@BurnetRhoades Dammit! More stuff to test. Never thought about that. I usually bust out the Bebees for that though. ;)

Hi everyone,

Alex here from the Yuji Group - I run the high CRI LED webstorewhere @rockroadpix came across our high CRI LED ribbon. I just wanted to introduce myself here in case anyone had any questions about the product, and make a couple clarifications based on some other forum members' comments.

We manufacture high CRI LEDs using two different methods. The first uses a blue chip with red and green phosphors added into the package. This allows us to get 90-95+ CRI, which is in line with some of our competitors, but we do have an advantage in luminous efficacy (90+ lm/W) and pricing. (Keep in mind that we declare our CRI values as "minimums" on our website, while other manufacturers use "typical" values).

Our second method uses a violet chip, with red, blue and green phosphors added to the mix. This gets us CRI values of 95 minimum and 97 typical. In addition to the CRI values, our R9 and R12 values are above 90, which means that deep reds and saturated blues appear very natural and full, unlike other LEDs. As of now, I am not aware of any other LED manufacturer that can provide all R values above 90.

As @BurnetRhoades mentions, pricing for the violet chip LEDs are slightly more expensive. This is a reflection of the higher procurement costs for our violet chips and phosphor production costs (smaller economies of scale for this special product). For users who do not need perfect color rendering, our blue chip LEDs should suffice, and our pricing is competitive with, if not lower than, our competition.

As far as the question @vicharris raised regarding the number of LEDs per meter, when considering brightness, I encourage everyone to consider the total lumens output of the ribbon rather than just just the density. Currently, the majority of LEDs for LED ribbon fall into three power categories - 0.06 W, 0.2 W, and 0.4 W. In addition to the density, depending on the type of LED used, the total power consumption (and consequently brightness) will also be different. Many LED ribbons with 120 LEDs per meter typically use the 3528 LED, which uses a 0.06 W chip. At 120 pcs per meter, this comes out to 7.2 W, which should provide about 700 lumens. Some may offer 120 pcs x 0.2 W each, which almost provides 24 W, but this is not very common. Our product that @rockroadpix links to uses 5050 LEDs. While many in the industry use 3 x 0.06 W LEDs to achieve "0.2 W" 5050 SMDs (actually only 0.18 W) - we use a single LED of 0.4W. At 60 LEDs per meter, this comes out to 24 W per meter. This provides about 2400 lm - much, much more than the 3528 120 LED/m products.

Of course, brightness is not everything, and higher densities are desired in many applications for the evenness in light that they provide.

My apologies for the long post - I'm curious to learn more about what you guys are doing and am eager to provide any help or info that I can.

@vicharris, they can be soldered together as long as you'd like, but we've found that the voltage drop becomes too large for anything longer than 8 meters.

How long would be ideal for you?

@alex_yujigroup - Thank you for this information. Ultimately, CRI is a more important factor to most of us, even if it is at a small premium. I appreciate what you've told us and hope you'll continue.

@alex_yujigroup I'm in the UK and extra double interested in Hi CRI stuff -- can I buy from you?

Hi guys, sorry I've been out of the loop for a bit. Currently in the middle of a business trip.

@Joshua_Cadmium, performance wise, there is no significant difference between the 5630 and 5050. The 5050 is an older package type with a larger footprint, so many manufacturers are switching to the 5630. For some applications though, the square look is preferable and that is why we are still continuing with the 5050.

If you plan to run the strip without a dimmer, you'll want adequate heat sinking for the strips as well to ensure longevity. Mounting them on an aluminum or metal surface would work well.

The ribbons come in lengths of whatever you order them up to 5m. (If you order 3m, they will come in a single 3m strip, if you order 7m, they will come in a strip of 5m and a strip of 2m.)

The strips are available directly from our webstore. I'm not sure if the moderator will allow me to post the URL directly, but if you google "high cri led webstore" you should find us as the first search result.

We're a bit short on our stock right now so shipping times might be a bit delayed. We are replenishing our supply as quickly as possible.