Smelly rope light!

gary71

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I've recently bought some rope light from TLC to put around the MDF lighting pelmet I'm building. However it is a bit smelly once it warms up...

Before I commit the lighting pelmet to the walls can anyone tell me if the smell goes away eventually? They have been on for about 24 hours in the garage and are still quite happily stinking the room out...

Thanks
 
I bought some blue rope lighting for the boat and some rainbow rope lighting for the house purely for the Xmas period. These are both 3 years old and they still stink even when not switched on! They have both gone intermittent so I would never buy these again. I can see sparks inside where the contacts have gone dodgy! :eek:

LED strips don't smell! And they are a lot more versatile, and are low voltage (12V) & hence safer for indoor use.
 
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Thanks. Maybe I need a change of plan.

Is there a standard AV forums go to choice for warm white LED non smelly strip light?
 
..but true!

Clearly I want to spend the minimum I can get away with. I don't need gold plate, adjustable colour temperature or anything flash. Just a dimmable light around the top of the room for some ambiance :)
 
12V LED strips need 12V DC supplied by a high efficiency switched mode power supply. These power supplies do not work well when the mains feed is via a dimmer as in your case. Probably cheaper to buy a couple of pegs!!
 
Morning, It appears you are the 'go to' source... I'm new to this stuff so please let me off for not knowing! :laugh:

In the meantime before spotting this I've arranged for the rope light to go back to TLC and have bought 20m (in 5m strips) of 3528 single colour LED strip. By my sums this should be about 100w

Before I push the button on ordering can you confirm that this power supply is suitable:

12V Power Supplies ¦ Visualchillout

110/240v AC input (50/60Hz), 12V DC output, 10A (120W)

Thanks
Gary
 
I'll send you a 12.5A (150W) psu to give you more headroom as you are running the lights flat-out and not dimming - it's all about reliability. :thumbsup:
 
Received with thanks :)

...however fully up they are brighter than I was planning so there is an email on it's way to you regarding a recommendation of a suitable dimmer.
 
An 8A dimmer will be on its limit so best to go for a cheapy RGB IR controller (= 3 channel dimmer) to drive an 18A RGB amplifier (6A/channel). Just use 2 of the 3 amplifier channels - say red and green to drive 10m each. Select yellow on the remote control (yellow=red on + green on) and bingo!
 
OK. Connect the 4 controller output wires to the 4 RGB amplifier inputs. Connect your 2 x 10m white strips as follows:
Strip 1 +ve wire to RGB amplifier output V+ terminal
Strip 1 -ve wire to RGB amplifier output R terminal
Strip 2 +ve wire to RGB amplifier output V+ terminal
Strip 2 -ve wire to RGB amplifier output G terminal
Connect RGB amplifier Power + /- terminals to your 12.5A psu DC outputs using decent (10-15A) 2-core cable - mains cable is OK.
Sorted.
 

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