Rain LED, street garlands: overview, description, types, characteristics

Many decorators and interior designers prefer to use in their work such a powerful decorative element, as the backlight. Along with the basic, functional lighting, additional light sources allow you to focus on individual areas of the space, create a special mood and highlight interesting architectural solutions. In addition, with the skillful and competent use of special street lighting systems (LED rain, waterfall, curtain, garlands), you can create a unique and extremely bright decor of the porch, windows or even the entire area of the facade.

Nature of LED lighting

Today, no one is surprised by LED lights. Due to their effectiveness, durability and safety, they have firmly entered the life of many people. Ice-lighting is actively used in private homes, offices and public places instead of the main lighting sources (lamps in chandeliers) and for lighting (LED strips, recessed lights, New Year's illumination).

Each LED lamp has an anode and a cathode with an active semiconductor crystal and a reflector. When electricity comes to it, the current flows from the anode to the cathode, resulting in optical radiation. This device and the principle of operation are characteristic for ice-lamps of any size and shape: from large ones with a traditional socle (for a powerful stream of light) to the smallest in strips or garlands (rain LED).

Why LEDs?

Many consumers switch to LED lighting precisely because of its economy and long life, because one lamp can work up to 100,000 hours. No less valuable are other performance characteristics of ice-lamps:

• Under any conditions, such a lamp lights up instantly, without any delay.
• LED lighting has a stable brightness.
• When using ice-lamps, the user does not have to worry about the number of on and off cycles, unlike incandescent lamps, the wear of which depends on how often they are activated.
• There is no vibration of the operating device with an LED light source, because it does not include a filament or other sensitive component.
• Garlands LED street ("rain", "waterfall" and others), as well as all lamps for placement inside the house are absolutely safe for children and animals. To operate the lighting devices do not use high voltage, so the lamps do not overheat. On average, their temperature is not more than 60 degrees.
• An important advantage of LED lamps is their ability to continue working at rather low ambient temperatures. It is this feature that makes LED rain, "curtain" and various garlands an indispensable Christmas decoration.

Another significant argument for the use of ice-lamps are their environmental characteristics: they do not include poisonous or dangerous substances (mercury, phosphorus), like some other designs. For this reason, LED rain can be considered an environmentally friendly means of decoration and lighting.

In what cases is it appropriate to use LEDs for lighting and decoration

In practice, various kinds of ice-lamps and garlands are used with the following purpose:

• To draw attention to some details in the interior or exterior.
• For zoning the internal space of the room.
• To avoid lighting a large area.
• In order to hide the shortcomings of the surface of the walls (LED rain "curtain").
• To emphasize the status and prestige of the institution (actual for hotels, shopping and office space).
• To create a festive illuminations.

Most often you can find LEDs in the form of small lamps, evenly attached to a flexible tape with an adhesive base. Point and retractable ice-lamps are also common. However, the most effective and impressive are garlands of LED street lights . "Rain", "curtain", "curtain" - all these are names of the same type of designs that masters fix on the walls of houses, in the openings of doors and windows, on architectural ledges or in niches. Such systems can be of different size and color, there is also the possibility of selecting their mode of operation (uniform glow, flicker, waterfall effect).

Rain LED: how the design looks and works

This extravagant type of luminous decoration consists of a long cord to which wires with lamps are attached. The cord along which the fringe is placed is called a plume, or a base. It is made of durable plastic or silicone. As a rule, such garlands reach two meters in length (on the trail), and the length of the fringe varies from several tens of centimeters to several meters. The marking "LED rain 2х3м" means that on the two-meter base there are hanging elements with a length of three meters. Some systems have fringes with uneven elements, which are great for fastening along roofs and cornices, emphasizing the building's dignity.

Decorative lighting systems are interesting in that two separate similar units can be fastened together to form a long curtain. The edges of the garlands are equipped with special connectors, which allows you to assemble a chain of a large number of elements (maximum 20 pieces). According to people who have used this decor for a long time, this feature of the designs is extremely convenient.

To buy the right amount of garlands and guess with the length of the fringe, it is worthwhile in advance to measure the area where the rain LED will be placed.

Types of LED curtains

Thinking about decorating your house with an LED curtain, you need to figure out what they are like, how to properly install and use them.

Garland LED ("rain", "curtain") can have different colors and modes of operation. There are monochrome and colored designs, the choice depends only on the taste of the owner of the room and his imagination. Multicolored curtains are equipped with controllers. These devices allow you to select, fix and change the way the lamps function: even glow or flicker. Selecting the flashing mode, you can also adjust the intensity and color of the glow.

How much is the radiant design

Studying the cost of LED lighting systems, you can see that the price of monochrome garlands is slightly lower than the color ones. Simpler designs for indoor spaces are also cheaper than street designs. This is not surprising, because the latter have high strength, frost resistance and tightness of joints. Owners of large houses, wishing to fully decorate one or all of the walls, will have to pay a fairly impressive amount, buying several same-type garlands.

You should also take into account the cost of fasteners and payment for the installer, if the owner of the house does not have the opportunity to independently place such a decor as a garland "rain" LED.

The price of some kinds of garlands (averaged index):

• The length of 4 m with a short fringe to 0.6 m - about 16 euros.
• Length of 3 m with long hanging elements (up to one meter) - 27 euros.
• A set of LED garlands "meteor shower" (length of each element 30 cm) - 22 euros.
• A large curtain 2 m long with hanging elements up to 3 m - 112 euros.

Placement of LED rain indoors

When planning the decoration of living rooms, office or commercial premises with LED garlands should be guided by the norms of illumination. They are designed in such a way that they can avoid excessively bright annoying light, but at the same time they make it possible to achieve uniform illumination of space.

Using controllers for ice-lamps allows solving problems with the intensity of their glow.

Garlands are fastened to walls, columns, niches, as well as in window or door openings using staples, wires, double-sided scotch, suction cups and other materials. The master must take into account that when decorating an interior negligence is unacceptable: the insufficient length of the fringe elements looks as ugly as too long. For the stylistic integrity of the interior you need to monitor the exact matching of the curtain of the decorated area.

Feature of street structures

Those garlands that are designed for installation on the exterior of the building can be connected to an electrical network or run on batteries. Their installation involves placing a plume along the top edge of the wall, the eaves or the porch. In this case, the hanging elements can remain free. Sometimes, if necessary, they are fastened to a vertical plane.

Before the beginning of all the works the master should make sure that the size of the curtain is suitable for decorating this area. Brace street garlands with any convenient fastening means: staples, clamps, cords, wire.

Security measures

Proceeding from the fact that all LED curtains refer to electrical structures, when installing them the master must adhere to the basic rules for handling household electrical appliances. Special admission will not be required, but fastening of the garland to a high facade or roof can be performed only by an experienced specialist, applying safety measures. Here you can not do without lifting equipment and knowledge of the methods of high-altitude installation.