Product review: Braided LED rope
LEDs are awesome. That statement is closer to being factual than being an opinion. (At least in my opinion, hmm…). Anyways, I have done all kinds of projects with LEDs and lately came across a product that I had not seen before: Braided LED rope (see picture below). I couldn’t find many articles about it either so I decided to buy some and check it out. Here’s my findings :)!
Product specifications#
Note: the value column has conflicting information due to the package and the webshop page being inconsistent.
| Property | Value | Tested? |
|---|---|---|
| Length | 1m | Yes |
| Nr of LEDs | 50 | Yes |
| Power consumption | 3 W/m (on package), 11.5 W/m (from website) | Yes, the maximum output I could reach was 3.5 W/m, which was achieved when all 50 LEDs were set to bright white. |
| Chipset | WS2811/WS2812b | It runs on 5V and every LED is addressable, so I assume it’s actually WS2812. |
| International Protection score | IP67 | No |
| Price | 9.29 euro | |
| Webshop Link | Aliexpress |
The looks#
The LED rope looks pretty awesome in my opinion! With light brightness levels you can definitely see the individual LEDs, but when running at > 50% brightness levels that problem resolves itself. The structure of the rope is also refreshing and something else from smooth diffusion filters or just plain LEDs.
- Figure 2*
Product build quality#
The rope itself feels quite robust and although I didn’t test it, I’m pretty confident it would work while being submersed / outdoors for prolonged periods. The wires are sealed quite neatly as can be seen from figure 3.
- Figure 3*
The rope sheath is feels like poly amide and is quite strong. Underneath the sheath there is a hollow tube that has a silicone feel to it. It probably is a product that’s being re-used for this purpose given it’s particular cross sectional profile (see figure 4). The tube serves as an extra diffuse filter and provides body to the rope. When I saw this product, I was curious about what was inside and especially how the light was emitted 360 degrees. Well, it appears that it’s just a strand of seeds/dots that’s inside the silicon tube.
