GT RGBW Chasing Strips

While we often do minor updates to our products without mentioning it, this time it was substantial enough to warrant a message. To start with, we’ve increased the thickness of the ribbon, meaning less kinks, and fewer solder pads breaking off. It was great to have the flexibility but sucked to open your headlight more than once. This means some curves will not be possible anymore, we’d say the maximum curve (sideways) is seen in our 04-09 Mazda 3 Headlight. Next, our Sk6812RGBW chips have been upgraded to the latest market iteration for improved reliability. We’ve also added 2x the resistors per 3 Led section, helping to prevent voltage spikes and excess amperage draw between + & – lines. Lastly, although not directly a strip upgrade, we have created GT Inline Capacitors, which feature capacitors to control start-up voltage (you might have seen your strips flash once when applying power to them in testing, this prevents that), as well as a resistor on the data line. If you’ve ever seen a single led chip fail, and the rest behind it go haywire…this prevents that. And at a $10 addon, it’s a very cheap way to help improve reliability. These are sold pretty much at cost. With all these upgrades and rising costs of literally everything, we’ve had to increase the cost of our strips by $10 CAD. We kept it at $85 for as long as we could, but couldn’t sustain it any longer.

Why Capacitors? In our attempts to improve reliability, we have found that voltage spikes do not play nicely with 5V leds. So we created our inline GT Capacitors that also have a resistor on the data line to do everything we can to prevent voltage spikes in any form.

Dielectric Grease: Add this to all connections before you cover it in heat-shrink to prevent corrosion. A good connection is a happy connection is a happy customer.

Extension Wires: Use these extension wires to give yourself a little extra play room when installing your headlights, simply insert between your controller/driver and the wires exiting the headlights. Make sure you are coating the connections with dielectric grease to prevent corrosion and also taping them up.

Please Note

Addressable LEDs (the halos and strips themselves) have a small power drain even when off, regardless of the controller selected. If your car is driven daily, this should have no effect on you. If your car sits for a week+, consider installing a switch on the 12+ wire connecting to the battery (after the fuse).

Addressable LEDs are sensitive to temperature, especially, say, a 150+ degree bulb. If you’d like to get the longest life possible out of your purchase, consider running your halos/strips only has a drl and have them turn off when your low beam is on.

Included

• All strips are sold in pairs.