LED Failures

Hardware
1

I am looking for recommendations for LED light strips that can be used outdoors in aluminum U-channel.
Last October I installed 40 meters of lights along my roofline for holiday lights in U-channel. I am using a digquad with an ESP32 running WLED to run the lights. My wife wanted more of a warm white so I used SK6812 RGBW lights (30/m). I ran power injection to various locations. They worked great through early February then I had one section producing random flashing colors. Because of that, I stopped using them until I tested them again in May. At that point, every section had problems. I thought something was wrong with the digqaud or the ESP32. I ordered a new ESP32 and checked all my wiring and could not find what was causing the problems. I finally tested the system with a new LED strip and it worked fine. It turned out that all of my LED strips had several LEDs that went bad.

Does anyone have recommendations for a quality LED strip that will hold up to be outdoors (below freezing in the winter and around 35 C (95 F) in the summer? I already have U-channel installed so I would prefer not to use the pixel string lights. I originally used BTF-Lighting because many people have recommended them, but with all 8 of my 5-meter strips going bad and mediocre customer service, I am hesitant to use them again for the same project.

Thanks for any recommendations.

2

Nope. Just set everything up so you can swap out strips easily. That’s why people use pixels. :wink:

3

Thanks. I may just have to switch over to pixels. I was hoping not to have to take down $250 worth of u-channel and invest in a different mounting option.

4

Use the LED strip with the backup data channel is one option.
I suggest reducing max brightness to 80% on outdoor LED strips if it’s warm at night when the strips are on. This might keep the strips you have working longer.
It is difficult finding quality LED strips suitable for outdoors.
Maybe you can paint UV protection clear-coat on the diffuser strip covers?
Maybe get wider channel to help the strips dissipate heat better.
Maybe get deeper channels to get better diffusing and more air for the strip to heat up.

If you have a IR temperature probe you can simply point at the strip after it has been running for a while, you can find hot spots and maybe add heat sinks behind the channels in those areas where the LEDs are running hotter.

These are all things I consider. Maybe one of them will apply to your situation.