Flexible SMD LED Light Strips - 3528 vs 5050 Comparison

Flexible SMD LED Light Strips - 3528 vs 5050 Comparison

Most of the flexible SMD LED light strips that are being offered on the market today are either of the 3528 SMD vs 5050 SMD LED type, and it is really important to make sure that you understand their differences.

3528 SMD LED strip (above)

5050 SMD LED strip (above)

Before we dig deeper into the different features and benefits of 3528 vs 5050 LED light strips, let us first explain the meaning of the so-called SMD LED, a commonly used name for flexible LED light strips:

SMD stands for Surface Mount Devices, and these are basically very small and light LED chips that are surrounded by epoxy resin. The surface mount technology (SMT) is a commonly used method for designing and manufacturing circuits in which the components are mounted directly onto the surface of the printed circuit board or PCB. You can learn more about this important part of modern microelectronics in Wikipedia's article about surface mount technology.

This flexible SMD LED consume very little energy but provide powerful bright light, and under ideal conditions of optimal temperature, current and voltage the average lifetime of flexible LED SMD light strips can reach up to an amazing 100.000 hours.

Comparison 3528 vs 5050

Now let's take a closer look at the differences between a flexible 3528 LED lighting strip and it's more powerful cousin the 5050 type SMD LED strip and compare their features:

Basically, the flexible SMD 3528 LED light strips consists of only LED light-emitting chip per lighting source, whereas the far more powerful 5050 SMD features 3 chips in one housing, and because of this they are sometimes also called tri-chips or triple-core LED strips.

SMD 3528 LED lighting strips have this name because the dimension of the single-chip is 3.5mm x 2.8mm, and they are often found in indoor applications such as in bars and restaurants, living room decorations and more basic illumination projects with lower luminosity or mono-colour requirements and especially also when cost-controlling is the important and in order to save more power.

To sum it up, the SMD 3528 chips are more power-saving and cost-effective but not as bright as the SMD 5050.

Flexible SMD 5050 LED lighting strips are high-performance, bright and have a wider array of options such as their availability in single colours and also as an RGB colour-changeable type. The SMD 5050 RGB version requires an additional control unit but features highly flexible multicolour mode and can easily be adjusted into various colours and colour combinations. SMD 5050 is about 3x brighter than the SMD 3528 type and is often used where higher light levels are needed and can be used as a replacement for traditional fluorescent light tubes.

Both the SMD 3528 and the more powerful SMD 5050 version are usually supplied in 5 meter reels, with the average power consumption of SMD 3528 is 4,8W per meter, while SMD 5050 consumes more power 7.2W per meter, while sometimes LED manufacturers might also offer extra powerful ultra-white SMD 5050 LED light strips that can emit up to 720lm per meter with a power usage of up to 14.5W per meter.

The issue of costs LED 3528 vs 5050 is different. The more powerful SMD 5050 LED light strips are more expensive however and for illumination settings that require high luminosity one would mostly opt for SMD 5050 because the cost per lumen is lower than with SMD 3528.

We at Future House Store recommend the usages of flexible SMD 3528 LED light strips for normal residential usages with mid-power requirements and when cost-saving is the key factor, while SMD 5050 LED light strips are better suitable for RGB colour settings and when luminosity requirements are higher and more demanding. There is also SMD 2835 that is worth to consider if it comes to quality and brightness but we are going to write about it in the future.

In our offer you will also find USB LED light strips and 5730 LED strip white.