All you need to know before buying COB led strip?

LED strips have been a trendy DIY lighting solution for many applications for many years. That’s why we are so interested in the latest LED strip technology, COB flexible led strip lighting.

What is COB?

COB stands for Chip on Board in the LED field, which basically means that the LED chip is packaged directly on the circuit board (PCB).Chip on Board” LEDs for flexible strip lights are sometimes referred to as flip-chips.

Flip chip LEDs are basically a bare-bones approach to LED construction. Take a look at an ordinary SMD (Surface Mount Device) LED.It has a Lamp bead holder that package the LED chip and then covers it with a phosphor coating. The ‘flip chip’ that makes up the COB LED strip removes everything from its design, except for the LED chip, yellow phosphor cover layer,and connection pads.

How is COB LED flexible strip manufactured?

1. Expanding Chips
2. Die bonding
3. Resistors onto FPCB
4. Reflow-High temperature over 65 degrees for finished PCB with chips and resistors
5. Fluorescent Powder glue mixing
6. Drop the mixing glue on the surface of chips and resistors by auto glue machine
7. Put glued cob led strip into the oven
8. QC-testing the cob led strip after cooling
9. Soldering the PCB into 5 meters per reel or the length as customer request
10. Aging test, QC test, packing, then shipping

Advantages and Disadvantages of COB LED Flex Strips

Now that you have a basic understanding of how this new COB led strip is produced, it’s time to see its advantages and disadvantages.

Advantages:

No LED lighting dot, even without aluminum profiles.

One of the biggest complaints about traditional LED strips is the lighting dot throughout the strip. A lighting dot is a bright area through the strip where you can see where the light is coming from. Light is more soft and attractive when it looks like a smooth light source rather than a lighting dot mess.

With 5050 SMD flex strips, the larger diodes are squeezed close enough so that the light is spread out and consistent across the illuminated surface at a distance. But if the light is too close to the surface or the strip itself is visible, the hot spot is an obstacle that the human eye cannot ignore.

With a 480 chip/M COB strip, it is pretty challenging to pick out any hot spots on the COB flex strip. This strip shines a soft, uniform light from end to end. Even light with no lighting dot is more attractive to the human eye and gives off a steady light even in the narrow places. The only natural way to see the lighting dot is to look at the back of the strip, where it is easier to see the individually placed flip-chip LEDs. You can only see the individual led if you dim strip down to about 5% brightness. This makes COB flex strips ideal for applications where

1. The led strip itself cannot be hidden from view.
2. The surface being illuminated is within 2 feet of the light bar.
3. Reflective surfaces like granite/glass are all around.
4. Those applications where you want an excellent neon effect.

More flexibility

These strips are much more flexible than other flexible strips because of the small size of the diodes and the uniform weight distribution. These diodes are so small and closely spaced that no point of the strip is the same. This uniformity makes it easy to set up the strips without planning around a 5050 SMD LED sticking out where you don’t need it. This extra flexibility will make it easier for them to fit into tight areas and turn corners in your application.