New to the forum, just found this! I’m an amateur LED enthusiast that last year made a go at turning this knowledge in to products. I started with high quality cree stuff and hand assembling my own circuit boards but am ever intrigued by the cheap Chinese light strip product as it is super cost effective for $/lumen.
Yes. Tieing the back to the front will get you even voltage across. That is how super regulated power supplies work. You bring a wire from the far side back to a voltage input on the supply and it automatically adjusts so that it accounts for voltage drop over the wire. Voltage drop over distances will happen. I haven’t studied this on a lot of the strip light but will look in to. It is a real phenomenon but dont know how drastic it is in this case. Wiring up to the strip with 18ga or bigger will definitely help for higher current draws of your whole system because that will be a choke hold.
Things I’ve done before if there’s strips side by side is pull the plus and minus from strips nearby in the middle so that even if there is voltage drop its from the middle and not the ends so the light doesn’t look increasingly dim from left to right or top to bottom if you’re going in one end and out the other.
I’ve bought the eBay and DX stuff that doesn’t come as described or isn’t the same twice. Amazon has some cheap reels but I feel like that is blow out product and when they’re out they’re out and you never know how accurate their specs are.
I found a great Chinese vendor at a trade show that makes super high quality strip light (they only sell business to business). I’ve bought multiple samples from them and the quality has been super high and lumen output is very high. They provide light files and everything.
Anyways quality stuff is out there its just hard to know what is good or bad on a website. I would say if something doesn’t give you Volts, Amps, Lumens, and Color Temp then stay away. These are specifications every person making a LED product should know even if its theoretical from data sheets. A lot of strip light on websites if it does have lumens don’t tell you if that lumens is for the reel, per meter, per foot, per cut strip or what.
I like to look at total lumens when comparing products. It is the most simple and is the easiest to compare what you’re paying for. I believe some manufacturers use lux (lumen per square meter) ratings though for incandescent equivalents. Go to Home Depot’s website and look at a Cree A19 and Cree BR30. A19 is 800 lumens and 60W equivalent and the BR30 is 650 lumens and a 65W equivalent. How could it be less lumens but a higher equivalent? I use incandescent wattage x 15 lumens/watt and then compare to what my LED total lumens are.
I launched a kickstarter this month for a 12VDC light that uses 12v product from the vendor I spoke of earlier as the light engine and I corded it with a car plug. I’m making the housing. I am including a wall adapter for a car plug so you can use it indoors. Its 300 lumens in 11”. Really bright for tape light! Tape light that has to have a heat sink.
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1749518521/mount-anywhere-led
Anyways check it out or support the cause for one if you’re interested in seeing the tape light and how cool and finished a product you can make from it.
I’ve got some experience in this if you want to ask me questions.