How to identify the quality and price of LED light strips?

Since the threshold for LED light strip production is low, there are many people selling this kind of decorative products. Only a few experienced people can identify the LED light strips produced by regular manufacturers and the knock-off LED light strips (i.e. products produced entirely by manual labor in a rental house) at a glance. Let's talk about how to identify the quality of LED light strips by eye:

1. Check the solder joints. LED strips produced by regular LED strip manufacturers are produced using SMT patch technology, solder paste and reflow soldering technology. Therefore, the solder joints on the LED strips are relatively smooth and the amount of solder is not much. The solder joints extend from the FPC pad to the LED electrode in an arc shape. The solder joints of the knockoff LED strips have uneven solder amounts, mostly in the form of a round dot covering the solder foot, and there will be different degrees of tin tips, which is a typical phenomenon of manual soldering.

2. Check the quality of FPC. FPC is divided into copper-clad and rolled copper. The copper foil of the copper-clad board is protruding, and you can see it from the connection between the pad and the FPC if you look closely. The rolled copper is closely connected to the FPC and can be bent arbitrarily without the pad falling off. If the copper-clad board is bent too much, the pad will fall off. Too high temperature during maintenance will also cause the pad to fall off.

3. Check the cleanliness of the surface of the LED light strip. If the LED light strip is produced by SMT process, its surface cleanliness is very good, and no impurities and stains can be seen. However, if the knockoff LED light strip is produced by hand soldering process, no matter how it is cleaned, there will be stains and traces of cleaning on its surface, and there will be flux and tin slag residue on the FPC surface.

4. Check the packaging. Regular LED light strips are packaged in anti-static reels, usually 5 meters or 10 meters per roll, and then sealed with anti-static moisture-proof packaging bags. However, knockoff LED light strips use recycled reels to save costs, and do not have anti-static moisture-proof packaging bags. If you look closely at the reels, you can see traces and scratches on the surface left when the labels were removed.

5. Check the label. Regular LED light strip packaging bags and reels will have printed labels, not printed labels. The counterfeit labels are printed, and the specifications and parameters are not uniform.

6. Check the accessories. Regular LED light strips will come with instructions for use and specifications in the box, as well as LED light strip connectors or sockets; while knockoff LED light strips will not have these accessories in the box, because some manufacturers still try to save money.