so you promised me a trip out and we're down here at Penn Elcom down in Hastings, i haven't seen the
seaside yet but i know they're partnering with osram and have done since 2005. so what we're
going to see today well gary hope we're going to take our led tape skills to another level now
we've featured a lot of led strip on the channel before we've soldered we've cut we've showed you
some of the extrusions available but today we're going to see how the pros do it and that's not us
that's the guys behind us here in this workshop so they assemble complete projects for osram to
a tight specification so that when it turns up on site it's install ready now in this video you'll
see some absolutely fantastic tips and we've got some things in this workshop that top tips but
at the end you have two choices for everything you can see in this video you can order from
pennow.com or you can hand it over to the guys in this workshop and they'll do all of the assembly
cut to length pre-wired ready for you to fit so i think that's some great choices well it seems
like it's more like your world than my world so i think you're going this way and i'm going that way
so we're here with the star of the show and this is Leon. Leon so how much lead tape have you sold
it over the years do you think miles miles thousand miles yeah yeah how many lengths lots
of lens lots of lengths tens of thousands yeah oh yes now you've developed behind us what we call
the third hand it's a special little jig isn't it robust or well let's show how let's see how you
use the the third hand to put the wires on some lead tech okay that's what we're doing first we're
just going to tin the pads up right yeah that's right so we've got some osram led strip okay
that's good now i'm normally chasing it around the bench at this stage we have tried the solder mate
yeah which is cool but with this you're kind of close at the action aren't you yeah nice and still
for you as well so yeah okay so next stage at the bottom take our wires yeah our cable whatever you
prefer to call it yep so we're going to tin them up now as well we're going to tin the ends yeah
okay again that was nice and simple and just give them a little trip now wow that is really glass
coupled there let's keep the soldering iron nice and clean just use gary's wig all right so here's
the here's the critical bit now i've never seen this done before we're hovering above the bench
and then just going in for the negative connection i mean well that is a neat giant i mean when i
do it normally you burn back the insulation along the along the conductors but that is
one neat way of doing that so we've got some tools here on the bench yeah so what we're
using for stripping the uh we've got some general 69s here general 69s yeah okay so i'm going to
use those just for trimming the ends of the wires yeah they can be used for many different things
so yeah they can be used for splitting and then we'll bring any we call these the richard brooks
after our electricians challenge but i guess next next question we get asked is a cable so let's go
and have a look at uh different cable options so leon you've brought me over to this fine
selection of cables you've got here uh is this the standard cable you use on most projects yes
yeah pretty much engineer standard all of it so so what would we've just done a single color
one so i guess this is the cable here is it so this what do you call this this is a two core
yeah we call it a shotgun cable right where's that we've got two barrels yeah that's the one
yeah it's used in the audio industry but yeah right now there's an inside of shotgun cable
like that even if even on the multi-strand we've got some more strands here these are more like a
type of ribbon cable yeah that's what i've got three and four and five uh uh a tunable
so your two colored types of led you take all right so tunable white on there yeah that's
your color temperatures yep uh we've got your rgbs yeah and we've got your rgbws which is your white
as well on your on your rgb all right now i've noticed the subtle difference between these
cables here that the actual there's a different in order between this one's r rgb yeah and this
one's gr that one there is pretty much an industry standard version right but this has been i believe
made for a customer that's right okay so where they've made their own led right um and you would
sometimes when you're hanging lights and you're using wires right rather than having that hanging
from the ceilings if you want to hide that up the wires then yeah yeah okay so you've showed us
putting them on the um the led tape yeah what sort of typical length are you putting on for a project
all different lengths pre-prep half a meters one meters twos and threes yeah which is the
most common um but it couldn't be anything right obviously longer lengths um changing
thickness of grades okay for resistance right so what i did depend on the power of the tape
is it was it more like the long runs getting resistance down the cable trying to push the
alright okay so we've got that and then we've got some rubberized cable here as well we use
we tend to use this the ip rated stuff all right waterproof splash proof sort of thing different
ip rates but surely on a big project you're not going to cut all this by hand no we use the cable
machine here all right well let's see anything for our bulk runs yeah yeah so this looks like the uh
yeah i mean the efix viewers sometimes complain about the price of cable strippers this looks like
an expensive piece of kit it's a very expensive piece of kit right leon you've brought me over to
what you're relying only telling me this is the shirling schulinger yeah yeah it's like a swiss
watch swiss made machine yeah very clever very clever so what we've got on the screen here uh
obviously the program's different um settings right four different types of cables all set
up for a two core at the moment which is all set up through the machine okay so what can we
set on here we can set i can see the length so yeah so wow we've got some of 10 meters on there
well pretty much everything give it a part code type in the description uh the length obviously
yeah the quantities you want to do it'll do a countdown for you you can do it in batches
different batch sizes production runs all right okay well yeah push the button let's see it go
oh it's the mouse set it gone it's a mouse yes so it will cut and strip and it will
stop and it will strip the other end and then we'll drop them out half a meter lengths today
no need for a bucket so that's spitting them out all right yeah so it leaves that does it always
leave this little slug over here yeah you've got a choice you can have it taken off you can leave
it on there you can set the different you know quantity or the size of different uh lengths you
