What is a COB LED Light strip? Instead of using SMD (surface mounted device) LEDs this strip uses COB (chip on board) LEDs which are bonded directly to the PCB strip as part of the manufacturing process with a diffusion and/or color coating as a thin layer in a line over the length of the strip. This is most apparent with different versions of white and some colored strip. You will find that certain colors can have what appears to be a clear coating, but in fact can still assist with diffusion and or color light dispersion. These COB strips have a massive number of LEDs compared to normal strips of the same length. Our 5m strips have 420 COB LEDs and have been manufactured with this number for excellent internal scale lighting for many model applications.