Find the Brightest and Best Reflective Tape at Cheap Price (3 Useful New Tips + Reviews)
Ultimate Guide
Reflective Tape Complete Guide (Save Your Money & Trouble)
How To Buy the Best Reflective Tape at Cheap Price (Expert Tips from Manufacturer)
Watch this useful video or read below post to find out:
- What is the brightest or most visible reflective tape？and what is the least reflective color?
- What is the best color for reflective tape?
- What is the best reflective tape?
- What are the different levels/types of reflective tape?
- What is the lifespan of reflective tape or how long does reflective tape last?
- Why so many reflective tape fail and which reflective tape really works?
Problems You May Encounter In Reflective Conspicuity Tape Applications
When you search on internet for reflective tape, there is a rich array of different types or grades and colors to choose, good or bad ones. From our market research of online sales, many customers are not very happy with the reflective conspicuity tape they bought and, in some cases, even about up to 30% of total customer reviews are negative reviews.
Various reflective tape quality problems happened, such as adhesive, flexibility, reflectivity/not that visible, and durability. Reflective tape could last from several months to 10 years.
Most people do not know much in reflective tape or materials, like what people at reddits often ask for their cars, bikes, etc. Or they ask some questions like, which colour reflective tape is best or what is the most visible reflective tape. In fact, reflective tape of different colors has as large as 10 times difference in reflectivity while their prices are the same.
A comprehensive guide is hard to find, so in the video (above) or this post, we will help you choose the right type of reflective tape and try to avoid buying bad quality or knockoffs, saving trouble and money. Furthermore, good reflective products make you easily visible which is critically important for all.
We are from Toptend, an experienced and reliable manufacturer, supplier and exporter of various reflective conspicuity tape, reflective sheeting for traffic road signs, reflective fabric, fire retardant reflective tape and glow in the dark film or tape since 2008, among many other traffic safety products. We supply all these products at competitive low prices and meet international standards and regulations.
And at end of the video or this post, we will debunk some shoddy reflective tapes and knockoffs on the market and tell you a simple and quick method to sift out bad ones that definitely do not measure up to the industrial standards.
Before this, let us start with the 3 important tips first.
Tip #1: Reflectivity (Retro-reflection)
People often complain the tape was not very reflective or visible, or become less bright too quickly.
You may not know these information in whole or in part:
Different grades and different colors of reflective tape have different reflectivity. So you should select the right grade or color at first.
The different grades from top to bottom (listed in below picture) indicate their reflectivity from high to low, which applies to their prices from high to low as well except for the Others options below.
What are the Different Grades of Reflective Tape or Sheeting
As below picture shows the different grades/levels of reflective tapes (that last up to 10 years):
- Diamond grade
- High intensity prismatic (HIP)
- High intensity (HIG)
- Engineer grade prismatic (EGP)
- Engineer grade (EG)
- Commercial grade
- Others such as DOT-C2, ECE 104, SOLAS, etc (as per conspicuity marking tape regulations in USA, Europe and other countries)
Among them, diamond grade, HIP and EGP retroreflective tape or reflective sheeting are made by micro-prismatic technology with higher reflectivity while the others are glass bead types.
DOT (or DOT-C2) and ECE104 are two popular types of reflective conspicuity tape. They approximately represent a reflectivity level approximately from high intensity grade and above. But they are stricter than all the other standard retro reflective tapes.
For example, DOT-C2 reflectivity must comply with FMVSS 108 which requires rigorous reflectivity performance at larger and more angles.
Tip #1: Reflectivity (Retro-reflection) Continues
What is the Best Color for Reflective Tape?
Now, another important information is different colors have different level of reflectivity. Generally speaking, for the same grade of retro reflective sheeting, check out the reflectivity level in the order from high to low in below picture. Their visibility difference could be as large as 10 times. And black color usually are not reflective or only a little bright.
Besides the best visibility, the best color reflective tape will also consider your specific application requirements. Usually white, yellow and fluoresecent yellow green are considered the best colors because all three colors have the highest visibility level and fluorescent yellow green stands out better at longer distance and more weather conditions, such as dawn, dusk, snow, rain, and fog.
Among all these colors, fluorescent yellow green reflective tape is more expensieve.
What is the Brightest or Most Visible Reflective Tape？What is the Least Reflective Color?
Check the picture: different colors of reflective films or tapes on the market with high to low reflectivity levels listed from top to bottom. Among different colors, white, fluorescent yellow green and yellow of real diamond grade are the brighest reflective tape. This will also include white/silver prismatic SOLAS tape which is among the brighest reflective tapes. In comparison, brown or black color reflective has the lowest retroreflectivity and are the least visible reflective colors.
