Home improvement DIY'ers...help

steveinaz

Guys & gals;

I'm wanting to install some under cabinet lighting for existing kitchen cabinets. I'm looking at LED, but would like some info from some of you who have done this, what type of system you used, and how intensive the work was. I have an AC outlet available over the microwave, in a cabinet that I can use as a source of power; I just need to plan routing the wires.

I'm thinking a "puck" style setup would be fine, but I'm open to other suggestions. I don't want to consider battery operated lights.

Any input would be greatly appreciated...

Ron-P

Never did under cabinet lighting. But, I did do lighting on the top of the cabinets. I used rope lighting for that. Of course you can't as it wouldn't be bright enough.

Puck style would be the best.

seeclear

I don't know, Ron, I have not found puck style LEDs to be very bright at all. I used some at the office and was disappointed with the light output. Lowes has a long, 3 or 4 LED light unit, but it is supposed to be plug in only. We were going to use them on our (new construction) house, but the electrician said he couldn't direct wire them. You might be able to just cut off the plug end and wirenut them together if you are doing it yourself, tho. Or just run the wires to where you have an outlet and use a power strip to plug them into. How many lights/cabinets are you planning on doing, Steve?

steveinaz

IIRC, I need about 6 pucks (6 cabinet bottoms). I looked at led panel/strip lights--holy smokes they are expensive. We just need a little additonal accent lighting. The pucks I was looking at had 6 or more LEDS in them.

seeclear

Yeah, that's what I used at the office. Don't expect them to throw much light at all. If you just want to see that a light is kind of on, they do that. They really won't illuminate anything, in my experience, anyway. the strips are pricy but you shouldn't ever have to replace them.

dkg999

I put in halogen under cabinet lights for a friend a couple of years ago. They were combined with a light bar over the sink and some on-top of the cabinet lights. They all ran off of a single power supply that I mounted on top of the cabinets. Fairly thin low voltage wires from the power supply to the lights, so just ran it inside the cabinets to get it to the under cabinet lights. The AC outlet was already above the cabinets, so it was a pretty simple project, and they put out a lot of light.

Jstas

Use LED strip lights. Some stick on, other use pins or tacks. They can mount under the bottom lip of most cabinets. unless you don't have on of course. But you could always tack on quarter round trim to hide them too.

http://www.superbrightleds.com/cgi-bin/store/index.cgi?action=DispPage&Page2Disp=%2Flight_bars-flexible.html

A single strip can throw off as much light as a 100W standard light bulb.

That site has 12V power supplies for the LED light bars. There are more specific home applications but I've found stuff like at the site linked to have been cheaper overall.

steveinaz

Thanks fellers!

John--that looks like an excellent solution, thanks man.

Jstas

I've used those LED strips to illuminate subwoofer boxes. Got the idea from that and then lit the inside of a curio cabinet my dad built for my aunt with them. Just stuck the strip around the inside of the frame for the door opening. I drilled a small hole in an inconspicuous spot and used a couple of pieces of sheet metal and tin snips to make a bracket to hold the power supply on the back of the cabinet. Worked like a charm and was bright enough to read by if the room was dark.

EndersShadow

This would work as well. I know lots of folks use them to backlight their TV's. Not sure how bright they are.

http://www.ikea.com/us/en/catalog/products/20119418

They also have some other options:

http://www.ikea.com/us/en/search/?query=dioder&category=products&min_price=0&max_price=50&sorting=relevance&storeId=12&langId=-1&ikeaStoreNumber1=

GMiller

I used the LED strips on my old kitchen, but changed to a xenon bulb fixture with a kitchen remodel last year. I can now use a dimmer.

I also learned from my mistakes with the first install, paid a pro 150 bucks to wire it up with everything perfectly hidden. Money well spent.

maximillian

I have done some kitchen undercabinet LED lighting, but I made the fixtures from scratch using Cree Xlamp LED's. I wired everything up and also used holographic diffusers to ensure uniform light.

Good LED fixtures cost a lot of money and the cheap ones are junk. If you go LED, you probably should pick a warm white one. Many of the cheap ones are cool white and the super cheap ones are almost blue.

