1. What are lumens(lm)?Lumen is the measurement of brightness as perceived to human eye.Because of incandescent lighting, we are all accustomed to using watts to measure the brightness of light. Today, we use lumen.Lumen is the most important variable when choosing which LED flashlights you need to look at. Make sure you compare lumen output between LED flashlights before determining which one is best for your project.
2. What is AC?
This is Alternating Current. This is the electricity that is used in most homes and commercial spaces.It's often referred to as line voltage and number differs from country to country. US line voltage is typically 90V-220V,whereas it often averages higher in Europe.
3. What is DC?
This is Direct Current. Most LED strips on the market use low-voltage DC. A transformer or low-voltage battery is often required to step-down the AC voltage to a suitable level for the LED strips, which is normally 12V or 24V DC.
4. What is mA or mAmp?
This is 1/1000 or 0.001 of 1 ampere. When using LED strips it is common that the current draw for the LEDs will be less than one amp. In this case milliamps are used to indicate the amp draw. An example of this would be that a draw of ½ amp would be equal to 500mAh.
5. What is a Watt?
A watt is equivalent to one joule per second, corresponding to the power in an electric circuit in which the potential difference is one volt and the current one ampere. A watt is equal to the voltage multiplied by the amperage. This is how your electric company keeps track of how much energy you consume.
6. What is Binning?
Simply put, binning is the process of grouping LEDs during production so that they matched with LEDs of the same color sector. For example, all 2700K chips are ‘binned’ together and are separated from chips that have a higher/lower color temperature. Learn more about Binning here.
7. What is an LED (Light Emitting Diode)?
A Light Emitting Diode (LED) is a solid-state semiconductor device that converts electrical energy directly into light. To learn more about how an LED light produces light click here.
8. What is solid-state lighting?
Lighting devices that do not contain moving parts or parts that can break, rupture, shatter, leak, or contaminate the environment. LEDs do not use electrical filaments or gasses to produce light.
9. What is the difference between IP65, IP67, & IP68?
The differences between commonly sold IP65, IP67, & IP68 strips are slight, but very important. Using the above chart as a guide, we can see that all strips are protected at the highest level from solids and dust. The variations come with the protection against liquids.
IP65 = Water resistant. “Protected against water jets from any angle” *Do NOT submerge IP65 LED lights, these are not waterproof.
IP67 = Water resistant plus. “Protected against the events of temporary submersion (10 minutes)”*Do NOT submerge IP67 LED lights for extended periods, these are not waterproof.
IP68 = Waterproof “Protected against the events of permanent submersion up to 3 meters”