Dioder alternative?

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natron

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I just got back from returning six Dioder sets to Ikea. They've apparently changed manufacturers, and their LEDs are now warm white (piss yellow) and as dim as a flashlight with a nearly dead battery. Does anyone know of a good alternative? I'm looking for cool white (to match the previous Dioders), slim, not battery powered (I want them all to turn on with one switch), preferably cheap.
 
Those are warm white too, unfortunately. The guy in their lighting department said that they'd switched manufacturers; I wonder if it was for all of their LEDs. I've found a few options at Home Depot or Lowes, but they're ridiculously expensive.

There's this guy—[ame]https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B005GL5R56/ref=ox_sc_act_title_6?ie=UTF8&smid=AJ0QRPX8ADNI1[/ame]—which you can apparently cut to fit, but it would require more soldering than I'd be comfortable with, and the transformer that is supposed to go with it may crap out after a couple of months according to the reviews.
 
Geil, you can find the roll ones for about half that price on Amazon. They can be cut to length, but you have to buy a transformer and solder them together. They do sell short cables to connect the pieces you cut though. For all the necessary pieces on Amazon (lights, transformer, connector cable, wire to lengthen the connectors and connect the transformer), it was about $40.

I went with the ones pavehawk linked to. I'll post a quick review when they arrive.

I'm using the deeper Billy bookcases from Ikea, so I'll use two of the 12" strips per shelf; that way, I need 2.5 4-strip sets for each bookcase (I got 5 sets to fill two bookcases and 1 extra set for a smaller bookcase).
 
Geil, you can find the roll ones for about half that price on Amazon. They can be cut to length, but you have to buy a transformer and solder them together. They do sell short cables to connect the pieces you cut though. For all the necessary pieces on Amazon (lights, transformer, connector cable, wire to lengthen the connectors and connect the transformer), it was about $40.

I went with the ones pavehawk linked to. I'll post a quick review when they arrive.

I'm using the deeper Billy bookcases from Ikea, so I'll use two of the 12" strips per shelf; that way, I need 2.5 4-strip sets for each bookcase (I got 5 sets to fill two bookcases and 1 extra set for a smaller bookcase).

Did you go with the programmable color strips or just the cool white?
 
Geil, you can find the roll ones for about half that price on Amazon. They can be cut to length, but you have to buy a transformer and solder them together. They do sell short cables to connect the pieces you cut though. For all the necessary pieces on Amazon (lights, transformer, connector cable, wire to lengthen the connectors and connect the transformer), it was about $40.

I went with the ones pavehawk linked to. I'll post a quick review when they arrive.

I'm using the deeper Billy bookcases from Ikea, so I'll use two of the 12" strips per shelf; that way, I need 2.5 4-strip sets for each bookcase (I got 5 sets to fill two bookcases and 1 extra set for a smaller bookcase).

I totally missed your link in that passage but these are type 3528 and mine are type 5050. 5050 tend to go for a bit more and I have seen both in person and 5050 by looks and specs are brighter though I was checking for white LEDs only at the time and not RGBs, still not sure if I would like the white from RGBs though as there might be some colorshifting going on that I may not like. As for 3528 the LEDs are smaller so you can get reels with higher count of LEDs
a quick google search seems to indicate a 3x factor in brightness. Not sure if 3x the number of LEDs will even things out though ;)
https://www.flexfireleds.com/pages/Comparison-between-3528-LEDs-and-5050-LEDs.html
 
Did you go with the programmable color strips or just the cool white?

I just went with the cool white. I'm more interested in brightness and color fidelity than in drama, so I'm keeping it simple (and cheap!). I have one set of the Dioder color-change circle lights (not the strips); they're a bit dim but would be nice for an accent somewhere. I'm also running all the lights (six bookshelves when it's finished) to a power strip with a remote, so everything will turn on with one switch, and that might interfere with another remote.
 
I totally missed your link in that passage but these are type 3528 and mine are type 5050. 5050 tend to go for a bit more and I have seen both in person and 5050 by looks and specs are brighter though I was checking for white LEDs only at the time and not RGBs, still not sure if I would like the white from RGBs though as there might be some colorshifting going on that I may not like. As for 3528 the LEDs are smaller so you can get reels with higher count of LEDs
a quick google search seems to indicate a 3x factor in brightness. Not sure if 3x the number of LEDs will even things out though ;)
https://www.flexfireleds.com/pages/Comparison-between-3528-LEDs-and-5050-LEDs.html

Good points; the extra cost would certainly be worth it if they're brighter. Let us know what you end up with! If you're willing to take pics of the setup (how those lights connect to each other and the transformer, etc.), that would be awesome.
 
I am dragging my feet in terms of any projects for the last two years already, hope I will rise from this mess and finish off what I started end of this summer and update my setup
 
That sounds about like my plan. I've been moving around for the last five years, and haven't had anything on display in forever. I'm hoping to finish up the first stage (shelves and lights) of my display room next month, then work on a Lego display/assembly table if it's not too crowded in there.
 
The sample video showing the cool white from barlighting.com seems to have a very slight blue tint. Anyone got the original white Ikea Dioder to compare with the cool white LEDs from barlighting? Still deciding on where to buy my white led lights from...
 
Ikea ones tend to be slightly warmish. I have two batches one slightly warmer than the other ;)
 
I have a few sets of the cool white dioder circle lights, and my barlighting order should be here Monday; I'll post some comparison pics when it comes in.
 
Okay, here we go. This first picture is a side-by-side comparison. The barlighting strip looks bluer and dimmer than Ikea's dioder in the photo, but the color difference isn't very noticeable in person. The brightness difference is balanced by the strip lighting more of the shelf than the circle, so it's a wash.

7681604888_e742b7f8f6_z.jpg


This next two photos are the same shelf with the dioder and then the strip roughly in the same place.

7681604784_78eee0e2c8_z.jpg


7681605026_71bb76cbb6_z.jpg


I'm using the circles for my ThreeA figures, since the shadows work well with them; everything else will get strips. I'm going to mount the strips right at the front of the shelf with something (not sure what yet) in front of them to block the light strip from view and to reflect the light back into the shelf (I'll have pics when I get some shelves set up this weekend so you can see what I mean).
 
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Thanks for pic comparison. I have the color Dioders and the pure white Dioders, and when I switch to "white mode" on the color strips, it tends to be a little too blue when compared to the white Ikea strips:

img1187vf.jpg


So that's what I was worried about, looks like the bartender lights will work great though.

By the way, the frames on a Besta Vassbo does great at hiding your lights and wires, I actually just temporarily taped the light and wire when I took that pic and you can't see how ugly the tapes look, it's all hidden so that's great :D



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