Foretravel Owners' Forum

Soldering LED Strip Lighting

I posted this last winter with picture links to an external site which went away as did the pictures.  Not much good without pictures.

For long term reliability most of us have soldered connections to the LED strips.  It is not hard to do and takes much less time than redoing a strip with bad clip on connectors.

Some pictures might help.  Click or tap on the pictures for a bigger view.
 
LED strips have a marked place to cut the strip and attach wires every three elements or so. Cut across or between the copper dots.

The dots are clearly marked + and -.  If you hook them up wrong they will not work. 

Start with a good soldering iron.  This is one for soldering tiny strain gages. Any soldering iron with a small tip will work.

Peel back a bit of the backing and stick the strip to a piece of wood.  This is 0.3 mm solder.

Heat up and apply just a bit of solder to each dot.

Just a dot.

Strip off 1/8" or so from your wires.  It can be longer, trim them later.  20 or 22 gage wire is fine for short connections (a foot or two).  Anything longer run bigger wire (16 or 14 ga) and connect the smaller wire to it.  Most of the lighting wiring in your coach will be 10 or 12 ga.
EvZ 20AWG 66ft 20m Extension Cable Wire Cord for Led Strips Single Colour... (https://amazon.com/gp/product/B009VCZ4V8/ref=oh_aui_search_detailpage?ie=UTF8&psc=1)

Heat up each wire end and melt a bit of solder to coat the wire.

Hold the ends of the wires to the correct + or - dot, apply heat with the soldering iron until the solder in the wire and the dot melt, just a second or two.  Remove the soldering iron and hold for a couple seconds to let it cool off.

Perfect.

This is a good time to test the strip.  I have a 12v dc wall plug in power supply.  They are very useful for testing, maybe $7 bucks.

Slide the 3/8" dia x 3/8" long heat shrink tubing. Usually it easier to do this before soldering. The kind with the adhesive inside is great for this. The cover strip from the adhesive backing should not be under the tube.

Heat it up and shrink it to snug it up. Don't deform the strip.  You can see the adhesive at both ends to the tube.  This makes a very secure attachment.

Hook up the power again and test it once more.  It is a good idea to test the strip at each step of the way.  It prevents rework.

And then assume the adhesive backing will not work well or last long.  Get some 3/8" x 1/16" double stick glaziers tape.  Amazon.com: J.V. Converting DC-WGT-01/WI063038 JVCC DC-WGT-01 Double Coated... (https://amazon.com/gp/product/B000SZ3RES/ref=oh_aui_search_detailpage?ie=UTF8&psc=1)

Peel off the backing strip from the LED strips and apply the glaziers tape.

Once and done.  Sticks to anything.

A bit of practice and you will be an expert.  I hope this helps you give it a try.

Roger

Resources
Duplex wire, just about any size you want.  This is about the best you can get.
Amazon.com: Ancor Marine Grade Duplex Cables: Sports & Outdoors (https://amazon.com/gp/product/B000NUYC3S/ref=oh_aui_search_detailpage?ie=UTF8&psc=1)

Long neck crimp caps,  a single crimp for connections, lots of sizes available, buy them by the bag, cheaper.
Amazon.com: Install Bay CCL1614 Crimp Cap Nylon Connector 16/14 Gauge Long... (https://amazon.com/gp/product/B000SBLM1C/ref=oh_aui_search_detailpage?ie=UTF8&psc=1)

Nice crimping tool, one handed to hold the crimp cap and crimp.
Gardner Bender GS-388 Electrical Pliers, Crimper & Cutter, Comfort Grip,... (https://amazon.com/gp/product/B00079LN1Y/ref=oh_aui_search_detailpage?ie=UTF8&psc=1)

Excellent tutorial with nice, clear photos.  KUDOS!

Nicely done! It isn't easy to place the pictures inline with the descriptions, but it makes the flow much easier to follow... ^.^d
Don

Album Pictures in a Post

If you have several pictures for a post upload them into a Forum album.  Each picture will have an smg id code that you put in your post to show the picture where you want it.  When you assemble the post with the links to pictures in an album and leave a return or two after each picture and the do a preview it looks good.  Post it and it looks terrible.  So the trick is to leave 7 or 8 returns after each picture, sometimes more, sometimes less depending on the size and orientation of the pictures.

You can add a URL link to the album as well.  If you put in the smg id code for the album all the pictures will show up in your post.

Great tutorial, sure appreciate you sharing your knowledge and taking the time to make it easy to understand. 

Jason

Nice tutorial on the soldering and nice explanation on posting technique.  You must have time on your hands for computer work up there in the frozen north this time of year.  :))

Nice write up Roger!

Spare Time? Not really, just fixing an old broken post.  Building skills is almost important as building knowledge.  There are so many tasks we do on our coaches that can be done ourselves with the right tools,  know how and some pictures.  Practice makes better. You can do it!

Thanks for the positve feedback.

I could not find my post from 2011 but attached a couple of photos as well as a link to our Google Photo album for the installation.

Good guide on choosing and buying the LEDs: Ultimate Guide on Buying LED Strip Lights - LEDSupply Blog (https://www.ledsupply.com/blog/ultimate-guide-on-buying-led-strip-lights/)

I purchased our LED rolls in China but they are available everywhere now. You can change colors, dim, etc. Your big choice is cool or warm white for the interior. I chose warm but that's an individual taste choice.

The double backed tape may sag at the ends so I used an extra adhesive to keep the ends up.

Here is a link to our photo album: U300 LED Installation - Google Photos (https://photos.app.goo.gl/GbjnGxVKepzGm5FNA)

Pierce

I should have added that soldering is really easy if after cutting across the copper strips, you scratch the copper with something sharp like a poster pin. This gives a nice bright surface for the solder to flow onto. I like to use a 30 watt pencil soldering iron. After preparing the copper, I put a little solder on the end of the iron and then with a brief touch to the strip, the solder forms a little ball on the copper. After you tin the ends of the wires, it only takes less than a second to make the connection. You only have a maximum of three seconds to make the solder joint without risking damage to the LEDs.

Pierce

This is an amazing post, thankyou for making it look so simple. I have a question though. On my side isle, the hall light is going to be 12' long. How do I solder the wires to it so I can still shut the light off from the bedroom? Ill have 2 switches that control one light.

The two switches probably control a relay that sends power to the light.  Is it 12 ft long?  Or 12 inches?  If it really long maybe do three or four strips end to end each wired to a common power connection.  This reduces voltage loss down the length.  Sam with shorter fixters where there is enough room for several strips.  Wire then up in parallel rather than series.  The light will work better.

Add a switch to the light fixture to power on/off some of the strips.  Often I only want one or two on in the evening and all during the day.

MT Ted,

If you don't already have the switches in place (Like Roger is talking about), but are starting from scratch, then this Wikipedia article might be what you are looking for.  I say "Might be..." because it quickly went way above my level of electrical proficiency.

Multiway switching - Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multiway_switching)

If it uses any one of several types of latching relays the wiring might be more like this.  The relay latches or unlatches when you press the switch.  When latched it sends power to the light (the fill valve in this diagram). If you have multiple water pump witches it probably works this way too.