LED awning strip lights
When I turned the awning LED strip lights they were very dim not even close to how bright they used to be. Any suggestions would be appreciated thanks .
Forum Discussion
jpmyers wrote:
I've seen those replacement strips. Not leaning electrical, what is involved in connecting these. I have a few lights out on a short strip. By moving the strip around a bit, I've had those lights flicker on and off. Any suggestions?
Broken solder joint (IE cold solder joint).
Those LEDs are surface mounted, typically manufacturer uses a paste solder which acts like a glue until heated in an oven designed for this purpose. Solder has most likely cracked under the LED, difficult to repair using normal soldering pencil. Typically a air soldering station designed for soldering surface mount parts can be used to reflow the solder. Some surface mount LEDs may have a tiny solder tab sticking out, with those if you have a fine enough solder tip you might be able to resolder as normal.
Have seen reflowing done by using a off the shelf heat gun (type you would used to strip paint)by applying heat from the backside of the LED strip. Not for the faint of heart though as you do not have pin point accuracy and chances of burning the strip and LEDs are pretty high.
These strips are dirt cheap, poorly made with seconds or even thirds quality LEDs (basically the junk that does not pass or meet quality specs for other uses), you are better off buying a reel of LEDs and cutting to length rather than attempting to repair. You can get 16 ft reels for $10 or less, the segments have cut marks where you can cut to length.
