LED Strip question - Not quite Flashlight related, but kinda is?

Greetings All,

I have been lurking here for a few years - Thank you all for sharing your insights and knowledge!

What brings me out of lurking is that I have a LED question, that I cannot find a straight answer on, and I thought perhaps you may be able to help?

For Led strip lights and I suppose LEDs in general - is it harder/more costly to make a 4000-45000K led than say a 3000k or 6000K LED?

I've read somewhere some LED strips start off as 6000K, but then the manufacturer adds on pigments to make them "warmer" however this tends to make an ugly light -- however some claim to have a better process and actually make the LED produce the right color from manufacturing. Is this more or less true? If so, is there a way of telling easily by looking at pictures online?

I've noticed the pricing for light strips in the 4000K range seems to be a bit higher than the warm or day white - would this be because of the manufacturing or just less demand?

Situation - I want to add some additional light to my office - preferably aimed towards the walls (onto my whiteboard wall and plants) - 6000K/"Day white" feels a bit much, 3000K/"Warm white" feels a bit too cozy -- thinking 4000-4500K may be ideal - was planning of using a 5 meter light strip that could project light to two walls, mounted to a a 45 degree channel clipped to my drop ceiling frame pointing toward the walls.

Thank you all in advance!,

Bob

Hey Bob,
A white LED is essentially just a royal bleu LED die, and then a phosphor coating it added to make it white. dependin on the mixture in this phosphor coating will make different temperatures of white, anywhere from around 2500K to sometimes clsoe to 12,000k depending on the manufacturer. For LED Strips, they generally would use all of 1 color LED so the entire strip is 2700k, 3000k, 2500k, 4000k, etc . Each one had its own types of uses in different areas.

In your office it would help know what type of lighting you have in there to start with. incandescent and most warm LED bulbs are 2700k whcih is that nice soft feel. In the majority of offices with florescent lighting is is around a 4000K. 5000K and up will give you a very cold feel, and 6500k will be harh on the eyes. I would recommend a 4000k as it will feel like a bright white and not too soft.

No real difference in design or cost. Slightly different shade of yellow phosphor. This method can produce any arbitrary colour temperature that is needed (within reason), but in practice the manufacturing tolerances mean there is a spread of a few hundred K in the colours within the same batch so mostly they just offer "warm white" (3,000K-ish although often sold as 2,700K) and "cool white" (6,500K-ish) or equivalent names. The intermediate (pure/cool/fresh) white around 4,000 K is less common and perhaps accounts for any price difference you see. Even less common are the very- and ultra- warm whites. The names used can be conflicting or contradictory depending on what the retailer thinks will sell best. Pick whichever you like. I find the cooler shades rather harsh and clinical for domestic lighting unless the colour rendering is very good so usually just pick warm white. Low-CRI cooler-white LEDs can look slightly pink or just grey. With sufficiently high CRI a 6,500 K lamp will give a very good representation of colours as they will appear in natural light and is recommended for that reason for tasks like putting on make-up or even cooking. Some people just prefer the cooler colours even for home lighting, but be aware some of the cheaper ones will just look nasty.