List Price: $69.99
Sale Price: $49.99
Today's Bonus: 29% Off
I installed several sections of this as under cabinet lighting in our kitchen. They are not above any cook surfaces. I chose this product over many others because of the specific color temp, which is not commonly available in the less expensive (1/2-1/3 this items price) open or not waterproof strips.
The lights functions OK and the waterproof aspect might seem like a plus over the open strips in many uses.
However the covering brings issues.
First among them is the sleeve in which the strip is encased is resistant to any sort of mounting tape. Nothing will stick to it so If it is to be mounted you will have to use the 10mm flex strip straps that the seller also has available.
More important is what happens with age/use. The potting compound that suspends the strip itself within the sleeve yellows and petrifies with use. With one piece of this strip that I have had on more or less continuously since it was installed 1.5 months ago, many of the LEDS appear to have severely dimmed and the light color output of those has gone to amber. I replaced this strip inspected visually and dissected the aged one. The LEDS that were much dimmer had grown what looked like brown "age spots" above the LED itself. Very few LEDS had no such spots but there is a correlation to the severity of them and how dim that LED had become. I found the potting compound itself would become rock hard (at room temps) and until heated to at least the operating temp of the light strip, the strip itself was very inflexible. As I wrote, immediately above each LED the potting compound it had grown quite opaque and gone spotty brown in varying degrees. I confirmed it was the compound and not the LEDS by cutting away the compound above one LED the spots disappeared with the potting compound removal and energizing the strip showed that LED at near new intensity. The "lense" of the specific LED I exposed to also has grown slightly more opaque compared to new, but not to the degree the potting compound has darkened.
The other strips which are used only a couple hours per day do not as yet appear to yellowing or darkening.
So buyer beware. Extended or continuous use of these may result in degraded illumination quality.
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