DIY Guide: How to Easily Cut LED Strip Lights

Get the Perfect Fit: Your Guide to Cutting LED Strip Lights

Cutting LED strip lights is often necessary for DIY projects to ensure they fit the specific dimensions or layout of a space. Since LED strips are typically sold in long reels, cutting them allows for precise installation, such as around corners, in tight spaces, or on custom fixtures, without waste or excess material. 

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If you’ve worked with LED strips before, then you know how easy it is to cut them to a desired length. And if you’re new to working with LED strip lights, get your sharpest scissors out of the drawer because that’s precisely what we’ll teach you below: how to cut LED strip lights safely and accurately for your DIY projects. 

Safety tip #1: Never cut an LED strip light while it’s plugged in. 

Know Your Strips: Identifying Key Features for Cutting

The key to cutting an LED strip light accurately is knowing where to cut. There are two things you need to look out for to determine where you can trim your strip. This will vary from one manufacturer to another, but there are usually two indicators you can check. 

Cutting Marks

Usually, an LED strip light will have designated cutting marks indicated by a scissor symbol or running lines across the copper pads. Cutting along these lines or symbols will keep the circuits and LED components intact and working. So, you must never cut other parts of the strip that don’t have these lines and symbols. 

Copper Pads/Contacts

These are small, exposed metals that act as points for electrical connections. Cutting marks go through them, allowing you to cut and reconnect the strip lights as needed for your DIY project. The copper pads are the points where you can solder wires or attach solderless connectors after cutting. So, ensure that you cut directly through the middle of these pads. Making the wrong cuts has the potential to compromise the strip’s circuitry. 

Type of LED Strip

Not all LED strips are made the same. Single colour, RGB, and COB are some of the most common types of LED strip lights. Although the cutting of each kind is generally the same, the number of copper pads will vary since the RGB is a 4-pin strip, while the single colour and COB are 2-pin strips. So, the type of LED strip does not affect the cutting process. The only evident difference is the width of the strips. 

Your DIY Toolkit: What You'll Need to Cut LED Strips Safely

We’re all about safety first, precision second. Here are the essential items you’ll need to ensure safe LED strip cutting. 

Sharp Scissors or Utility Knife

A dull blade has the tendency to tear the LED strip rather than cut it. What you need is a pair of scissors or a utility knife with a sharp point or edge. These should allow you to make clean and precise cuts while preserving the strip’s integrity. 

Ruler or Straight Edge

You unlikely need to use this, but in the unfortunate case that you’re not sure if you can cut the strips in a straight line, you’ll find that having a guide can help you make a clean cut easily. 

Cutting Mat or Protective Surface

When using a utility knife, if you’re not mindful, you can unexpectedly leave scratches on your working station, which, let’s all be honest, you don’t want that. For projects that involve sharp tools, prepare a cutting mat or other protective surface before you begin working. 

DIY Cutting Process: Get Your LED Strips to the Perfect Length

You’ve got your cutting tools ready, and you’ve prepped your work area. It’s time to get to work.

Step 1: Measure Your Required Length

Hold your horses! Before you start cutting your LED strip lights, you have to determine where you need to cut. Get a measuring tape and determine the exact length of the LED strip light you need for your project. Mark it with a pencil or a marker.

Step 2: Identify the Correct Cutting Line

Carefully locate the closest cutting point (look for the scissor icon or solid line running through the copper pads) that aligns with your measurement. Make sure you’re cutting at the correct point in the strip.

Step 3: Prepare Your Cutting Tool and Surface

Place the LED strip on your cutting mat or protective surface. Ensure your scissors or utility knife is sharp and ready.

Step 4: Make the Cut

This is it! Align your ruler or straight edge along the cutting mark. Using a firm, even pressure, cut directly through the LED strip at the designated line. Ensure you cut through the middle of the copper pads.

Step 5: Check Your Cut

Inspect the cut edge to ensure it is clean and straight, and that the copper pads are exposed and undamaged. Damaged copper pads might mean you need a sharper tool. 

DIY Cutting Tips: Ensuring Success and Avoiding Mistakes

Tip 1: Always Cut on the Designated Lines

We’ll keep repeating this because it's the most important thing to remember when cutting LED strip lights. Cutting anywhere else will damage the circuit and the LED components, causing the strip to malfunction or not function at all. 

Tip 2: Cut Straight

Do this for your peace of mind. A straight cut ensures proper contact when using solderless connectors or soldering wires. The straighter the cut, the more seamless the connections will be. Stick to the lines! 

Tip 3: Handle with Care

LED strip lights are flexible, but they’renot indestructible. Avoid bending or twisting the LED strip excessively while cutting it. Poor handling can cause problems with your LED strips. 

Tip 4: Plan Your Cuts

The first step to a clean and seamless LED strip light installation is planning well. Think about how you will connect the cut sections before you make the cuts, especially around corners. 

Tip 5: Test After Cutting:

Do this before the final installation. Once you've made your cuts and any necessary connections, briefly test the LED strip to ensure all sections are working correctly. Only then should you mount them permanently or semi-permanently using strong adhesives or mounting clips.

