HitLights LED Strip Lights Warm White 3000K, 10ft Standard Density 12V Tape Light, 180LEDs, 330 Lumens/ft, 3 Watt/ft, IP30, Lighting for Cabinet, Bedroom, Kitchen, UL-Listed(Power Source Not Included)

I was building a shelf fixture to house my figure collection and looking for a lighting solution. At first, I made the mistake of buying some inexpensive RGB LED strips  ihomy 16.4ft LED Flexible Strip Lights, 300 Units SMD 5050 LEDs, 12V DC Waterproof Light Strips, LED ribbon, DIY Christmas Holiday Home Kitchen Car Bar Indoor Party Decoration (RGBW+ Color Changing)  but they don't produce a good white light (being a mixture of separate red, green, and blue diodes) and weren't bright at all. That was just a bad choice due to inexperience. After returning those and spending hours doing further research, I settled on this HitLights strip because they actually listed the color temperature and brightness (surprisingly hard to find that information on a lot of LED strips) and the other ones that did offer that information were more like in the 250-300 lumens per foot range instead of 768.The color of the light is great and they're actually brighter than I needed, but I planned to wire it through a dimmer anyway, so I figured it's better to be too bright and turn them down than not bright enough. I turn them down about half way for everyday use, and turn them up to full when taking pictures. Works out great.Something to be aware of is that these are actually 6 pre-soldered segments of 20 inches apiece, so if you happen to want to cut the strip at the solder joint, you're probably not going to be able to do that with scissors. I didn't need to cut any of the joints, but since I was soldering wire anyway, I could have easily desoldered it if I needed to.Overall I'm very happy with the way these turned out on my shelf and would definitely use them again if I need more LED strips.I used this dimmer:  TORCHSTAR DC 12V - 24V PWM Dimmer Knob ON/OFF Switch with Aluminum Housing, Single Channel 30A Dimming Controller for Single Color LED Strip Lights, 5050 3538 5630 light strips  The most common LED strip dimmers are listed as 8 amp, but reviews suggested they were in fact 0.8A, which is definitely NOT enough for the 5A this 10 foot strip should draw, so this 30A dimmer covered my needs and just plain looks better.And I used this power supply:  HitLights 8A LED Strip Light 96 Watt Power Supply, UL-Listed 110V AC to 12V DC Transformer, Low Voltage LED Tape Light Driver  Actually only puts out 11.46V instead of 12V, but good enough to drive the lights when other options would be considerably more expensive or harder to work with (e.g. no wall plug included.)And one of these connectors to adapt the power supply's plug to bare wire for the dimmer:  HitLights LED Light Strip DC Jack Connector - Female to Screw Terminal - For LED Tape Light power and DC connections I didn't even bother with the sticky backing that was included with the lights since I would be mounting the lights upside down on wood. I went straight for 10lb 3M double sided foam tape (which I also happened to use to mount the power supply to the shelves. Stuff's pretty strong.)  3M Scotch Heavy Duty Mounting Tape, 1-Inch by 125-Inch (314) holds up to 5 lbs.  (The item title says 5 lbs, but the packaging says 10 lbs. Whichever!) If you're cutting your lights into more than one segment, two LED strips will actually fit side-by-side on 1-inch tape and you can split it down the middle with a utility knife. Works like a charm.

As many have commented on, these lights are very bright, almost too bright to look at directly and I love them...however... I am mounting them around a wooden bathroom vanity (which now looks AWESOME) and these lights get super hot, almost to the point of burning you if you should touch them. I am not worried about touching them, but rather that being so hot will shorten any LED lifespan.The solution: I purchased a roll of shiny metal duct tape. Don't confuse for Duck tape, the strong reinforced sticky tape, but rather the thin metal tape used on metal duct work (used in forced air heating). All big box hardware stores have it. Get one without any type on it (just plain shiny silver surface), stick it to the surface you want to put the lights on (it is very sticky and will not come off), then peel the back off these lights and stick it to the duct tape. The duct tape is the perfect heat conductor/dissipator so the LEDs stay quite cool and the tape reflects light very nicely and looks good if you apply it smoothly (you can press out any wrinkles if you get some). Hope this helps you!

Due to limited overhead space I decided to use 6 of these strips to light my whole 11' x 20' one car detached garage. I have them on 45 degree aluminum mounting channels, about 7.5 feet up. There are 4 strips covering the 20' walls and 2 more strips on a cross beam in the middle. Mounting them was a pain, but that's mostly due to how many I decided to use. They stick well to the aluminum channels. One LED on one of the strips was DOA (possibly damaged by me during mounting) but all others work properly. I decided to use two separate 200W drivers with 3 strips on each, and they do get warm when the lights are on for a while, with a slight buzzing sound to them, but nothing crazy. I have my doubts as to whether the claimed wattage on these is accurate. But they are very bright and are working well for my application, I have yet to need a task light in my workshop since they've been installed. I put them on a Lutron dimmer switch and they dim flawlessly, though I do find myself leaving them on full brightness most of the time. For the price these LED strips rock.