Can LED strips be cut

Use an xacto knife on the dotted line.  Change them out to warm white  Led's...

Marty

A good pair of sharp scissors has always worked for me when working with LED strips.  Frankly, the biggest challenge I have when working with them is getting a good solder base on the little input connection dots on the strips.   I have found it's easier to do that with a medium wattage iron, as opposed to the 15 watt pencil tip ones; the latter seem to have a hard time heating up those dots to the point where you get acceptable solder flow.  

If the leds are in a strip that runs off of 12v, then they are usually wired in series on groups of three.  I would cut in beyween the groups of three 

All of the strips have scissors image showing where each copper dot is, ONLY cut where you see this marking, they are grouped in several different numbers depending on where the roll came from. As stated, use a GOOD bench soldering iron set about 360 degrees, butter the wire and dab a dot of solder on the half moon of copper after snip it, these make great replacement lights for passenger cars, buildings, back lighting and overhead loading ramps where the lights are hidden under the roofline.

You will notice a SIGNIFICANT power drop once move from light bulbs to LEDS

Here is one I use on overheads and passenger cars

A quick-and-dirty lowering of lighting intensity is easily achieved with black paint over the bulbs/LED's you want to eliminate. This can be especially handy when disassembly/soldering/re-wiring is problematic (or annoying). Of course, the blackened bulbs/LED's continue to draw power, if that matters.

Warm-color paint can also reduce the bright white of some LED's, if you are after a less 21st century tone. 

Thanks everyone for the input.  I used scissors and cut the five strips out and the other three work just fine.  The lower light level makes a big difference.  I now have five strips with 17 or 18 LEDs  that I can use in other applications.

Thanks for the help.

Happy railroading,

Don

You should have 15 or 18, as 17 doesn't divide by three very well.  I have some extra clips that snap on the ends if you don't like soldering. Feel free to contact me.

 Frankly, the biggest challenge I have when working with them is getting a good solder base on the little input connection dots on the strips.   I have found it's easier to do that with a medium wattage iron, as opposed to the 15 watt pencil tip ones; the latter seem to have a hard time heating up those dots to the point where you get acceptable solder flow.  

Dan, a 15 watt pencil iron should be more than enough for those little dots. Try hitting the dots with a little rosin flux before you try to solder. I find it works extremely well.

Chris

LVHR

normally ,led strips can be cut in series of three, six,nine etc.

rich b

Per Menards website, Hotel operates from 4.5V DC ... not 12V DC.   While 12V LED strips are undoubtedly the most common type, there are 5V LED strips.  Rather than sections of 3 LEDs plus resistor, the 5V strips have sections of 1 LED plus resistor so you don't have to cut the strip every 3rd LED. 

Other Menards building use 5V LED strips driven directly by 4.5V.   I'd guess the Hotel does too (?).

If you look carefully at a 5V LED strip you can see the copper-islands separating each section are 1 LED apart.

As an aside, while passenger car LED lighting projects seem to gravitate toward 12V strips, if you operate conventional control you might consider 5V strips.  I don't recall seeing much discussion on OGR but there are implementation considerations that favor 5V strips if you operate conventional.

Thanks, Stan. You're right on the ball, as usual.