Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

My wife and I recently had a screened porch converted to a sunroom, and my wife wanted to add some sort of mood/celebratory lighting. After considering a number of options, we found the Daybetter R5032 at a terrific price, and placed an order for one package. Once we received the R5032 package, and started considering how we could mount the LED strip(s) we decided we would like to mount the light strips in a trough near the ceiling and use them to provide indirect lighting for the room. The two 5 meter LED strips would allow us to place lighting along two walls of the sunroom. Not being able to decide which two walls should carry the lights, it seemed to make more sense to place the lighting all the way around the room so we considered ordering a second R5032. This would mean that we would have two controllers, and two IR receivers possibly placed in two different locations in the room. The LED strips come with connectors on both ends making it seem like they could be connected in series, but this is not supported by Daybetter. The controller has two separate leads each of which connects to one of the 5 meter LED strips. Connecting both LED strips in series to one of the controller power leads would burn out the controller. In order to place both IR receivers in the same location, but have one of these controllers control lights that were 5 meters away, we needed extension cables that would allow power from one controller to run to a LED strip 5 meters away. I contacted Daybetter customer support to ask if they sold such extension cables. The next day I received an email that said they did not carry any such cables, but they did provide a link to a company that sold such cables through Amazon, and they were willing to help offset the cost of the cables. Thanks to this quick response, I ordered a second R5032 package from Daybetter, and a set of 4 four-conductor 3 meter extension cables from HUALAND. Connecting two of the extension cables together gave me enough length to reach an LED strip 5 meters away. The next issue became how to build a trough in which the LED stips could be mounted. I found a solution at my local Lowes where I discovered a vinyl door edge that was a bit larger than the 0.5 inch width and height needed to conceal the LED strip. The size was perfect (UnmountedTrough.jpg), and the price was a tenth of what wood trim would cost to cover the same length. Since the trough was vinyl, I needed to insure that the LED strips did not generate enough heat to melt them so I laid out the LED strips and turned them on to full brightness to evaluate the amount of heat generated by the circuitry on the strip. The heat through the resistors on the LED strip was barely detectable. I painted the door edge trough and installed it at the bottom edge of a 1 x 2 trim piece that already went around the room (Trough+IRsensors.jpg). I ended up installing the LED strip along the back edge of the trough rather than the bottom of the trough because I did not think the horizontally oriented LED strip would bend nicely around 90 degree corners (LEDinTrough.jpg). Bending a vertically oriented LED strip around the room's 90 degree corners was no problem. Once the trough and the LED strips were installed, I then needed to place two power packs and two controllers somewhere hopefully out of sight. An attic is directly above the sunroom so I decided to drill a hole in one corner of the sunroom ceiling, and route the 4 conductor power cables through the hole into the ceiling where the two power packs and the two controllers would be mounted. The power pack cords were long enough to allow them to be installed almost anywhere convenient in the attic (PowerPacks+Controllers). The two controller modules had to be installed right next to the hole in the attic floor so that the IR receiver cables could pass through the hole and be aimed out to the center of the sunroom (Trough+IRsensors.jpg). One remote control sends a command that is received by both controllers so all light strings react in unison. The results are highly satisfactory as I hope can be seen from some of the included pictures (LEDsunroom1-7.jpg). The light strips provide a wide range of colors at about 5 intensity levels, and the adhesive backing made mounting in the trough super simple. The product works great for us, and the customer support was outstanding.