Today we can see beautiful LED light-emitting Govee lights in many places – on the facades of buildings, shops, boutiques, supermarkets, etc. They flash bright, colorful, or single-color lights.
Alike flickering flame light bulbs outdoor, Govee lights can create the desired lighting effects. The Govee lights come in the form of long strips.
So what to do if I need to get a long canvas? How to connect the lights then? Find a detailed answer in the following part.
How to Connect Govee Lights Together?
You can carry out the connection in two ways:
- Welding and
- Removable plastic connectors.
Soldering or welding
Soldering a tape is cheaper and more reliable than any other method. Cut in a specific place for this on a tape prepared in advance and peel at soldering points. Two contacts are exposed, to which you will solder the wires or directly connect.
If it is a multicolor Govee strip, there will be 4 contacts. It is recommended to take wires approximately 0.75-0.8 mm in diameter for soldering. It is necessary to take a wire with the same insulation color for each color. And for any general outlet, select any unclaimed color.
For a colorless LED strip, take wires of 2 colors. But for the plus and minus, their color is assumed. This must be done to avoid accidentally confusing the poles (+ and -).
LED strip boards are very compact, so everything is located next. As a result, LEDs and tracks have high sensitivity to temperatures. Unfortunately, at high temperatures, there is a violation of the crystal structure of the diodes. As a result, the LEDs will quickly fail.
Therefore, soldering should be done only with a thin soldering iron with power from 25 to 60 W and no more than a couple of seconds. For soldering, remove only 5 mm of the sheath at the ends of the wires. And for them to be further soldered to the tape contacts, these tips need to be well tinned.
It is recommended to fuse the tape only up to 5 meters since the cross-section of the tracks is relatively tiny. And if the tape is longer, then the voltage on them will decrease. As a result, there will be nothing wrong, but the LEDs at the end of the LED strip will not be able to shine at 100% brightness.
Advantages of soldering:
- Welding allows you to make ribbons, which can then be bent in any direction
- Connection reliability
- The contacts do not oxidize
- Free connection
- Invisible tape bonding
Disadvantages:
- The difficulty of welding without experience
- Fear of high-temperature tape.
- It is necessary to have a soldering iron with a thin tip, rosin, and thin solder.
Removable plastic connectors
Connecting LED strip connectors is also one of the ways where there is no need to solder the contacts. The connectors are small plastic clips available for ordinary and multicolor tapes for two and four connections.
Sometimes, the LED strip has to be connected in awkward positions. When it is simply impossible to solder, the connectors come to the rescue. The contacts are reliably fastened using a latch on the case, and the tape is mechanically connected.
Advantages of connectors:
- Easy to assemble and disassemble
- They have many different types
- Ribbons can be combined in various ways
- No additional insulation required
- Low cost
Disadvantages:
- Fear of high humidity rooms
- The rapid oxidation of contacts
- Low-quality connectors (if you buy bad connectors, then there will be no contact, and the tape will not even turn on)
- You can see the joining of two pieces of tape.
It is the most affordable, simple, and accessible. But for this type of compound, there can be a transition resistance and the probability of oxidation.
Therefore, we can say that welding is the best type of connection. However, it is more complex and requires a person to have experience working with miniature elements.
Summery
Govee strips are lovely and spectacular, so they can often be seen in many places. To understand how to connect Govee lights together, you must know how they work.
First, evaluate how and why you want to connect them. If you need a good and high-quality connection for a long time, you should try to use the soldering method. It is more reliable and durable. But if this is not possible, the connectors will always help you. They will also be able to connect segments of tapes qualitatively.
