RGB LED strips have wide applications. In the commercial use, they are wide used in bars, clubs, and the high-level hotels. When they come to household uses, they are usually used to decorate the kitchen and the living room. They allow you to use more of their imaginations. You can create mood light in your home to your own taste, for instance, enlightening the edges of furniture, illuminating the corridor, staircase and steps. They are also the perfect lighting solution for the under cabinet in the kitchen, as they can be easily installed and occupy less space.
In general, a RGB LED strip kit includes the RGB LED strips (obviously) and the matching RGB controller, which is use to control and adjust brightness, static color choices and various dynamic changes in lighting effects. Some simple GRB LED strips have a set of fixed integrated circuits which have been pre-programmed the color display effects.
Once you decide on going for RGB LED strips, there are several technical details you should pay attentions to. Since the LED strips work at low voltage direct circuits, you need to use an appropriated transformer to transform the mains to constant low voltage (usually is DC 12 volt, some strips work at 24 volt DC or 5 volt DC). To pick up a proper power supply, you need to figure out the quantity of LEDs of the strip. A piece of SMD 5050 LED packages three light-emitting chips inside the package. And it will consume 0.08W per light-emitting chip. So in theory, it will consume 0.24 watts of power for a SMD 5050 LED. To calculate the total power consumption, just multiply the quantity of LEDs by the wattage of specific type of LED. For instance, one reel (16.4ft) of RGB SMD 5050 LED strips 300 LEDs will consume 300X0.24=72 Watts, in this case, you need a more powerful transformer than 72 watts, such as 90 watt transformer. By analogy, you can figure out how much wattage your LED transformer need to be. Other important parameters include waterproof rate, beam angle, Luminous flux, color ranges.
The other component of RGB LED strip is the RGB controller, since it determines the performance of strips. One of the technical parameters of controller you should pay attentions to is its output wattage, which will determine how many LEDs can be controlled. Take the RGB controller with 96 watt output voltage for example, and let us assume the strip is 7 watts per meter, the RGB controller can only connect 96/7 = 13.7 meters of strip. In this case, if you wish to control much longer of strip, but synchronized together, you will need an amplifier to forward the control signal.
