LED strip lights?

So I am looking at roll strip lights.

my questions:

can an you cut the strip?

if you cut them into let's say 30" strips how do you attach the 2nd and 3rd strips to the power unit?

do I have to buy additional power units?

Any other hints or products you like?

They sell connectors on Amazon that you can do yourself for those lights. I did do this and could send links and stuff, but honestly? I would avoid it. It took a lot of trial and error to find all the right connectors to get it working at all and I have had issues every few months I've had it at best. In particular 1 cage always seemed to spontaneously be yellow tinted light when the others on the same control were white.

I set up the LED strip lighting in 4 T8s and a smaller 30" PVC cage last spring and have had 1 power supply burn out (running a total of 16 foot of light strip, less than the 30 that came in the spool with that power supply that it was supposed to support) and a few weeks ago all of them quit working entirely for no identifiable reason. I had a spare power supply that didn't work and triple checked all connections.. nada. Best guess is the LED strips deteriorated from humidity or heat in a few enclosures or just burned out...

I also had issues with 2 of the 4 having odd colors as a result of the connectors and one of them that was somewhat loose (they aren't super tight attachments) so it would occasionally just turn off because it slipped a tiny bit, even from just the dog walking by and once when the A/C kicked on. None of the LED strips put out a true white either, it was always slightly too cool/blue and made some of the snakes look odd in just that light.


I'm in the process of swapping over to the mounted Reptile Basics LED lights because the strips just didn't work out for me. Way brighter and surprisingly easy to install, especially if you can fit a drill into the enclosure without removing the lid. Just loosen enough to lift and slip the plug through a gap somewhere.

If you really want to do it, I can probably go back and get links to the kinds of connections that I found were easiest to work with (ones without soldering), if only to have a name for what you can search for. Not sure I would recommend the exact parts with the issues I've had though.

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That helped a lot thank you!

They also sell 12 strips but I didn't know how well those work either.

I will ill look at the reptile basics ones as well.

Thank you!

I have one RBI light set up in a 30" cage, the 22" light bar one, and I'll take some pictures when the light is on tomorrow and I do some cleanup on that cage for an idea how nicely it lights. I'll also take a picture of the mounting mechanism for reference; it is as easy as putting the cord through a hole/slit and removing the lid for a minute and screwing in 2 brackets with 1 screw each.

Here is an old picture from before the LED strips pooped out on me and I will snap one of the AP installed LED strip when the timers flip on tomorrow too (that is my only one still working lol), just for reference. I like my lights mounted along the front, so the AP is the only one lighting from the rear of the cage.

https://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/201...25d61ec53b.jpg

You can kind of see the weird coloring on him by comparison to this one with normal lights and some daylight from a window. He's usually pretty orange on the body, not as red as the cage lights made him appear.
https://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/201...d68f7ba116.jpg

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Would there be a way to attach to a screen top? I'm building things for my AP cages.

I work with led’s at work all the time, and like said above, trying to cut and splice them together is really not good.

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Originally Posted by Sunnieskys

Would there be a way to attach to a screen top? I'm building things for my AP cages.

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Probably a way. I'd guess you could swap the screw for a bolt/nut if you find one with a good head shape for the bolt/bracket. Maybe just silicone/hot glue the top side of the screw above the screen to keep it in place. Or just set it on top of the screen and secure it another way.

It mounts really well in PVC though.

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Woo! I am super forgetful about pictures.

I ended up getting this one of my latest install during testing today. This is an AP T8 with the 42" light bar from RBI.
https://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/201...b5aa30c57b.jpg

I am also trying out their sky hide mount which is nice so far. Smoother than the mirror clip one I have for a RBI small hide in another cage right now.

Colors on the snake with both lights for reference. This one is WAY more true to color (well, except for the glare... I didn't get one without some of that today)
https://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/201...53f3f08f79.jpg

Old one made everything kind of blue, his red-orange color was really odd and sort of tinted magenta, and it made his light orange much closer in shade.. - no clue why it posted upside down.... tapatalk why???
https://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/201...d6e583bca6.jpg

Here is an older shot of the AP. From my height and the height this cage sits, I get the visibility of the light strip all the time when I look in.. not my ideal way to light things, but the color balance is pretty normal.
https://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/201...28efc42e32.jpg

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Omg that sky hide is amazing! Eeden would LOVE that! What are the pvc pipes for?

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Originally Posted by Sunnieskys

Omg that sky hide is amazing! Eeden would LOVE that! What are the pvc pipes for?

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They're a climbing thing I put in, just a combo of random pipe lengths, elbows/tees, and end caps. Pretty sure they are rarely if ever used by this milksnake (tho he is never out much when I look. So... maybe I just don't see it, so they are left in). They do make a handy prop for fake plants to hang from for visual interest and extra clutter.

