Mounting the led strip yourself

Today stretch ceilings are very popular. They alone have many advantages. And if, in addition to them, to pick up suitable lighting devices, the effect of such ceilings will increase. Recently, the combination of a stretch ceiling with LED strip lighting has been claimed. Few people know how to connect an LED strip, but learning to do this job is not at all difficult. In this article we will describe how to do the LED tape installation yourself and present the photos of the work performed.

Installation options

The tape with LED lights can not be simply glued to the surface of the ceiling. Technically, this can be done, but the fact is that the LED strip is not an illuminating decorative device that has an attractive appearance. This kind of lighting tape should be hidden, and only background lighting should be used.

The ceiling is most often used with a plasterboard box, which has a protruding niche with light, directed into the central region of the room. In the niche is placed all the lighting equipment in the form of LED strip, power supplies and control.

• The contour of the room is made a box that has a niche. Depending on the height of the stretch of the ceiling, the box will have a vertical size of up to 0.2 m and horizontally up to 0.5 m.
• The bottom surface of the box is extended to the center of the room by 8 cm. A niche is formed above the protrusion by means of an additional wall about 6 cm high. There should be a comfortable distance of up to 0.05 m from the top of the wall to the ceiling base
• The LED strip is attached to the bottom of the niche or to the wall of the box and is connected to the network.

If the stretch ceiling is made of glossy canvas, a box with a hidden niche will fit, which is more difficult to manufacture, but hidden details will not appear on the surface. This design will be a regular box with a certain hole. Such a niche will be in the body of the box, and the backlight will work from the inside. The bright light that will be emitted through the holes will not glare through the gloss of the ceiling.

Illumination can also be arranged between the current ceiling and stretch ceiling. The result is a luminous canvas from the middle, which plays the role of a lamp. The light in this case acts muffled and calm.

• When the device of this design LEDs are located at the junction of the walls with the ceiling. Under it at a distance of 5 cm mounted baguette with the subsequent installation of the tension fabric.
• The ceiling can not be mounted close to luminaires, which can have a negative impact on the material with their thermal effects.

Note! To illuminate the curtains, the LED strip can be hidden behind large-sized ceiling plinths or in a niche that also makes out the curtain rail.

Installation

Installation светодиодной подсветки потолка происходит перед натяжкой полотна.

• First you need to determine the place of installation of the LED strip. Then there electrical cables are drawn, which are equipped with their own switch. The switch will not be needed if you are installing a diode tape with different colors, since this light comes with a remote control that controls the unit of the same name. The remote has an on / off mode.

• The next step is the installation of work equipment, which includes the power supply and control units. These parts are located on plastic plates that have holes through which to mount. A masked place is selected and there the devices are fastened with screws or self-tapping screws. These devices can also be attached with glue, but this method, if necessary, is fraught with damage to the finished surface.
• Then comes the turn of the installation of the LED strip in a certain place of the stretch ceiling. The basis of such a luminous strip is treated with an adhesive that is protected by thin paper or film. Before removing the protective layer, a certain surface must be cleaned with a damp cloth from dust and dirt, as well as degreased. Once the desired place will be dry and clean, you can stick the tape.
• First, the protection is removed approximately 0.5 m, the fragment of the tape, ready for installation, is glued to a specific place. Gradually unwinding the coil and removing the protective film, you need to attach a self-adhesive tape to the designated end. Often there is an extra piece of band luminaire. Before you cut it you need to know that the tape is divided into fragments, which consist of 3,4,5 LEDs. If the cut is made anywhere, then with a high degree of probability several diodes will not burn. To avoid this trouble, you need to cut in a special place, marked with vertical markings. After cutting in a certain place, the rest of the tape is pressed against the surface and finally glued.

• The next step is to connect. If the LED strip is new and holistic, and does not represent pieces of scrap from the coil, then you can connect it without problems. In the factory version, all devices are equipped with split-type connections, which will greatly simplify assembly. It remains to connect the sockets with the corresponding plugs, which are marked on the production.
• Connect the LED strip to the power supply in two ways. In the first embodiment, an adapted socket, which is not compact, is designed. In another embodiment, the plug coming out of the power supply is cut off, and the connection is made by twisting the wires. The second method is more practical - for reliability, twisted wires can be soldered. In the absence of ready-made connectors, you need to understand the wiring diagram of the LED strip and get ready to work with a soldering iron. The LED strip is made in such a way that each fragment ends with devices for wiring. They are always marked with the signs "+" and "-", which do not confuse the connection points of the tape to the entrance to the power supply.

Note! The module and the power supply unit should not be fixed in an inaccessible place, as this may in the future lead to a violation of the integrity of the ceiling structure during the dismantling of devices.

Inattention and carelessness when mounting the LED strip can result in breakage of the lighting design. It is advisable to buy labeled connectors in the store and pay attention to the color of the ribbon cable when soldering. The “+” is joined by the red wire, to the “-”, respectively, by the other. The entire structure of the stretch ceiling must be connected, observing all the described rules.

A photo