What 280 Meters of Corridor Actually Means
A two-wing business hotel in Lyon, France asked for one cove line reading as a single unbroken glow along Approx. 280 meters of ceiling channel — no dots, no color step, no falloff at the far end. This long run cob led strip lighting job turned on a distinction the tender had collapsed: a line that looks continuous and a strip that is continuous are not the same purchase.
Guest wings run floors 2 to 4, Approx. 46 m end to end per floor, six floor-runs in all. The previous contractor’s 12V high-density SMD on floor 1 dimmed visibly toward the end of every span, which re-scoped the tender to 24V COB.
Why One Continuous Reel Was the Wrong Ask
The brief wanted each 46 m length cut as one continuous piece at the factory. We do not make that: our reels run to 20 m, the ceiling set out in the reel-length and custom-length guidance, because FPC is manufactured in panels rather than drawn endlessly.
It would not have solved the problem it was bought to solve either. Feed a strip from one end and the drop at the far end scales with the square of the length, because every meter carries the current of every meter downstream. A few percent over 5 m is not one fifth of the drop over 25 m; it is roughly one twenty-fifth. That is why floor 1 dimmed, and 46 m of unbroken copper would dim the same way — worse, with no injection point to rescue it.
Three things buy visual continuity, and reel length is none of them. One CCT bin across every reel, on a single PO, labelled to a floor before install — or adjacent reels read as a color step through any diffuser. Injection close enough to hold the drop under the eye’s threshold: each 46 m run split into four segments fed at both ends, so no copper path exceeds about 5.75 m. And seams at the fire-door recesses and lobby turns, where a joint has a shadow line to hide in.
Custom length still earned its place, just not electrically: a longer reel cuts seam count, and every seam is a labor item and a future failure point. Connectors followed the connector and power-supply guidance — clip-on at the two lobby turns where crews lift the strip, soldered at the injection terminations.
The Multiplication That Changed the Control Schedule
The tender listed two 30A dimmers, one per wing. One multiplication kills that: 30 A at 24V caps a channel at 720 W, and a wing here is three 46 m runs of 528 LEDs/m — several times that on any plausible watts-per-meter figure. The schedule became two channels per floor-run, twelve in all, each in the service-hatch pocket beside its driver on the low-voltage side.
Two corrections to the tender’s reasoning. Derating a supply below rated load is a thermal and lifetime practice; IEC 61140 says nothing about it, defining instead the protective measures and SELV band these 24V circuits sit in — a separate, shock-protection question. And dimming does not create inrush: inrush is capacitive charging at switch-on, worst at full output, so it is no argument for headroom.
We did not supply the drivers. Our power-supply line is DC12V adapters topping out at 96 W, wrong shelf for a 24V corridor at this load, so we specified them and their hatch positions and the contractor bought them — two hatches per wing, Approx. 22 m apart, which fixed the segment boundaries. Corridors are a dry 24 °C, so IP20 under IEC 60529 was accepted.
One honest limit on the scenes. Our controllers are RF and IR with no timeclock, so day, evening and late-night are presets somebody recalls, not a schedule that runs itself. Automating it needs a third-party time relay ahead of the dimmers, and the remotes need a keeper at the front desk.
What Went Into the Cove
Approx. 370 meters across two references, all 3000K on a single PO.
| Zone | Model | Spec | Approx. Quantity | Why this SKU |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Guest corridor cove, six floor-runs | the 528 LEDs/m 24V reference | COB · 528 LEDs/m · 10 mm · 24V · IP20 · CRI 90 · 3000K | Approx. 280 m | Dotless at the density a guest walks past for 46 m; 24V only, suiting the segment lengths. |
| Housekeeping / service corridor | ES-2835-240-10MM | SMD 2835 · 240 LEDs/m · 10 mm · 12V/24V · IP20 · CRI 80 · 3000K | Approx. 90 m | Back-of-house behind a diffuser, so dotless buys nothing and CRI 80 costs nothing. |
| Zone dimming | ES-LC-DIM-008 | 30A RF dimmer · 14-key remote · 12V/24V · IP20 | 12 units | Two channels per floor-run keeps each well inside the 720 W ceiling at 24V. |
| Accessories | 24V constant-voltage drivers, contractor-supplied · existing aluminum cove channel and diffuser, Approx. 20 mm × 15 mm, retained · injection cable to each segment boundary | |||
The floor target was Approx. 100 lx average at U0 ≥ 0.4, the circulation figure in EN 12464-1 — which governs here, the corridor being a housekeeping workplace even when no guest is in it. Voltage followed the 24V platform guidance.
If You’re Quoting a Corridor This Long
- Ask for continuous appearance, not a continuous reel. Seam placement, one CCT bin and injection spacing decide how a line reads; reel length only decides how many seams.
- Remember the drop goes as length squared. Doubling a single-end feed quadruples the falloff, so no voltage and no density substitutes for injection.
- Multiply amps by volts before counting dimmers. A 30A channel is 720 W at 24V, a fraction of a hotel wing.
- Name who buys the drivers, and ask if scenes need a clock. An RF preset is not a schedule.
Planning a similar long run cob led strip lighting package? Send us the corridor length, channel section and hatch positions and we’ll return a segment-and-injection schedule with the dimmer channel count worked.
About Senfey
Senfey is a Chinese LED strip manufacturer founded in 2010, running a Shenzhen factory of roughly 12,000 m² with monthly output above 250,000 meters. Our catalog covers COB, SMD, LED Neon Flex, addressable strips, controllers and power supplies. Browse Senfey’s COB LED strip catalog for 24V long-run references.