An alternate is to use fluorescent lighting. I have used a couple fixtures from the following site for a couple desks:

http://www.furnlite.com/

Jstas

GMiller wrote: »

I used the LED strips on my old kitchen, but changed to a xenon bulb fixture with a kitchen remodel last year. I can now use a dimmer.

You can get dimmers for LED lights as well.

madmax

I too have been wanting some under cabinet lighting but have not found the perfect light yet. I'd like for it to be 12V so I could hook up a battery/solar cell for power. LED's have come a long way recently. Sorry, not much help here.

steveinaz

Thanks guys, appreciate the ideas.

John,
I couldn't find a switch setup for the flat led system--the power supply will need to be mounted on top of the cabinet over the MW oven. Do you know if they sell a switch? I noticed a "micro switch" on the site, but thats for interior cab lights...

steveinaz

madmax wrote: »

I too have been wanting some under cabinet lighting but have not found the perfect light yet. I'd like for it to be 12V so I could hook up a battery/solar cell for power. LED's have come a long way recently. Sorry, not much help here.

Max, try: www.edgelighting.com

Jstas

steveinaz wrote: »

Thanks guys, appreciate the ideas.

John,
I couldn't find a switch setup for the flat led system--the power supply will need to be mounted on top of the cabinet over the MW oven. Do you know if they sell a switch? I noticed a "micro switch" on the site, but thats for interior cab lights...

They have 12V switching power supplies:

http://www.superbrightleds.com/cgi-bin/store/index.cgi?action=DispPage&category=BARS&Page2Disp=%2Fspecs%2Fps_specs.htm%23cps

They use 120V and can be hardwired. If it can be hardwired, you can install a light switch somewhere convenient. They also have dimming version so you could put it on a dimmer too. I would go that route and get a power supply large enough to handle the number of light strings you need. A dimmer would be slick but a light switch is all that's really necessary. Either way, that power supply could be mounted out of the way above a cabinet and you could easily fish some wires around to get the power and switching capability.

Jstas

There are other options out there as well. I like the flexibility of the site I linked too but someone else also posted stuff from IKEA and there are others out there as well. So if you don't find something that meets your needs, check a Google search for "LED strip lighting" and see if anyone else has something that will work.

Jstas

steveinaz wrote: »

Max, try: www.edgelighting.com

Dude, you realize those guys have LED strip lighting as well, right?

http://www.edgelighting.com/products/products_strip_lighting.php

steveinaz

Yep.

madmax

Jstas wrote: »

Dude, you realize those guys have LED strip lighting as well, right?

http://www.edgelighting.com/products/products_strip_lighting.php

I might be willing to try the strip lights although originally I was thinking about something much brighter at about the same wattage. I have seen some 3 watt LED bulbs which are super bright comparitively but maybe I don't need that much brightness. Unfortunately I'm turning into mr green geek... But only for the fun of it. :biggrin:

Jstas

madmax wrote: »

I might be willing to try the strip lights although originally I was thinking about something much brighter at about the same wattage. I have seen some 3 watt LED bulbs which are super bright comparitively but maybe I don't need that much brightness. Unfortunately I'm turning into mr green geek... But only for the fun of it. :biggrin:

A strip of LED lights can put out the same illumination as a 100 watt bulb on as little as 10 watts. It also spreads the light source out for a more even lighting effect. Under a cabinet edge or inside something like a curio cabinet or display case, they can shed a surprising amount of light over a large area.

Try it out. See how it works for you. You might like it. I like the LED solutions better than the neon stuff you see for cars. Same brightness and array of colors but a more uniform effect.

VR3

I had buddy install some in some cabinets - we just ran most of the wire on top of the cabinets and dropped them down through a cavity in an angle piece to connect two cabinets together...

When I did mine I just built all new cabinets - we installed outlets in the cabinets below them and did it stealth like...

steveinaz

Update:

I decided to go with flourescent fixtures (GE slimline) that were daisy-chainable. Though LED's looked interesting--flourescents have been around forever, getting bulbs is easy, and they are good on energy, and have good bulb life. My main concern was replacing LED's, and ensuring I could get the same configuration/brand strips in the future--of the same white temp. The project came out really nice, and only took about an hour to do. They work perfectly, and i was able to route the AC cable between the gap of two cabinets from above. This also addressed the switching issue too, as each fixture has it's own switch.

Thanks all for the suggestions.