue today, for a very specific project. This is timely video. I didn't think I could cut any other place other than the solder pads.

[@toneystevens5023]

can't wait for these to be addressable

[@weerobot]

Great To See LEDs Improving..

[@exoticsportcars]

Flanders : Hey Homie I Can See Your Doodle Thank you for showing how these are put together.

[@Malandrin]

the myth says that if you are quite early when Clive uploads the video, something amgical will happen 🤔🤔

[@McTroyd]

Fantastic they have 24v versions. I've wanted to put permanent decorative lights up on my house, and these strips seem perfect for the job. But, the cable loss on even 12v was more than I was willing to take. Our house is about 30'/8 meters across the front and two stories tall, not counting for the required cable length to reach the strips.

[@MetalheadAndNerd]

Be aware that the sticky tape side of these strips does not stick to wood or concrete.

[@gvii]

Now that I do like a great deal. Those are fantastic. I didn't mind the others too much, but you had to work around the separated LEDs in some cases. I really dig the COB version.

[@SeatFX]

There are digital RGB ones of These already, this Tech is amazing!

[@marcfruchtman9473]

Great Video. Very useful info.

[@coconutcreamcameron1777]

Could you please do more of those creepy craft tutorials? Similar to the scrying mirror.

[@faeinthebay]

Just bought 2 meters with over 300 addressable LEDs per meter last month. I'm hoping to make some fun shift lights for my car, wish me luck!

[@jparrie]

What a great video. Thanks.

[@salmarita219]

So funny found them 2 weeks ago and made some beautiful backlight PMMA engravings for Christmas. Really even lighting with a 0,5mm CPE sheet as a diffuser on top.

[@trafficface]

Hey Clive, I'm getting into scale models and I wonder if these strips could fit into some tight spaces. Also have you ever talked about those amazing looking conductive ink pens?

[@charleslambert3368]

Electroluminescent wire might work.

[@trafficface]

@@charleslambert3368 thanks for the tip, that looks promising

[@tiger12506]

Fiber optic is a good choice there probably, too.

[@DarthMalice50]

Lightsaber?

[@dedr4m]

I managed to get hold of the 24v variety from up at the market in city center (they buy up pallets of unclaimed stock and distribute what they get for a lot lower than new prices), the strip I got has a few dead bits within and cutting half way between two cut lines cause the half of the strip still attached to not light. To know there's a 5V version and at about 1A for the meter ya got, that'd be perfect for converting my older laptop's backlight to LED, could even drive it a bit harder if I had to too.

[@Torbjorn.Lindgren]

Nice! Wow, that's not even the densest one on the market if we include 12/24V powered strips, I've found 320/384/480/512/528 led/m variants so far. I though my old 12V 240led/m "95+ CRI" strip was dense - I guess it was in 2019... Obviously the cutting granularity suffers when the voltage goes up though I did find a 12V tape with 25mm between the official cut-points with 320 and 480 led/m (IE 8/12 COB per section). Might be possible to cut it even shorter depending on how they arranged that. Oooh, many interesting uses both for that and this 5V "cut-anywhere" model, but probably need to run them with PWM dimmer that can generate fairly low duty cycles to not get way too bright for many uses. I guess one could also run them at say 10-11V instead - IF they use 3-4 COB in serie (which I expect) that should have a big effect on power draw, not sure how low one can go before they switch to "faint glow" (I'm guessing 8-9V?). Similar things can be done with the 5V though the drop needs to be smaller.

[@-Graham]

I realise it is trivial to source these strips from most places....but, any chance you can tell us where you got these particular ones? I am always interested to know where I could find the devices you tear down and analyse. Rapid Electronics happens to be up the road from me too (I also used to work there ;-))

[@jaro6985]

aliexpress or ebay

[@mathuetax]

Oh COOL! I'd come across this COB tape a little while ago and was hoping you end up fiddling with it.

[@ranbymonkeys2384]

Thanx for showing everybody your doodle!!

[@richardbriansmith8562]

Awesome big Clive

[@25566]

wow i love this new kind of led tape, great for when the led are exposed

[@vsvnrg3263]

#, i just love your channel name. very easy to remember.

[@JdeBP]

I enjoyed the optimism of thinking that something that is sold by the metre might, just might, be manufactured in Imperial. (-:

[@doktortodes]

Ahhhhhh yes. The engineer’s ASMR

[@Slikx666]

I think that might be the stuff I need for my RC vehicles, add a power bank and done. 😀👍

[@muzikman2008]

cool stuff. The new neon sign lights of the future lol.

[@docmartinjnr4281]

Now to customise my daylight driving lights with this stuff.

[@empathicparadox6041]

I miss the old bulbs.

[@matthewseymour8972]

This stuff is available with addressable three colour LEDs which looks absolutely fantastic

[@grahamserle7930]

Thank you Clive, you always share some interesting and cool stuff with us. Have a wonderful Xmas by the way. Maybe that brother of yours will pop in for a drink or two or three. It's time to go from Ho Hum to Ho Ho Ho.

[@andymouse]

Excellent description...cheers.

[@MoritzvonSchweinitz]

Do you think we'll ever see 'smart' (WS2812 style) RGB COB LED strips?

[@bigclivedotcom]

I doubt it as the current could be huge.

[@SirBoden]

Some Rosco E-Colour 299 1.2 Neutral Density is very useful for matching LEDs at running voltage.

[@randalalansmith9883]

Awright, so it is in fact dots under a diffuser. I thought it might be more like electroluminescent wire, or maybe lengthwise lines.