want strips you can have one end or no ends or yeah yeah you'd set the machine to do whatever
you wanted to do well i mean that's a clever bit of kit does it can it so can it just do two core
it does two coins change all the blades you can do three coil you can do all the ribbon cables
wow that's a good bit of case for yeah not not quite one for the toolbox but if you're doing a
lot of led this is what you need so we've uh we've left the workshop to come around to this part of
the warehouse here leon so what have we got here this is where we store all the led extrusions
now this is i mean this is a this is a pretty big range i mean this is yeah there's a lot here yes
and i mean now i'm amazed how much how many different types of profiles there are for led
10. we're here obviously you do you cut them here to the exact size yeah we use the saw that's
uh over there to the side um we get jobs picking tickets and the guys pick it cut on the saw
okay so that's a special saw yeah that's just for cutting led profiles just for cutting aluminium
and led profiles and extrusion yes right so when you're cutting them you can obviously you don't
cut one at a time either dude no definitely not we cut multiples yeah all in one go all in one go
all perfectly clean and neat yes wow so i guess yeah that's that's good that's a good technique
difficult probably to replicate on site so let's have a look now when we bring the led
tape back together and for that final assembly so before we go and see that final assembly process
let's just have a little look in this warehouse here so there's a massive quantity of led strip
led tape call it whatever you want and all the components to go with it drivers power supplies
cables the accessories for the extrusions now we've learned a top tip while being here and
everyone knows on efix we love a top tip and we also love a part number now i expected to see all
the led strips and tape in one area but actually they're spread out all over those warehouse
that's to help with the picking process so you don't necessarily mix up part numbers it's very
easy just if you're picking something to be able to tell the difference between one part number and
another part number but that's important when it comes to led strip because if you've done a
big led project you'll know color consistency is important and leds are produced in batches now
if you get those batch numbers wrong it's a bit like buying wallpaper and paint that the finished
result may not be the same remember on a paint can it says always if you're going to buy another tin
buy right the same batch code it's the same with led lights now the great thing about penelcom is
by the time this leds gets through to that final assembly process it's been selected
to be consistent color temperature color binning you may hear the words so when it ends up on site
everything looks fantastic so liam we're at the final stage of the assembly process we've got
our cut tape we've got our wires on we've cut the extrusion profile we're now just going to
stick it together so let's have a look at the top tips you've got for us here okay
so leon what we're going to do first with the extrusion right we're going to prime
it first okay so i've never primed an extrusion before putting the led tent
it's just basically uh a cleaning process and also it takes any any excess off the back of
the extrusion that helps the led stick a bit better okay stops it lifting in the future so
that's a 3m primer matched to the obviously the 3m tape on the back of the osram tape
so i guess the boffins at 3m have worked carefully to to make sure this is perfectly matched yeah so
you're just getting what you're getting around you can use a little brush yeah i find that
using a rag you don't use as much up and also the brushes the um the actual bristles of them tend
to go sticky and hard okay so you need a lot of brushes okay just give that a quick once over yeah
yeah i guess you need a long bench for this part of the process yeah depending on what you have
what's the longest piece of extrusion you tend to do with standard we do three meters right okay
okay so you need a good three meter bench yeah right so we're now going to put the tap in yep
peel the back off tend to do a little bit at a time
okay did you get any sort of second chances with it not really it's uh your best to get it in place
uh first time yeah just trying to pull it back out you can end up damaging the led yeah especially
with the primer as well because the primer does really help it stick yeah i can imagine
something like putting a window on a double glaze frame once the tape's gone yeah it's going in
this one's a bit more tricky because the extrusion's a bit deeper yeah okay
so you just do a little bit at the end yeah just carefully work your way along yeah careful
be careful with your fingers because you can damage the led in the chips obviously from static
i mean very rare but it does happen so the less you touch it the better
okay there we go and it's in well and that's careful just that fine i'll clip the top on and
put our end caps in for our finish to finish this i've got an end cap here with a hole in the end
yep okay just slot that end cap in and then doesn't just clip the diffuser into place
so it's a quick test profile works so gordon what you been up to i've learned some absolutely top
tips during this visit gary the way the projects are assembled yeah confidence in the product
that's been delivered now that's that that choice you now have if you're an electrician and you're
taking on a a big project you know you're not confident in your soldering you know you don't
know how to cut profiles properly you're doing that on a building site upside down with brick
dust all around here i'd seriously be considering just handing the project over to the guys here
i heard a rumor you've got a third arm now then gordon oh yeah i mean that was yeah that's my
takeaway tip on how to solder led tape is using the third arm now drop a comment below what you
thought of that you know would you like to buy one if that was a product that was available but
what have you been up to gary well you talking about products and products that are available
panelcom also make racks and 19 interactions i've been the other side of these doors exploring
the process from raw material to end product on those and you'll be able to check that video out
and i'm sure it's in above our head link in the description below in order that you can see that
video but for this one we're interested in your feedback do you believe that you'll use pinellcom
for your projects is it something you didn't know that was available and now
you do and you're considering using it do you think you'll use their website in order
to source your materials for your own project we'd be interested in all of those comments
if you can leave them below we'll try and get back to as many as we can