Why wouldn't I just go and buy rope lights and gang under my car. That is basically what your look like lmao!
While their appearance may mimic that of a rope light the insides are completely different. This is similar to comparing a shock absorber off your car to a custom built racing shock. They may look the same on the outside, but they are vastly different on the inside as well as the price tags.
The majority of store bought rope lights have only 50 LEDs in a 16' section. We have 300. 300 LEDs means means our undercar kits are significantly brighter than a standard rope light.
Store bought rope lights weren't designed to take the abuse of racing. Ours were designed and tested specifically in the harsh environments of racing. If you want an in-depth technical explanation, see the last comment comparing the technologies used in our product and in rope lights.
Ours weigh 10-15% less than store bought rope lights.
Not all store bought rope lights are water proof. The connectors might be water proof but the actual LEDs are not. If you get any water in say by cutting the tubing with a pressure washer the LED will fail. The internal LEDs on our strips are IP65 waterproof rated so even if you cut the tubing with a pressure washer, the LEDs will remain water proof.
We use SMD LEDs for our undercar kits which, we believe, have less mass and much better vibration resistance than the DIP LEDs found in rope lights. DIP LED technology dates back to around the 60's whereas the SMD LEDs are much newer tech. The DIP LEDs have two, very small tin "legs" that stick out for the connections (pos and neg). Over time with vibration and flexing these LED legs will eventually break, much like taking a piece of flat steel or aluminum and bending it back and forth until it breaks. SMD LEDs are LEDs that get soldered to a printed circuit board instead so you no longer have the "legs" that the DIP LED have, thus making them much more vibration resistant. This design also allows for us to have more LEDs in closer proximity which is why we have 300 LEDs vs. 50 in theirs of comparable length. The manufacturing process of a DIP LED is much cheaper than a SMD LED as the SMD requires much more specialized equipment to make. This is why a rope lights can be had very cheaply as compared to their SMD counterparts. DIP LEDs also tend to pull more power than than their SMD counter parts which makes the SMD more energy efficient.
Edited by ledfootproducts, 23 April 2015 - 01:07 PM.
