LED strips exposed: your advice?

[mrnoble]

Two rookie members of our team took on the task of creating a light show using multiple strips of individually addressable LEDs, such as these:

https://www.adafruit.com/products/306

They intended to mount them to the robot frame with Velcro, but found the weatherproof sheath didn't stick, so they took the lights out of the sheath.

Considering that each light is now essentially a voltage- carrying circuit, would these strips be in violation? I understand you're not official in your opinions, but I value them anyway.

[Foster]

I would find better velcro. I have those strips and while you think the case is to keep water out, it's really there to keep you from damaging the circuit. Unprotected in a robot workshop I'd judge their life expectancy to be about 2 days. "Oops" is such an ugly word.

[Al Skierkiewicz]

mrnoble,
The LEDs are considered as Custom Circuits and as such must meet all electrical rules including insulation. Without the protective covering, power and data are exposed on both the surface and back side of the circuitry. This potentially provides a current path to robot frame. If the Velcro isn't working, ty-wraps are a great method of securing them in place.

[Team118Joseph]

I wouldn't recommend using the strips exposed because they can be easily damaged.

I recommend using the weather proof sleeve and use heat shrink to close the ends of the segments off. It looks nice and things like low temp hot glue and other adhesives stick to heat shrink allot better than the weather proof sleeve.

[SteveGarward]

We regularly use those strips. Leave the enclosure on (if nothing else, it helps protect them a bit), and use zip ties to secure them. We have zip tied them straight to the frame, but I would also recommend something like these to help where you don't have something use to tie them to.

Just be careful to not tie them down too hard - you can crush the relatively fragile PCB.

[Oak1477]

Originally Posted by mrnoble

Two rookie members of our team took on the task of creating a light show using multiple strips of individually addressable LEDs, such as these:

https://www.adafruit.com/products/306

They intended to mount them to the robot frame with Velcro, but found the weatherproof sheath didn't stick, so they took the lights out of the sheath.

Considering that each light is now essentially a voltage- carrying circuit, would these strips be in violation? I understand you're not official in your opinions, but I value them anyway.

Those are the exact lights we used last year. I would put them back in the sheath and just zip tie them down if possible. They stay pretty safe that way, we even had them on moving parts and we had very few problems.

[bEdhEd]

My team uses aluminum housing to keep our LEDs from being exposed, especially since they're less than a few centimeters from the floor for the underglow. Just rivet the housing onto the frame and slip on the diffuser, and the LEDs are insulated and protected from other robots, debris, and the field carpet.