white flex strip is really RGB. Is this normal?

[Rogelio]

I recently ordered some warm white 5 meter 150 led flex strips.  On closer inspection, they are actually 150 RGB emitters.
Is this normal for white leds?  I was expecting just regular white leds.  I am thinking of saving these for RGB projects and ordering more white ones since white is cheaper than rgb.

[Steve Gase]

interesting...  you only have 2 wires coming in, but the ground is soldered across the contacts of all 3 colors.
you'd need to remove the solder and add new lead wires, but it does appear you can get separated RGB.

was this that much cheaper than the RGB offering?  maybe your vendor did this as a way to limit his part inventory.

[chrisatpsu]

no, those are warm white.  just soldered on a rgb pcb.  if you look right at the led, you don't see the r,g & b, but a yellow coloring, which is a single led slightly tinted yellow to be "warm"

[chrisatpsu]

examples of a rgb led...

plastic rectangle
rgb dumb strip
smart string flexible strip

[chrisatpsu]

a "white" LED

it's hard to see, but in the first picture, there is a yellow tinting in the led, it's not caused by the pcb
the second picture is from the side showing the led as a clear led, you can start to make out the yellow tinting in the led by where the light source originates.

[Steve Gase]

no, those are warm white.  just soldered on a rgb pcb.  if you look right at the led, you don't see the r,g & b, but a yellow coloring, which is a single led slightly tinted yellow to be "warm"

or...  an RGB 3-color LED with a plastic cap to give the warm-white coloring.

note each LED (in each example) still has 6 pins.

[Rogelio]

Well thats why I post here.  I should have tested before I posted though.  Like Chris said, they are 3 white leds in one package.  I powered up the piece I cut off.  I guess when I saw the +RGB and 4 wires I believed it was rgb.
So like I asked earlier...is this normal for flex strips?  Or is there no normal when it comes from china?  BTW, the silicone covering wasent even fully cured when I opened them.  Had to lay them out in garage for a day or two. 
  Anyway, makes the decision to go ahead and cut these for my project easy.
Thanks for looking.
Roy

[chrisatpsu]

when things come from china, i wouldn't be surprised if you order the exact same thing, it would show up assembled in a different way.

it seems like rgb is all the rage now, so just make one pcb, and if someone wants just red, then change the leds and resistors and keep the pcb since that would be the hardest thing to come up with out of all the components.

Steve, a lot of single color led's now come in 4 or 6 pin packages. in some cases, they're all bound together, and in some cases, it's just 3 seperate leds all the same color. whites seem to always have that "reflector" in them that are yellow. That's what tipped me off.