Tip # 2: Reflective Tape Flexibility, Adhesive and Thickness
If use them on uneven surfaces such as curves or irregularity instead of flat surfaces, the retroreflective tape needs to have good flexibility and strong backing glue. Otherwise, they may gives problems like these customers had.
Check out these tests in below picture: our toptend prismatic reflective tapes stick tightly while other brands tapes lifted up one day after applying to the 90 degree curve.
To support good flexibility, the tape should not be too thick and must has strong backing glue. Thicker materials increase the possibility of being too stiff. And strong adhesive can most possibly offset the downside being stiff by preventing the tape from lifting up. However, being thinner does not necessarily mean good flexibility if glue is not good.
While you can not size up its adhesive property before you buy and test, you can try to get a rough estimate of flexibility on reflective safety tape’s thickness without backing film.
See below test pictures.
Taking standard prismatic reflective tape or sheeting as example, if its thickness without backing film reaches 400 micron (0.4 mm) and more (If not specially designed to be soft and flexible for this particular purpose), it is more prone to be inflexible.
Lastly, Tip # 3: Reflective Material Types and Durability
We find that many reflective tapes do not last long. For example, the typical time of color fading or other quality problems as many people mentioned happen from as short as 1 month to 1 year. Check out these complaints about durability time.
This should not be the real expected lifespan of reflective tape.
How Long does Reflective Tape Last? or What is the Lifespan of Reflective Tape?
Check out the picture of the durability about how long does reflective tape last. According to ASTM D4956 standards, different grades of reflective tape or sheeting last up to 10 years. Within these specified period of time, they should not have appreciable problems, such as, color fading, delamination, edge lifting, scaling, pitting or curling. Reflectivity should remain 50%-80% after 24-36 months outdoor applications.
Toptend durable reflective products comply with all the above specified durability and at cheaper prices.
Different Types or Materials of Reflective Tape, Which is the Best?
As reflective tape or sheeting could be made from different types of materials, affecting quality a lot.
You might be wondering:
What material should I choose as the best option and may not choose for prismatic reflective tape?
The answer is: Acrylic, being the best durable compared to other materials like PET, PC or PVC. PVC prismatic reflective tape has the poorest durability and its thickness without backing film is usually below 280 micron, being the thinnest type.
However, this is just a major factor and not the whole thing.
The acrylic reflective tape or sheeting is only one of the primary factors affecting its quality and other critical elements include:
- Variations in acrylic quality directly influence light transmittance, UV resistance, and outdoor long term stability;
- Retroreflection index and quality of the internal reflective layer;
- Performance of other essential raw materials, such as internal and backing adhesive;
- Integrated structural design;
- Production processes and technology;
- Quality control systems；
We, at Toptend, use better raw materials such as imported acrylic with top notch technology for prismatic reflective products. For example, fluorescent colors are especially easy to fade quickly by nature even with acrylic material. But our diamond reflective tape including fluorescent yellow green has 7-10 years durability.
So, for your interests, we suggest checking out and compare these unsatisfactory reflective tapes or even knockoffs. Note their shorter durability and less durable materials.
P.S. You Can Watch The Video Above For More Details.
More Info On Conspicuity Tape Top China Manufacturer Toptend (Always Save Your Money & Increase Your Sales)
Please watch this video at the left on Toptend being a top manufacturer supplier of cost-efficient and the Brightest Reflective Tape (similar to 3M) at Cheap Prices, check it out and contact us.
We manufacture and supply vehicle marking tapes in reliable and consistent quality, as cheap alternative or similar to 3M 983, Orafol Oralite V82, V92, V98 / VC104, or Avery Dennison V6700B, V5720, T-11513 reflective tape for conspicuity marking, among others.
Such as DOT-C2, Diamond Grade, High Intensity Prismatic HIP, Barricade or striped, Class 1 and 2, including fluorescent yellow green or lime yellow color reflective tapes.
We will always make our clients happy and you can check out our reflective & traffic safety customers’ views on us.
Importantly many clients have worked with us for more than 15 Years and also we got famous brands clients such as Orafol who buy from us!
And we will continue with our great efforts all the time by manufacturing and supplying high quality reflective products to comply with international standards such as DOT, ECE 104, SOLAS, En12899 or ASTM D4956.
Furthermore, we will do our best to be your reliable partner in China.