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Quote:

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Originally Posted by Sunnieskys

Omg that sky hide is amazing! Eeden would LOVE that! What are the pvc pipes for?

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Another thought.. the biggest downside for the sky hide mount from RBI is they only have it for their large hides, at least for now.

Ghost fits with plenty of space in the mediums (way too big for smalls tho), so the large as a sky hide may not get much use from him for a while. He's probably about 3 feet long and maybe as thick as a quarter at his thickest or slightly smaller.

My carpet python adores his small sky hide and I've got plans in the works for the corns to have them too soon. Our juvie corn currently loves sitting on top of a plant near the top of his cage and eats like a carpet python from on top of it frequently.

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I LITERALLY just finished this project in my enclosures - I have 5 Animal Plastics T10's, a T8, and a T12.

My honest recommendation - DO NOT waste your money with cheap multicolored/white LED strips - you know the ones that come with a cool remote...WASTE OF MONEY!!!

I just installed 12" LED lights (18" in the T12) I picked up at Home Depot and they do an amazing job. Installed on top [portion of the litter dam facing towards the back of the enclosure. No more headlamp when I need to clean or feed - just a click of the installed switch and all is well. They have a "low" and a "high" setting - both light up the enclosure nicely. Routed a hole in the side for the wire to pass through then velcro the switch to the side - all set!!! Now I'm thinking about getting smart plugs to control them with my Alexa LOL


(https://www.homedepot.com/p/GE-12-in...8845/301534319) and the switch (https://www.homedepot.com/p/Leviton-...5410/301370564)

Awesome! Do they screw in?

“My honest recommendation - DO NOT waste your money with cheap multicolored/white LED strips - you know the ones that come with a cool remote...WASTE OF MONEY!!!”

Have you had issues with them? Maybe I lucked out but some of mine are 3yrs old and doing just fine


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Quote:

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Originally Posted by BR8080

My honest recommendation - DO NOT waste your money with cheap multicolored/white LED strips - you know the ones that come with a cool remote...WASTE OF MONEY!!!

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Quote:

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Originally Posted by jmcrook

Have you had issues with them? Maybe I lucked out but some of mine are 3yrs old and doing just fine

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those LED strips have worked fine for me as well. the only thing is they need better adhesives or fasteners. and i messed up the remote control box by pressing too many random buttons randomly really fast b/c i was playing around. Lol all the buttons got switched around/de-programmed. i didn't know how to re-program it and ended up buying a new controller box and remote.

The lights themselves weren't awful for me, but I don't have a good way to connect them and the clip on connectors I found were always slipping somewhere and leaving one cage or another turned off at random. I don't have the supplies or steady hands to solder things that small together, so maybe that way works better.

The power supplies that come with are also fairly junk-y as I've had 2 of 3 burn out on my with less load than the box states they can handle. Maybe used up to 2/3rds of the stated power load they could handle.

Light quality was garbage as far as color tone. It gave everything a very cool/blue cast and I was just not a fan of it. The custom colors had no way to fix it without a red hue instead; no pure white or daylight tones possible. I spent about 2 hours trying to do that at the beginning.

Maybe another brand of lights has better color, but the hassle to keep all my cages working was too much for my tastes.

I'm 2 or 3 weeks in on the RBI LED bars in 2 cages and love it so far. The light shows really close to true color like sunlight which is really nice and it clearly illuminates everything to make spot cleaning super easy.

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Quote:

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Originally Posted by Sunnieskys

Awesome! Do they screw in?

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Yes - 2 screws hold the fixture in place.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by jmcrook

“My honest recommendation - DO NOT waste your money with cheap multicolored/white LED strips - you know the ones that come with a cool remote...WASTE OF MONEY!!!”

Have you had issues with them? Maybe I lucked out but some of mine are 3yrs old and doing just fine


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Yeah they just didn't have a nice white - I probably ordered the wrong ones but I'm very happy with the new lighting.

[QUOTE=Ax01;2680274]those LED strips have worked fine for me as well. the only thing is they need better adhesives or fasteners. and i messed up the remote control box by pressing too many random buttons randomly really fast b/c i was playing around. Lol all the buttons got switched around/de-programmed. i didn't know how to re-program it and ended up buying a new controller box and remote.[/QUOte}

Agreed - the overall set up is pretty inexpensive. I just used the sealant AP sends with the enclosures to adhere the strip into the channel - seems to work. I don't use the different colors as it takes away from the enclosure IMHO - white works for me.

https://ball-pythons.net/gallery/fil...newleddark.jpg

https://ball-pythons.net/gallery/fil...ewledflash.jpg