The vast majority of people fall in love with LED light strips as soon as they start using them. Within a few days of seeing them online, they’re putting up LED strip lights all over the house.
And it’s easy to understand why. The diffuse lighting style they give off is much nicer than the oftentimes harsh, direct light you get from a standard light bulb.
But while people have good intentions, they’ve not quite yet perfected how to use LED strip lights effectively. It’s like they’re still looking for the best way to use LED light strips. So let’s look at some do’s and don’ts when it comes to installing and styling these gorgeous lights.
VIEW OUR CAVELIGHTS RECOMMENDED LED LIGHT STRIPS HERE.
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Tips to best use LED light strips
Tip 1: Exposed LED Strips – Don’t Do It!
This is by far the most common styling error when it comes to these light strips, but luckily it’s also one of the easiest to fix.
While the lighting given off by an LED strip light can be beautiful, the strip itself is quite ugly.
A thin strip of material with light emitting diodes spread out along it, coupled with a load of weird markings. Not great.
So it should be common sense that you’d want to hide the light strip itself, but that’s not what we find!
Instead, whenever you’re looking for a place to put your lights, you should look for a place where a) the LED strip light itself can be out of sight, and b) the light given off from the strip can be projected onto another surface.
This works because its only when the light is projected onto another surface that you get that beautiful diffusion that everyone is after.
You can see this diffusion in action here, which can be achieved with ease with our LED Light Strip.
If you are looking to place the LED strip light in a location where it can’t be projected onto another surface, you should instead look to place the strip inside of a diffusing channel.
A channel is simply an outer casing to run your LED strip lights through, which straight away cleans up the look vs an exposed LED strip, which can crease and warp while on the wall. They’re also considerably easier to mount on the wall.
The additional benefit of a diffusing channel is that the light gets diffused (hence the name) without it having to be projected onto that second surface. A win-win!
We have an excellent one here at Cavelights, which you can find here.
Tip 2: Make sure it’s uniform!
Another pet peeve we find when it comes to installing led light strips is the lack of uniformity.
On an LED light strip, you’ll notice the individual LED’s are spaced evenly apart, so that once it’s installed and switched on, the light they emit it is also evenly spread.
However, sometimes we will see led strip light installations where the light emitted is not uniform, which is one of those things that as soon you notice it, the whole thing is ruined. You can’t unsee it once you’ve seen it.
It creates a dim spot, which I something you definitely don’t want.
There can be a number of causes of this, from something as simple as a turn or bend in the LED strip, to the adhesive holding the strip light up coming loose in certain areas, causing it to droop down and create that dim spot.
These are easy fixes to both identify and rectify, but there is one cause that definitely is not an easy fix – a blown or broken LED on the strip.
Unfortunately there is not much you can do in this situation, so please, please, please make sure you buy a high-quality LED light strip such as this one. Don’t skimp now and have to pay the price later!
Tip 3: Buy some good adhesive
You might think that because they’re so light, LED strip lights can just be held up with Scotch Tape (Sellotape) or Blu Tack.
While this may work in the short-term, you’re inevitably going to end up with the dreaded half-hanging off LED strip eventually, where part of your adhesive has come loose, causing a section of your strip light to swing down.
While this is one of the main complaints with LED strips, it can actually be solved pretty easily with our LED Strip Light Mounting Clips.
With these at your disposal, you never have to worry about how long your LED strip light will stay attached. Simply stick them to the wall, place your LED Strip Light inside them, and you’re good to go!
VIEW OUR CAVELIGHTS RECOMMENDED LED LIGHT STRIPS HERE.
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