At the tread and riser: deciding where the light lands
Light under the tread nose grazes the step below and picks out the front edge of each tread. A stringer run just above tread level washes across the treads instead and reads as one long line. Either one mounted too high lands on the riser face and flattens the nose.
Now the part a drawing will not tell you. Sit on the bottom step and look up, then stand at the top and look down. A run that reads beautifully from below often puts the diode line into your eye from above, and that decides the lens. Clear, frosted and black channel lenses covers what each does.
Output can stay low. LEDClub's 24V COB 200 Series is one low-output option, with watts per foot, color temperatures and stated cut interval listed on its page.
Back at the stringer: feed points first, then cutting on the rake
Before any length is cut, settle where power enters the run. Read the maximum run length published for your strip: a long rake often needs a feed at each end, and that changes where the channel is drilled and which way its cable leaves.
With the feeds fixed, channel on a stair is cut at an angle wherever it meets a landing or winder, and that angle comes off the actual stringer with a bevel gauge, not a calculator. Cut one piece, offer it up, then cut the rest.
Clean and dry the mounting face following the instructions for your strip and channel, since each product differs. Many strips can be cut at their designated points and rejoined with a compatible connector or by soldering, depending on the product, which makes the listing worth reading before cutting. Channel comes from the channel range. It helps dissipate heat and keeps a rake straight. A channel is never required, and it reduces but does not guarantee dot appearance, which density, channel depth and lens choice affect just as much.
At the landings: driver sizing, placement and where your work stops
Every segment goes back to the driver in parallel, never chained off the one before it, and a 24V strip meets a 24V driver.
Size that driver here. Published watts per foot multiplied by the rake footage plus every tread segment gives the load, and the driver's rated current wants to sit at least 20 percent above it, with both numbers read off their own product pages rather than from memory. If the rake is unusual, walk the stair layout through with LED Club before the channel is cut.
Put the driver somewhere reachable at a landing, not buried inside the stair carriage, and leave the clearance its instructions call for, because LEDs and drivers generate heat in normal use.
Then your work stops. Anything that lands in a wall box or ties into the house wiring belongs to a licensed electrician working to the NEC where it applies, to local electrical code, and to the manufacturer instructions: hardwired drivers, junction boxes, cable run inside walls, and every switch or dimmer box. Power comes off at the breaker before any of it is opened, a live line-voltage connection is never probed or tested, and running 24V cable down a stringer is no qualification for the 120V side.
At the switch position: control that suits a stair
A stair usually wants control at the top and the bottom. Three-way switching between two wall boxes is line-voltage work and goes on the electrician's list. On the low-voltage side, a controller with a remote gives two-position control without cutting boxes into finished walls: the EnoSync Hub5 remote controller is one, with supported strip types, channel count and current per channel confirmed there.
Pick one method. A smart low-voltage controller does not share a circuit with a phase-cut wall dimmer unless the documentation says so. A controller counts as compatible with a given strip and driver only when its maker says so for those model numbers, not because all three boxes mention dimming.