[@triadwarfare]

This makes me wanna buy this kind of LED for my computer. I currently use a 5050 LED.

[@JoseSilveira-newhandleforYT]

Very interesting! Didn't get my hands on a COB LED strip yet, but the other day I bought a strip of white LEDs at a local Chinese store and when I got home found out it was not the low voltage I expected - it works on mains voltage almost directly (through a bridge rectifier). It's only used occasionally for lighting a cupboard, but I'm imagining the potential fireworks if something goes bad :-)

[@bigclivedotcom]

I've featured the 240V versions in the past. They tend to be quite flickery due to the lack of smoothing, and often over-run their resistors.

[@JoseSilveira-newhandleforYT]

@@bigclivedotcom Yep. More or less my thoughts. I'm a subscriber but, somehow, I missed your video on that - going to look for it :-)

[@LimitedWard]

Mmm I love me some LED on the COB!

[@BloodAsp]

I really do want to know how they pick and place these, that boggles my mind. Interesting stuff.

[@mrdovie47]

I plan to use a HT7750A Voltage booster board with a short strip of these to drain old AA batteries "Joule Thief" style. Good for emergency lights. Thanks for pointing these out.

[@mrdovie47]

Clive, by winding my own inductor or redoing the one on the HT7750 booster board, I got this chip to run a 12 Volt LED Strip. If you hook the LX (pin 3) of the chip to a 5 Volt LED, it lights from pulses sitting on top of your 1.5 Volt DC input. But if you have a secondary winding of say, 30 turns and hook one end to the 5 Volt out (pin 2), You get the same pulses sitting on top of 5 Volts DC, and they will light a 12 Volt LED strip. (1 meter long) All off one AA Cell.

[@mrdovie47]

My order of warm white cob strip came. A single 5cm strip (16mA) lights quite brightly from a 7750A board, and if you cut that exactly in half you can solder leads to both 8 LED strips (2.5cm) about 8mA.

[@syproful]

This has little use yet. The new high density led strips have the same effect when on. The led strip you show has very few leds per meter. Anyway always interested in new ways to do things !

[@Forssa1]

RGB in this would be really interesting

[@boomish69]

Love this Clive! Never heard of COB tape.. BTW if my boiler circuit board can be brought back to life by using a hairdryer, is this the caps? I presume I could just replace all the caps on the board. A new board is over £250

[@bigclivedotcom]

There's no harm swapping the main capacitors.

[@denisohbrien]

boiler boards are almost always caps and dry solder joints, so re-solder every joint and replace every cap. schoolboy fix for 90% of problems.

[@colinvos7304]

Just bought a 5m roll of this. I still need lights in my van cuz its simply too dark. Hopefully i can fit in such a way it lights up everything neatly

[@MrMega200]

Run some strip on one side and then run speaker wire or lamp wire to connect to strip on the other side of the van. If you got the 12v stuff then you can just run an inline fuse to some 12v wire nearby. Probably best to hook it to the dome light circuit so you just use the same switch to run that.

[@Heizenberg32]

@@MrMega200 Do you know if it's generally okay to just splice into the existing dome light wires? Or would a dedicated line to the wiring harness be necessary / recommended?

[@MrMega200]

@@Heizenberg32 I would first check the dome lights amperage and then check the fuse for what capacity that is. Maybe see if you can swap the fuse for a higher rated one to cover for the LEDs if that is possible or else if nothing will work then just run a red wire directly to battery with the inline fuse spliced in somewhere nicely hidden. Be sure to get the mounting crimps you need to fit to the battery positive bolt and to fit a ground line to a body bolt anywhere. The whole body of the car is a negative. Never ever squeeze in some wire to bolts. This isn't a proper connection and is unsafe.

[@Heizenberg32]

@@MrMega200 Thanks!

[@davidneale530]

@@MrMega200 Exactly what I did for my car boot (with rubbish light placement). I used about 60cm of it and just wired it to the existing (LED but originally incandescent) boot light (ok I did get the proper connectors to make it a plug in harness thing with no factory wires cut or spliced but that's just me). This stuff is so bright, with 5m of it you'd need sunglasses in there!

[@LifeAtTerminalVelocity]

Any chance you can put an AM radio next to them to see how bad they are on RFI?

[@bigclivedotcom]

Bare LEDs won't generate much RF noise. It tends to be the power supplies and dimmers that create the noise.

[@kevinwingfield2007]

Hang on! 16 mA across 150 R will drop 2.4 volts approximately half the supply voltage. Therefore efficiency of only around 50%. Am I right?

[@bigclivedotcom]

Yeah.

[@wiiu7640]

I wonder if they will ever make an RGB variant of the tape. Currently you have to get it a certain color which I guess you could get 3 strips each being one of the RGB colors but that defeats the purpose in my opinion. At least they are pretty cheap, although it would probably be more expensive to buy 3 sets of this than traditional RGB. If you don’t want to change its color then I suppose this would be the cheapest option for the quality. Maybe in a building where the only color you want them to be is one color it would work well, like if you were on a floor that has a color scheme of purple or something. I remember the suits from Tron Legacy used LED strip in them, and they said it worked well with the diffusers because they were flexible enough to be put on a piece of armor like they wear. If they had these back then I bet the detail in the suits would be much cooler because they would have thinner stripes and more control over the designs. I think the stuff that people will make with this will be very cool. I’d like to see it when they make it in the next decade.

[@soundman98]

i would be curious to see the difference between the 5v and 12v versions of COB tape

[@Okabim]

12/24v seems more reasonable for something with LEDs packed that dense