Cheap Hitlights Weatherproof Warm White Flexible Ribbon LED Strip Light

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List Price: $59.89
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I am an owner of a lighting and lamp shop. I purchased many reels of LED strip to do a small test. Everyone knows that LED will be the next generation of the lighting but LED is more complicate than the halogen light. So people sometimes feel difficult to find out the right LEDs, especially online. Home Depot carries all kinds of LED lamp but none of the LED strip. So I hope my review will be helpful for all of you on Amazon.

The strips I compared are the most basic products: cool white and warm white, waterproof and non-waterproof. All the LED strips came in different quality and brightness. I am satisfied with five of the strips. These five strip have high lumen, good color and 3M tape is good. So I recommend them:

HitLights LED Flexible Lighting Strip Cool White or Bright White, 5 Meter or 16 Ft, 3528 Type, 300 SMD, 24 Watt

This cool white LED has the highest brightness and the color is about 6000K which will be very closed to the tube. I think this one should be enough for most of the people. Also, the best part is the price is very reasonable and even cheaper than some low quality strip. So I highly recommend this one.

16.4 Feet 300 SMD LED Flexible Strip with Waterproof Sleeve,12 Volt Clear White LED Ribbon 5 Meter Reel,3528CW By CBconept

This strip have a good rubber sleeve protect the strip and the color is around 6000K too. But since it doesn't have the 3M tape. So be careful. If you really need the waterproof cool white strip, this is your option.

5 Meter Reel Warm White 3100k Flexible LED Ribbon 300 Leds 16 Ft by LEDwholesalers, 2026ww-31k

This strip have a neutral color, around 3000K to 3500K which is between cool white and warm white. The color is special and I believe some one will need that. The 3M tape is great and stick the strip really well.

HitLights LED Flexible Lighting Strip Warm White, 5 Meter or 16 Ft, 3528 Type, 300 SMD, 24 Watt

This one have a better price and warmer color. It is from hitlights so the quality is the same as the first one I just mentioned before.

HitLights Waterproof LED Flexible Warm White Lighting Strip, 3528 Type, 300 LED, 5 Meter or 16 Ft, 24 Watt, 12 Volt

This is the only warm white LED strip I found on Amazon. The quality is good and the LED is bright. Good choice for the people who need warm white LED strip in outdoor use.

Finally, I realized that hitlights and led wholesaler are the top two quality on Amazon. I also found both of them have more LED products in other vendors. In other word, they are more professional in LED. Obviously, led wholesaler has even more products but higher price while hitlights only has the popular led products and the price is more reasonable. I will say both of them are good LED sellers.

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This strip has 3 LEDs every 50mm (1.968"). The strip is 8mm wide (.322") and 3mm (.118) thick. The thickness is because there's a soft clear plastic waterproof coating molded over the LEDs. It's domed, tapering to zero at the strip's edges. You can cut the strip on the cut lines every 50mm.

I previously installed indoor LED strip lighting under my kitchen cabinets. This outdoor model would have been better. If you need to sponge it off due to splatters or other inadvertent splashing, this waterproof model would work better. The indoor strip is basically a printed circuit strip with LEDs protruding from it and looks like an electronic component. This outdoor model has a smooth continuous covering that looks finished. As you can't really see either under or inside cabinets (depending on how you install it) it doesn't really matter, but if you touch or see it in any way, the outdoor model is better. Another application would be as an up-pointing wall wash. There, the strip would get very dusty if installed on top of cabinets or in crown molding. And kitchen dust can be sticky due to cooking residue. This plastic covered outdoor model would be very easy to clean.

Connectors are sold separately to attach electrical wiring but I've found it easier and more reliable (especially outdoors) to solder discreet wires onto the strip and shrink a piece of shrink tubing over the solder points. With these waterproof LEDs it's a bit harder to clean the solder pads to ready them for soldering, but soldering is less expensive and allows more compact installation. Strip lights are basically a thin flexible printed circuit. It's easy to solder to the cut points. If you look carefully, you'll see that this is how the factory splices one strip to another (see attached pictures).

The strip comes with a 5.5mm x 2.5mm male coax power plug on one end and bare wires on the other end. (See attached picture.) Both are insulated with shrink tubing. You can do the same at home. It's a lot easier to run a simple wire through access holes when the wire doesn't have big connectors on it. And for long term installations, hard wired connections be more reliable.

Powered the strip with the very solid Ledwholesalers 30 Watt LED Power Suppply Driver Transformer 120 to 12 Volt DC Output, 3207 and can be dimmed nicely by inserting a 12V 8A LED Light Dimmer Brightness Adjustable Bright Controller between the strip and power supply.

The Amazon page states it's an IP69 waterproof rating, but the package label says it's IP65: suitable for wet outdoors, but not for continuous underwater.

To give you an idea how prices have dropped, in 2009 a 24-watt 5-meter waterproof LED strip like this went for $260.00.

Best Deals for Hitlights Weatherproof Warm White Flexible Ribbon LED Strip Light

I really like these (we're using them behind wood racks in our wine cellar) and the price was EXCELLENT compared with what we paid a month later to have a contractor purchase some of a similar product at the last minute from an electrical supply store (not Amazon) for another project.

The color is CERTAINLY "warm" (and that's not easy to verbalize--or get--with LEDs).

They're bright.

They're cool to the touch.

They all work.

One thing I did NOT do right was to figure out what to purchase along with these strips to join multiple strips & pieces of strips together. (The electrician found the pieces he needed to join them.)

We're very happy!

By the way...

At the same time, we also purchased a power transformer/driver from Amazon.com & "PWM Dimming Controller For LED Lights or Ribbon, 12 Volt 8 Amp, 3301" at the same time. Everything arrived quickly. They both work fine too.

The dimmer is sort of clunky looking, but that's okay for our purposes.

Honest reviews on Hitlights Weatherproof Warm White Flexible Ribbon LED Strip Light

Nice. I'm installing them in a poorly lit staircase. They're not too yellow, not too white, they're like sunshine(not blue-ish like some) Just got them so cant rate lifetime yet, but LEDs are usually rated in the 10,000 hours-ish. The whole reel does draw some current though so make sure your power supply is up to the task, but be sure to observe the 12V rated voltage (like all LEDs). Also use a regulated power supply, not a unregulated wall wart. Overall pleased.

Find helpful customer reviews and review ratings for Hitlights Weatherproof Warm White Flexible Ribbon LED Strip Light

The hue from these waterproofed LED lights is quite stunning--not bluish like some. The intensity of these is significant, so a dimmer will be necessary if the strip's exposed. Another thing, to secure the sealed back of the light-strip staples are going to be required because the adhesive will not hold against the coiled memory of the strand--you'll get patches that detach. But these are all minor details because the price is right & the light produced is beyond handsome.