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Introduction
Decorating your home? Adding the perfect amount and type of lighting to your place can easily oomph it up to another level. Just a little addition of an accessory such as LED lights will make your home look bougie and sophisticated besides the fact that they can actually help you. LED lights are pocket friendly in spite of their numerous uses. They are energy efficient and come in various colors and intensities. But LED strip lights are even cheaper. They come in several colors, and many intensities and are most importantly compact with their length being customizable. But can you cut LED light strips according to your desire and need? Whether you are looking to light up your kitchen cabinets, your wardrobe, or your bed, LED strip lights are the most favored option. User-friendly, customizable, and versatile are how we can describe them. The most frequently sold LED strip light is around 16 feet(5 meters) but it can be cut to adjust according to the length of your cabinets or wherever you need to stick it.
Ways To Cut LED Light Strips
- Whether or not you can cut LED light strips
- How and where you should cut them
- Can you cut waterproof LED light strips?
- LED light strips you can not cut
- Troubleshooting
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In short, yes, but there can be complications if not done with care. LED lights can be different in terms of color as in RGB, white, or yellow, they can be rigid or flexible and waterproof and non-waterproof but they can all be cut according to the length required. In order to easily cut it you should, first of all, get to know its components and structure. Although it is vital to mention that not all LED strip light brands make strip lights that can be cut at home by yourself. First and foremost you should check the packaging of the light whether it allows it or not. And if it does not you should reach out to a professional to do it for you. Otherwise further on this guide contains all that you need to know to cut the LED strip light yourself within a matter of minutes!
The LED strip consists of separate LED sets combined together to form a usually 5-meter-long LED strip. This set consists of one resistor and three LED lights with two positive and negative exposed copper ends on both ends of each LED set. So you easily shorten the strip by detaching these LED sets. The circuit at the copper pads is completely cut off which helps in cutting the LED light without disturbing the circuit so that the current can easily flow through both the segregated pieces easily.
Cutting LED strip lights is a task that requires your focus and attention for its successful completion otherwise you could potentially ruin the ends of both segments. So now you would be thinking ‘Where to cut the LED strip?’. It is simple, the copper plates that we previously talked about are placed in a symmetrical manner on both edges of the LED strip. Between two copper plates of different sets, there is a black line, a dotted one, or one which has the symbol of a pair of scissors. You have to cut the strip along this line. Adding to it, be cautious not to overlook any component as some LED sets may be different from others, it depends from brand to brand.
You would be pretty sure you would not mess up but many people do make a mistake and waste two entire sets of LED strip lights. Before doing this you should make sure that you have properly measured the length of the place on which you have to secure the LED strip light on to. Take an accurate reading and make sure that the point where you decide to cut the light is a bit longer than the actual measurement, this will allow you to reach the perfect size by trial and error. Next, take a set of sharp scissors so you do not have to struggle at all while cutting it, and do so right in the middle to avoid cutting the copper plates.
Waterproof LED light strips can be easily cut without damaging the pc or the LED set. They can be cut using a sharp pair of scissors. In order to make the exposed ends of the LED strip it is significant to the exposed ends of the strip in order to protect it from the external environment. You can do so by applying some silicone glue to the ends.
LED Lights That You Cannot Cut?
Watch out for LED strips that cannot be cut! Although it can be tricky to figure it out, by paying attention you can easily spot them. Mostly LED strips that cannot be cut do not have the scissors logo nor the black line which separates two copper plates. Another thing that indicates that the LED lights can not be cut is the IC chips. They are large black isolated chips scattered all over the LED light strip, one after another. Each individual chip controls a certain part of the strip and if the chip is cut in between two chips the circuit will most likely break causing dysfunction of the LED light. Lastly, you can simply check the packaging whether it can be cut at home or not. Quite a few brands do mention it on their packaging.
Troubleshooting
When dealing with any trouble regarding LED strip lights it is important to know first whether the LED strip light can be cut at home or not. You should thoroughly check the presence of IC chips and if you find them it means that the circuit throughout the light is continuous and there is no chance to split the strip light into two pieces. Doing so will entirely damage the circuit resulting in useless light. Secondly, when cutting along the black make sure you do not make a cut outside the black dotted line. There could also be some other issue like the strip light’s brightness has decreased. This can happen when two ends are soldered together they may be of varying brightness which can cause a drop in the voltage. This can be solved by giving a higher power input and more conveniently decreasing the length of the LED strip light.
