Bookcase LED Lighting

[Gashead86]

Hi, hoping for some help with LED lighting for a bookcase I have made.

I have made two bespoke bookcases to go either side of a chimney breast. Each bookcase is approx. 2M x 2M and both have 4 runs of 2LM that need to have lights installed. That equates to 16LM of LED lighting required.

As well as the runs of lighting, each single length of 2LM also requires a cable joint of approx 600mm to link the LED strips.

I have so far purchased 2 LED lighting reels from amazon and so far have had no success. The issues arise whenever I attempt to cut and join the LED tape to cable.. As I am not a competent solderer (I tried it was a disaster!) I have purchased and tried several different solderless cable to strip components (again all from amazon) and again so far I have had no joy whatsoever. Either the connections do not work at all or they do but then as soon as you move the component even a touch the connection fails and the lights blink or just fain full stop.

I am not sure if I am having so many issues here because I am purchasing on the whole cheap materials or if it is because I have no real experience in joining / fitting LED lighting. Likely a combination of both I guess!

So I guess what I am asking is, does anyone know of a good quality, reliable and relatively cost effective LED tape available to the sorts of quantity I need (8LM per book case) and does anyone know of a good quality, easy to use and reliable cable to LED strip connector they can recommend?

Any help that can be offered would be highly appreciated as it is becoming more of a challenge sorting the lighting for these units then it was to actually build them!!!

Thanks all.

 

[winston1]

First of all what is LM?

Never had a problem soldering to LED strip myself, even cheap eBay ones. But I did get my first soldering iron 65 years ago so have had plenty of practice. Guess you need to practise on some old wires.

 

[Gashead86]

Sorry, linear meters.

Ye, just too fiddly for my sausage fingers! Not a discipline I have ever had to do.

 

[mizuno]

What LED strips are you using? For RGB, I'd recommend TP-Link Tapo, usually they can be had for £15 for 5m LED strip with a smart controller. The Govee LEDs also start from a similar price point.

 

[Gashead86]

Hi,
Single colour (warm white) strips with just the two connections.
Have my eye on some dotless tape lights by LAP (Screwfix).

 

[bernardgreen]

It is worth making a jig to hold the LED strip and wires in place while soldering, ( this is a mock up of the jig I use ) The pegs are glued to a piece of ply wood.

Also ensure the pads on the strip are clean bright copper. Traces of the plastic encapsulation need to be scraped of the pads