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Water in Smart Strip


asl9622

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Hey everyone! Just seeing if there is anyway to salvage a smart LED strip that likely has water in the strip. I had to splice the strip where a part initially failed. I tried my best in enclosing the patch but it appears water likely entered. The strip has portions of the strips on even when there is no sequence playing. At this point should I just replace?

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19 minutes ago, asl9622 said:

Hey everyone! Just seeing if there is anyway to salvage a smart LED strip that likely has water in the strip. I had to splice the strip where a part initially failed. I tried my best in enclosing the patch but it appears water likely entered. The strip has portions of the strips on even when there is no sequence playing. At this point should I just replace?

I would let it completely dry out and see what it does. If it still works you will have to seal it up again, if not use it for pieces.

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39 minutes ago, Mr. P said:

I would let it completely dry out and see what it does. If it still works you will have to seal it up again, if not use it for pieces.

Thanks for the recommendations. Any tricks to help dry it out faster?

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Assuming it’s a silicone tube type strip, the best would be to blow dry air or dry nitrogen through the tube.  The problem is that most people don’t have a handy source of dry air.  There are a couple ways to create it with various degrees of success.  If you have a supply of desiccant (maybe a bunch of the little packets that come in some pill bottles and electronic products).  Lacking any of those, have your air supply go through a cup of dry rice.  Not ideal, but better than nothing.  You are looking for a small airflow - don’t hook the strip up to an air compressor unless you can regulate the air down to just a couple PSI.  It will take time.  Ideally arrange the strip in a straight line slopping down.  That way any liquid water may at least partially run down hill.  Don’t create ups and downs as that will create locations that can puddle inside the tube.  Obviously do this without power applied.

Good luck!

 

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I've had a lot of issues with water getting into my strips. China's idea of waterproofing and mine are apparently two different things. In my case, they are used on a pixel tree and a few others on other props. The pixel tree is the only prop with problems. First, water gets in, between the wires coming out of the top end. Its important to use silicone up there and carefully seal between the wires. Also, during storage, depending on how you store them, just about anything can make small cracks in the silicone covering. You have to look closely to find any hairline cracks. Mine are mounted to long aluminum rails and even the weight of them, caused small cracks. If yours are mounted vertically such as a pixel tree, you could create a small drain hole at the very bottom so the water can escape but the better idea is to dry them out with air as suggested then carefully seal them.

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I love my Hot Glue gun.  After I solder AND TEST, leads to strips, I blob  a bit of hot glue over and between the wires.

I recently converted a bunch of 120V 4W C7, Pathway markers (groups of 3 or 4 ) into 12V LED singles

3.5" of 1/2 PVC sprinkler pipe. 4 sections of Warm White Led Strips stuck 1/2" from the (what will be the) top, I then Hot glue the middle 2" of the strips on each edge (those puppies are not moving), solder the wires (I chose to daisy chain since anything trickier would not be effective in translucent props). I attach the feed pigtail, then Hot Glue the longer stub end into the stake where the C7 socket was.   These are LOTS brighter than the 4W C7's were

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I would like to throw in my experience with hot glue here just as a YMMV kind of thing!

I ran tests on several different types of sealants back in 2012 through 2013 to see how they would work for sealing strips and electrical connections.  I ran the testing outdoors for just under 9 months.

I found that hot glue was the second worst thing to use as it failed within a couple of months into the testing (acetic silicone was the worst).  It got brittle and/or just didn't grip well enough to prevent moisture entry into strips or connections.  It also got too soft in the warmer days and would start to creep away from the joints it was supposed to seal! 

I live in upstate NY so the tests got a very large range of cold, hot, wet, and dry days to see what would happen.  Hot glue failed worst in the colder days for sure but it still failed.

The best sealant I can across was an electrical silicone that is neutral (no acidic properties to cause problems) and was the best "overall" for not only sealing but also to be able to be removed if any repairs were necessary.

I imagine that hot glue might work well for people who live in areas that are warmer year round but up here in the North, it doesn't cut it.  I will say that I am sure that there are newer formulations of hot glue out now that probably work better as well.

This was one of the better electronic sealants at the time I ran my tests:

https://www.altex.com/GC-Electronic-Grade-Silicone-Sealant-Adhesive-3oz.

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2 hours ago, beeiilll said:

I found that hot glue was the second worst thing to use as it failed within a couple of months into the testing (acetic silicone was the worst).  It got brittle and/or just didn't grip well enough to prevent moisture entry into strips or connections.  It also got too soft in the warmer days and would start to creep away from the joints it was supposed to seal! 

I live in upstate NY so the tests got a very large range of cold, hot, wet, and dry days to see what would happen.  Hot glue failed worst in the colder days for sure but it still failed.

The best sealant I can across was an electrical silicone that is neutral (no acidic properties to cause problems) and was the best "overall" for not only sealing but also to be able to be removed if any repairs were necessary.

Amen.  I have exactly the same experience up here in the cold snowy wet mountains.

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Well I can count on 1 hand the times I have seen snow on the ground here (at the house) in the last 40 years. It almost never freezes below 1500' (in them hills across the Bay)

We might get below 32 for a couple of hours just before dawn. It was sometime in the 1980's where we had 3 days BELOW.   My wife reminds me that there is no other state with as nice a climate, every time I moan about the Politics.

Edited by TheDucks
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17 hours ago, TheDucks said:

Well I can count on 1 hand the times I have seen snow on the ground here (at the house) in the last 40 years. It almost never freezes below 1500' (in them hills across the Bay)

We might get below 32 for a couple of hours just before dawn. It was sometime in the 1980's where we had 3 days BELOW.   My wife reminds me that there is no other state with as nice a climate, every time I moan about the Politics.

HA - Ya, I said that there are those who live in better climates than many of us do who would be able to use hot glue without much trouble!

I just wanted to throw out an observation on how some adhesives work in "less than desirable" conditions for people to make their own decisions on what to use.

When I was doing my tests, I contacted several companies about using potting compound on electrical connections.  I got some very favorable answers on it right up to the point where they said that it would only work "correctly" if applied under some pretty tight conditions (read in a factory environment here)!  Plus potting compound is pretty much applied and forget about making any changes with the stuff!  I used a lot of it during my time in the Air Force and still have it around for my own projects but would never recommend it to anyone who is not ready for some involvement with using it!  I also found hot glue to be messier than silicone especially on a ladder fixing a connection in the winter.

Much like anything, it will work only as well as the prep work and detail to using the stuff correctly.  Or in other words, "Done right, it is perfect  -  Done wrong, it is a nightmare".

We all use whatever we can get our hands on at times and that is why I was interested in how different kinds of sealants would react to weather in our "hobby" type of use.

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