LED Strip basics?

[GMTK]

Looking at some of the LED strip lighting available now and thinking about running some in my boat under the side cushions, but I don't know a lot about the wiring. Best I can tell, you can buy a roll of lights - multi color (being told to go with 50/50), cut them in certain spots, solder 18/4 wire to where you cut it; run this 18/4 to a controller and then power to the controller (and the controller has a remote). In my boat it looks like I would have three or four separate strips (6', 6', 3', 9' lengths). Can I just run the 18/4 to under the helm, splice those together and run them to the controller? I would then hook up the controller to a empty ACC rocker switch on my dash.

Any help/advice on this is appreciated.

 

[kyle99]

the lights you are talking about are called RGB led strips. yes you can solder them to gather to run them off of 1 controller. you can also buy strips that are short and you can run extensions to the controller with a y connector. this way you won't have to solder them. word of advice is you of solder them make sure you put the correct wire to the correct contact. also put liquid electrical tape to cover the connections.