When buying LED strips, you are often confronted with the question if you want IP20, IP65 or even IP68 LED strip. These values stand for different levels of water and dust proofing. This article will give you a complete guide of it.
IP20 for indoor applications:
The IP20 rating officially stands for “touch by fingers (>12.5 mm) | No protection”. The 2 in IP20 stands for being able to withstand basic touch and rudimentary dust protection. It won’t survive hard impacts or anything like that, but you can safely touch it with your fingers. The 0 in IP20 stands for no water protection whatsoever. That means these LED strips are ideally suited to be used indoors. A lot of LED Lights, LED track lights, LED Ceiling light, LED Linear and other fixtures fall in this category. They are a great option for indoor use in basic environments.
IP65 Waterproof Rating:
The IP65 rating officially stands for “Total dust ingress protection | low pressure water jets from any direction”. The 6 stands for good dust and touch protection. Basically, the LEDs cannot be reached, so they are well protected. The 5 of IP65 stands for decent moisture or water protection. They should even survive a garden hose or something like that. This makes these strips ideal to use in outdoor situations where they are still inside of an aluminum profile or something of the sort.
IP67 Waterproof Rating:
The IP67 rating officially stands for “temporary immersion to at least 1 m from bottom and 15 cm from top of object”. This means that the product is fully sealed against dust and can actually be fully emerged into water for a small period of time.
IP68 Waterproof Rating:
The IP68 rating officially stands for “continuous immersion to a specified depth or pressure”. That means these strips can be immersed into water for longer periods of time, making them suitable to use in an aquarium or outdoor pools, for instance. It’s a silicon sleeve like above but then (pressure) filled with glue or epoxy making it completely solid.
They can be fit to use for both in domestic and commercial purposes. The popular light fixtures such as LED streetlights, outdoor LED strip lights.
