What is Difference Between LED Rope Lighting and Strip Lighting? Rope lights are a string of lights encased in a cylindrical tube. The tube’s material can be epoxy, plastic, or another type as long as it’s clear and can withstand the heat.To get more news about custom neon signs, you can visit htj-led.com official website. Nevertheless, rope lights don’t produce enough heat and light. This is why its applications are for decorations most times. You can cut rope lights, but it has to be at its cut point. The cut point is different for every model. Some manufacturers place a cut point every 18 to 24″ while some may place it every 36″. What are LED Strip Lights? As the name suggests, this lighting fixture is a flat piece of material with LED lights mounted on the surface. The strip is a circuit board, and it usually comes with an adhesive on the backside. It’s flexible enough for use in different applications, and it’s easy to cut with a pair of scissors, as well. You can also cut it at any length, but make sure to cut between the copper dots at the end of each LED. Rope Lighting vs Strip Lighting Now that you have a general idea of what a LED rope light and strip light are, let’s discuss their differences. As they have different capacities even though they look almost the same, the guide below will help you determine which is the right one for your project. Light Source Rope lights use LED bulbs most of the time because it’s more efficient. They sometimes use incandescent bulbs, as well. The power input is either at 120/220vAC or 12/24vDC. Strip lights can come in various LED chip configurations. Some examples are 3528, 5050, 3014, and so on. These numbers refer to the size of the chip in millimeters (e.g. 3528 is 3.5mm x 2.8mm). Brightness As we’ve said above, rope lights don’t shine bright enough for use in accent lighting, display lighting, or any application where you’ll need a high amount of brightness. Still, the brightness should be enough if you’re planning to use them for decorative purposes, such as for creating the mood for Halloween and Christmas. The brightness of the strip lights depends on the LED chip configuration. 5050, for example, has brighter chips than 3528. If you use the latter in a higher quantity that’s comparable to the 5050, however, it can shine brighter. The 3020 and 3014 can be brighter than both, though. In summary, the brightness of strip lights can vary from low level to high level.