LED Under Cupboard Kitchen Lighting

by Djandco in Circuits > LEDs

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LED Under Cupboard Kitchen Lighting

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Hi,

Just thought I would share this with the world, one more little project I did around the house.
This was something I did a while back when I refitted the kitchen. I tend to use ambient lighting rather than main lights in rooms, although when you are in the kitchen this tends to be a bit inadequate at times.

I used to have the low profile T3 phosphorous lights under the cupboards but with the new kitchen came new ideas :)  Besides, strip lights either tend to flicker or make an annoying buzzing noise after time, I had already replaced a couple of them when I started looking for an alternative.

Anyway, as there is nothing directly under any of the cupboards that would produce large amounts of steam I decided to use the non-waterproof type of LED tape.
Mainly for two reasons, the first being that I could easily cut it and solder my wires on, unlike the waterproof version I tried before that had a coat of some soft resin stuff on that made it rather hard to solder to.
And second, possibly the most important reason is that it is one heck of a lot cheaper than the waterproof version! Oh, and is easier to replace if anything goes a bit Pete Tongue ;) you simply cut the bad bit out and replace it.

I installed two 2.5A 12V switch mode transformers above the cupboards so they were out of the way and would not be subject to water. These were run from the old cables that used to feed the mains voltage lights that were removed from the old kitchen.
As I was ripping out the old units I had the opportunity to run cables around and under the base units, then simply cut them into the plaster before I tiled the wall, as they are low voltage I didn’t worry too much about mechanical protection. (like cable capping, conduit etc)

Also, as I did not have cupboards above my sink I ran a strip of LED’s under the lip of the window sill. This worked better than I could have imagined, although when you make a drink you can’t see inside the cup. Can’t have everything though!