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Environmental Lights Continuous LED Strip Light

This month, PLSN’s Buyers Guide focuses on LED tape and flexible LED products (See pages 26-27). Once I compiled the list from every manufacturer on what they wished to list, I poked around all the different sites for some more info. If you look at today’s LED tape, there are so many models offered.To get more news about led bar decor, you can visit htj-led.com official website.

Almost all LED tape products had one thing in common: You could see the separate pixels up close. Especially on camera. Even when diffused, hot spots were there. Other companies offer some faux neon alternatives that are great products. But I was searching for something unique and new on the market. I just didn’t know what.

I stopped into the Environmental Lights website and immediately realized that I had found the king of LED tape — and was a little embarrassed about not already being aware of their wide range. They have whole divisions of different styles including RGB and multi-color LED strips, tunable white LED strip lights, white architectural LED strip lights and single-color LED strip lights.

Then there is the matter of UL listing (all of Environmental Lights products are) and IP ratings. Do they offer waterproof as well as indoor models? Are they capable of being stepped on and not broken? What does it take to make them dimmable? Is there a slim model made for getting in tight spaces? Do they have a bright white with a CRI of 95+? Is there a model that can fold at 90° angles easily? The answer is yes, Environmental Lights manufactures a product that can cover every one of these options.
But while browsing, one particular product caught my eye, and I immediately knew I found that unique product I was in search of — the Continuous LED Strip Light. It’s a new style of LED tape that is not all about separation of pixels, but one continuous line of COB that creates a diffused line of light. This eliminates the dots or hot spots users see in standard SMD LED tape.

I called them up and asked for a couple samples to play around with. At the moment, this continuous LED strip light is only available in white, spanning a variety of color temperature models. It is not available in a tunable white model yet, but I’m told that will be available early this summer along with single color versions (and RGB is also in development).

Users can currently choose between 2700K, 3000K, 3500K, 4000K, 5000K and 6500K color temperatures. I was sent sample kits with a 2700K model that had a single amber colored line across a black colored tape as well as a 4000K model that featured a similar amber line centered on white tape. Both of these sample kits came with a 110V-24V power supply mounted to them.

As soon as I plug it in to the 100V wall outlet, they pop to full brightness. I attached them to a stick of truss to see how they looked side by side. When they are off, the black tape was way less noticeable than its white counterpart. But when illuminated at full, the strip with the white background was noticeably brighter, basically because of the extra bounce of light coming from the white tape combined with the higher color temperature and efficacy.

The ambient light glowing from the COB mounted on the white tape made it appear twice as bright to my eye. But in all fairness, the 2700K model emits 1290 lumens per meter compared to the 1410 lumens emitted by the 4000K model.

Luminous efficacy is a measure of how well a light source produces visible light. It is the ratio of luminous flux to power, measured in lumens per watt. (They measure this by multiplying lumens times wattage). So while the input current for all the models of this continuous LED strip light is 3750 mA, the efficacy of the 2700K model is at 71.7, while the 4000K model is running at 90. We also note that the CRI on all the models is 90+, regardless of color temperature.

I was unable to test the dimming just using a conventional dimmer, as LED tape runs on +24 Volts and the sample kit comes with a non-dimming power supply. The simplest option for dimming would be their inline controller, such as the Dim-MiniLine. It has a few simple controls, all of which are accessible by buttons on the dimmer (no remote, programming, etc.). There is a “low speed” dimming option suitable for non-video applications. This is great for basic installations.

Environmental Lights was quick to point out that they offer plenty of DMX-based options if you would like higher speed dimming (suitable for on-film use), but that requires a more complicated setup with a DMX controller and software. Alternatively, they have a UNV series of universal dimming power supplies. They will work with (essentially) any conventional 120V dimmer as well as 0-10V. Heck, they also have a convenient 0-10V knob that can stand in for a dimmer.

Each reel comes in a 5 meter length with an option to buy additional one-foot lengths if you just need a little bit to finish a project. The width of the tape is 10mm, a little over a third of an inch. Each length utilizes 90 watts, meaning it utilizes .75 amps of current at 120V. Of course, each section of the continuous LED strip can be cut into smaller sections to make it fit anywhere. The tape has cutting marks every 1.54 inches.