Can you Cut LED Strip Lights and How To Connect: A Guide
LED strips are a great addition to any interior space and can be used to create the perfect lighting for almost any event or location. LED strips come in a range of sizes and specifications, meaning that they can fit your venue perfectly and can be tailored to your needs.
Whether you’re looking to illuminate your kitchen cupboards or backlight your TV, with LED strip lights, there’s a solution to everything. Favored for their versatility, LED strips consist of a series of LED emitters installed onto a narrow, flexible circuit board.
There’s just one cause for concern. Most LED strips come as long reels between 3ft and 16ft in length. Will they continue to work if they are trimmed down?
How to Cut LED Strip Lights
Before cutting light strips, please make sure that the strip you bought can be cut; otherwise, cutting the light strip may render it unusable; at the same time, you must remember to disconnect the power; directly cutting a light strip that is connected to a power supply is extremely dangerous.
Step 1. Measure the length
Step 2. Look for the scissors logo on the light strip
Step 3. Cut with a pair of scissors
Where can you cut LED strips?
The LED strips should have copper dots or ovals, typically located every three LEDs. These markers indicate cut points where you can make a cut in the strip. Make sure that you only cut on these markers and use a sharp cutting tool such as a pair of wire cutters or utility knife, to achieve a clean finish and prevent any damage to the internal wires.
Find the Cut Line
When cutting LED Strip Light it is very important to cut only on the given cut line between the copper dots. Cutting through or before the copper dots will result in no electrical conductivity to the following section.
Cut the LED Strip Light
Use a pair of sharp scissors to cut the LED Strip Light directly down the given cut line.
How to cut, connect & power LED Strip Lighting
How to connect LED strip lights to one power supply
If you have purchased a LED light strip set, it should come with a connector and a controller. You should use the connector to connect the light strip and the controller. When connecting the light strip and the connector, please pay attention to the front and back. If the light strip is inserted backward, it will not work properly.
While clipping is an easy and convenient way to connect LED light strips with each other, there are some cases where clipping isn’t an option. For example, if you are connecting strips that will be mounted using aluminum frames, you can’t use clips to connect them. In that case, you will have to solder the LED tapes to each other.
Soldering LED light strips to each other is not a very difficult process. However, it does require some specialized machinery and has a bit of a learning curve. To solder two LED strips together you have to cut the strips to the size you want, remove the covering to expose the strip, match the ends of both strips exactly, and solder them together.
Final Words
There you have it! LED strip lights can be customized to meet the requirements of any installation, no matter how big or small.
So it’s no wonder they’re swiftly becoming the most popular form of LED lighting.
If you’re still feeling unsure, it is possible to get LED strip lights cut by a professional, but if you follow my guide, I promise there is nothing to be scared of.