Use Rope Lights Anywhere You Want
Use Rope Lights Anywhere You Want
You’ve probably seen rope lights around before, perhaps being used as path lighting in a dark movie theater or winding around a tree as a holiday decoration. Those are just a couple of the many uses of rope lights. If you haven’t seen rope lights, think of Christmas string lights; rope lights are like those except that in rope lights the light bulbs are inside a plastic tube instead of attached to the outside of a power cord.
That’s basically what a rope light is; tiny light bulbs in a malleable plastic sheath that acts like a rope. The wattage of each light bulb on the rope is about .5 watts, and they’re most commonly spaced about an inch away from each other. A rope light with the latter requirements consumes around 6 watts for foot. At that rate it would take some 10 feet of rope lights to consume the same amount of power as a single 60 watt incandescent light bulb.
You can see that rope lights barely use any electricity. Coupled with that is their rated lifetime of around 25,000 hours. Even using them four hours each day, it would take some 17 years for these micro LED lights to burn out. The “rope” in rope lights comes in two common sizes: 3/8 inch and ½ inch. The only difference between these two sizes is the thickness of the plastic jacket; brightness and energy usage are not affected. If you want to check out rope lights of differing brightness, look for the watts per foot. A 5.5 watts per foot rope light is brighter than one with 3.36 watts per foot.
Uses for rope lights are almost endless. Place it along shelves, mantles, and use it to accent bookcases, cabinets, doors, and even windows. Dark places like the inside of a closet are great for rope lights, as they avoid glare and provide nice indirect light. Outdoor applications include trailing them along decks and deck railings, or illuminating stairs/steps/pathways.
Written by Blair E. and originally submitted to ArticlesBase.com.
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