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What to Do After Cutting: Connecting Your LED Strips

Now that the easy part is done (how to cut LED tape into segments), you can proceed to the next challenge: connecting the strips. Check out this article where we discuss soldering, solderless connectors, and How to Install LED Strip Lights Around Corners and Uneven Surfaces. 

DIY Safety First: Remember These Points When Cutting LED Strips

• Always disconnect the power supply from the LED strip before cutting. 

• Use sharp tools carefully. 

• Avoid cutting near any live electrical wires, especially if the strip is already partially installed. 

Ready to Cut Your LED Strip Lights to Size for Your DIY Project?

LED Supplier offers a wide selection of high-quality LED strip lights that are perfect for your next DIY lighting project. Choose from single colour strips, RGB or RGBW, and COB LED strips. And if you’re planning to install in the kitchen or bathroom, we have strips with a high IP rating. All your LED strip light needs and more await. So, check out LED Supplier today to avoid missing out! 

Perfectly Sized Lighting: Mastering the Art of Cutting LED Strip Lights for Your Home

It’s not hard to master the art of cutting your LED strip lights, especially once you take these good practices to heart. Just make sure you know the features of your LED strip light, you have the proper tools for cutting, and you know what mistakes to avoid when cutting. 

Have fun cutting!

Do you know if they can be cut & spliced back together? I would like to use them under the cabinets in my kitchen. We have 16ft of cabinet space in 4 separate parts & I don’t want to buy 4 Wyze light pro kits just to do it. There are many splice kits available & I would think if you connected them back in the order they were prior to being cut the controller would still work for them just as long as you do not add more than 16 total feet of led’s. splice or wire connectors would not be part of the total length. Has someone tried this yet? Wyze products are pretty cool we have several of there cameras as well as other products too. Sure would like to add these to our house.

There may be options you can try. here is one from Amazon:

I kow it is simply a splicer, but there are others like these that will provide a wiire to connect…

Not sure if they work, but this is something I am going to try when all of mine come in.

Only condition is to make sure you get the correct connector, I think Wyze has 4 connecting points, so the one in the aforementioned links may work.

Just providing potential options.

I added a 16 ft light strip under my kitchen cabinets. Not Wyze and not multi-color. I had to cut slots in the edge/lip of the cabinet to allow the strip to slide across between cabinets. It worked out great. Looking at eye level towards the front of the cabinet, the strip is not visible. The strip LEDs face toward the backsplash. And don’t bother with the self sticking tape. Even the 3M will not stick. I used Elmer’s and blue tape until it dried. Then carefully peeled the blue tape. No maintenance for almost a year so far.

Yea, that is referring to connecting 2 16.4 together. The # of LED’s the controller controls is critical, which is why they are implying you cannot connect 2 16.4 together.

But cutting a 16.4 and piecing it back together should be fine. But as indicated, I have not done this yet, will test it in the future as I purchased more than I needed.

One of my other lives is I run a music synchronized Christmas light show. The Wyze light strips are what we Christmas lighters call “dumb strips” and the Wyze light strip pro is what we call “smart strips”. I have LOTs of experience with both - for years.
Dumb strips can be spliced fairly easily, however there are current limits with the controller, and also current carrying capacity on the strips themselves. If I were to hazard a guess, the current capacity of the Wyze controller does not allow adding much in the way of additional length, so I would not try it. If you need to cut a strip and splice it back together (for example to turn around a corner), that should not be a problem. Note that the strip connectors that spamoni4 posted are likely garbage. On the lighting groups, no one has ever found any similar connectors that actually worked well and lasted very long. You really have to solder some wire at the end of one strip and solder that to the end of the other segment.
As for smart strips, the same splicing issues apply excdept you really can’t exceed the 50 pixels per strip because the controller will not be sending any data to anything beyond the 50th pixel. The controllers we use for Christmas lighting will drive more than 50 pixels, but quite certain that the Wyze controller will not.

For the Wyze Pro, they do not need to be in the same order as they were before. What is important is the direction of data flow. The strips are directional and will not work if reversed. There is an arrow on the strip that indicates the direction of data flow.
On the non-pro strips, the direction is not even critical. There are four connections: Voltage (or power), Red, Green, & Blue. As long as you hook up the correct connections together (red to red, green to green, etc), the NON-Pro strips will work fine.

I just finished installing the strip Pro and wanted to add my input, in hopes it helps someone else. I searched for a “cut and reconnect” solution that took me to this thread and ultimately tried the solder technique. I have a Weller solder iron and overcooked one of the copper flats which peeled up from the base and broke off. On a whim, and in an effort to salvage my mistake, I decided to try a solderless connector and found these:

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Looks great. That indirect lighting makes the room larger and softens the wall color. Really like the effect.

I have added LED strips on the underside of my bed, to the frame. The LED point down toward the carpet. Then I added a WiFI plug. And added a Dot 4th gen to the bathroom. I get up half a dozen times a night to whiz. When I enter the bathroom, an Alexa routine with person detection triggers a 30 second wait, then then the WiFi plug turns on the LED strip for 2 minutes. Give me time to get my job done, walk back to the bed with the light guiding me. Since doing this I have saved dozens of stubbed toes. And the LED lights turn themselves off after two minutes.

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