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What is a high quality waterproof LED strip light?

For a high quality waterproof light strip, its outer tubing not only protects its inner components from the external environment (especially rain, water splashes), but also effectively conducts out heat generated by LEDs and other electrical components, making LED's lifetime longer. In this sense, the outer layer of the outdoor strip light is similar to the glass cover that protects the growth of young green plants. It not only shields the young plants from wind and rain, but also let in the appropriate amount of sunlight and air to help the young plants grow.

When we buy the waterproof LED light strip, we often pay attention to the lumen brightness. What material the outer tubing is made of, and the quality of the material, are easily ignored.

In fact, some inferior waterproof materials contain harmful substances to the human body. During the operation of the exterior light strip, it reacts to the light and heat, causing the harmful substance to volatilize and affecting our health.

On the other hand, due to their own composition elements, the inferior materials will gradually corrode the LEDs and the surface of the circuit board under the effect of light and heat, resulting in dead LEDs and damage to the circuit board, which will further shorten the life of the strip.

Now that we know the important role of the outer tubing on the quality and life of the outdoor light strip, let's discuss it further. What's so good about silicone?


bathroom lighting
Silicone waterproof LED strip for bathroom lighting

The advantage of using silicone as waterproof material for strip lights

Comparing silicone waterproof LED strip lights with ordinary outdoor strips from various aspects, we can see the advantages of silicone waterproof material. Its excellent characteristics include non-yellowing, non-toxic, weather resistant, ultraviolet resistant, etc. All of these benefits show that silicone waterproof LED strips are the best.

1. Silicone waterproof LED strip lights are non-toxic and RoHS certified. Silicone is non-toxic. It is actually the material that is used to make kid pacifiers, environmentally friendly and safe. Epoxy resin and PU glue waterproof materials are toxic. With the increase in heat during the operation of the light strip, the toxicity is letting out worse and worse.

2. Silicone offers super good weather resistance. Silicone maintains its normal soft state under the environment of -67 °F to 392 °F (-55 °C to 200 °C), and does not appear brittle, deformation, softening, aging and so on. This feature gives the silicone light strip a particularly versatile scope of applications.

No matter in the severe cold regions at high latitudes, or in the subtropical hot regions, silicone can always maintain good softness. Various bending degrees to meet the diverse needs of customer installation. PU glue waterproof material generates bubbles and cracks at high temperatures. Epoxy resin becomes brittle at low temperatures and easily cracks.

3. Silicone material has excellent UV resistance. It can be exposed to strong sunlight for a long time (more than 5 years) without yellowing and aging. In contrast, epoxy resin is very sensitive to ultraviolet components and heat, and its aging and yellowing will occur in several months or up to one year.

With the yellowing of the outer tubing, the color temperature of the LED light will drift and the brightness will decrease. And with aging, the protective role assumed by the outer tubing will be invalidated, and moisture and dust will enter, gradually eroding circuit boards, LEDs and other components.

4. Silicone provides excellent corrosion resistance. Silicone has stable chemical properties, can resist the corrosion of ordinary acids, alkalis and salts, which makes silicone outdoor strip light widely used in chemical plants, gas stations, yachts, ships, seaside stores, residential homes, and other places.

Ordinary LED lights installed close to sea areas will get rusty fast and have a short life. This is because the salt content on the seaside is high, and the high temperature and moisture also exacerbates the chemical reaction of the ordinary shell material. Silicone is inert and not reactive to many elements, so it protects the circuit boards and LEDs inside. The LED strip light will have a long lifetime under its protection.

5. Silicone shows fantastic light transmittance: The light transmittance of silicone is as high as 95%. When it is used to make the waterproof tubing for the LED light strip, and the light loss is lower than other waterproof materials.

PU glue will shift the light color temperature. For a normal bright white 6500K LED light strip covered with PU glue waterproof material, the color temperature will shift up by about 1000K, turning into about 7500K-8000K.

6. Silicone material performs very good thermal conductivity. Compared to other waterproof material, silicone has a large thermal conductivity. It can effectively dissipate heat away from the light strip.

Light and heat are always together. LEDs are extremely sensitive to temperature. Although the heat generation of LED products is already very small compared to traditional lights, increased temperature still affects LED life, light efficiency, and reliability. Therefore, thermal design is one of the key technologies for the development of LED lighting products. Good thermal design helps to improve the performance and reliability of LED lighting products.

Light strip is different from other light fixtures. For example, a flood light or a bulb, which conducts heat physically through an aluminum substrate and die-cast aluminum housing. The heat emitted by the LEDs is quickly transmitted to the circuit board, and then conducted to the outside through the outer tubing.

During the test, it was found that after turned on for a while, the silicone waterproof LED strip light felt warm when touching. After the light was turned off, the silicone light strip quickly returned to room temperature. It is obvious that silicone conducted the heat inside the tubing to the outside environment, thanks to the good thermal conductivity of silicone.