The trouble with purple led strings

[kavic5150]

Ever shop for led strings on ebay or elsewhere? I've ran into a problem. Ebay listings are all over the map and badly written. And of course most of them didnt bother taking original photos of their products, they just copied pics from other ads. Some of them even show a car floor mat lit up in purple and not the actual leds.

I ordered a strip of purple 5050 leds and received UV/blacklight. When I contacted the US based seller he grudgingly edited the sale ad but not the title. So the listing still says purple. Its only when you scroll halfway down the page that you see "led strings appear as a dark purple/blacklight.

The problem with any blacklight, led or otherwise is most of its light output is in the invisible UV part of the spektrum, so they appear dimmer than normal leds.

There are also those awful (IMHO) pink-purple led strips that vendors love to label simply as "purple".

Its not just fleabay vendors that are apparently chromatically challenged. I once got a set of those pink leds from an otherwise reputable Rc website that I dont care to name. They were fully pink and yet on the phone they guy called them purple. I recall specifically asking him to plug a set in and tell me what color he saw. Purple he said.

Just a heads up, Hobbypartz has the 3528 size led strips and they know purple when they see it.

/rant off

[Dan E]

I was going to suggest if you really wanted purple just get an RGB led and connect the red and the blue, but looking at that on a colour picker it too is more pink than purple.
Looking at the colour picker to get a proper purple colour you need to drop the red a little. Put a resistor in the way of the red channel and you might just get there.

That's a lot of effort though, might just have to fly with pink.

[sp00fman]

Purple isn't actually a color on the spectrum. I deny its existence.

The RGB strip might be a way to get your perceived purple led strip.


This video is about pink, but purple is similar.

There is no pink light (1 min 4 sec)

[kavic5150]

Spoofman I just bought a few lime colored leds. I'm pretty sure lime is also a combination of more than one color like the purple ones.

http://www.digikey.com/product-highl...ime-leds/52216

http://www.digikey.com/product-searc...LXML-PX02-0000

Looking at the purple 5050 leds I can see something was added to the lens surface to adjust the color output. It looks like they used a similar approach as pink purple leds but with less transparent lens coating. UV/blacklight 5050 leds have a white lens.

[kavic5150]

I found some more interesting night flying stuff on ebay and thought I'd share. They now sell led strips that are ice blue in color. I think they are just cool white leds with a blue lens material.

So I got 5 meters of the stuff and its more like ice aqua than ice blue since its got a blue green tint to it.



These are fairly large leds at 5.6 x 3mm but single chip so the current draw should be similar to the normal 3528 size.

Also ordered some ice blue 5050 size automotive bulbs just to see if the tint was the same from one product to the next. The auto bulbs look just a bit more bluish without any hint of green.

[setishock]

www.superbrightleds.com

[kavic5150]

Originally Posted by setishock

www.superbrightleds.com

Whats this for? Those guys only stock a standard lineup of products. Nothing new or different there. And their prices are through the roof. $22.95 for one meter of white leds and no connector? I can get the same product from a US based ebay vendor for $5. I'll pass.

They dont even have purple led strips. Just UV/blacklight.