under counter kitchen lights

[rkevins]

Has anyone installed lights under their kitchen cabnets and if so what did you use.
Thanks

 

[jrsulo]

Ambience by seagull lighting,,,,,,expensive bit worth it !!

 

[Todd.Brock]

SAMs club has cool led lights that are battery powered. They come in a 2pack with a remote that looks like a light switch. 4 sets light up the kitchen and are all controlled by the same rf remote

 

[Super Sport]

SAMs club has cool led lights that are battery powered. They come in a 2pack with a remote that looks like a light switch. 4 sets light up the kitchen and are all controlled by the same rf remote

That's exactly what I was going to suggest. I haven't tried them myself, but they look pretty cool!

Link here: http://www.samsclub.com/sams/shop/product.jsp?productId=prod3730191&navAction=

According to reviews they eat through batteries...but I imagine that would be true for any battery operated lights.

 

[ishiboo]

I installed 120W of the typical under-cabinet lights you find at the BORG stores.

The kitchen is recessed LED, but unfortunately none of the LED under-cabinets gave me the color I wanted, unlike the EcoSmart LED cans which are nearly perfect.

The coolest part of the kitchen is I have a RGB LED strip above the cabinets, which shines up the back wall and onto the ceiling. The combination of the EcoSmart's at 15% brightness and the colored accent lighting is my favorite

 

[internetdude]

I just installed some last month. I bought some 12V LED puck lights. I ran all 9 off one 110V transformer plugged in by the microwave above the stove, they're 1 watt each, soldered all the connections to save all the little bundles of wires. They look great IMHO and are about as bright as the halogen ones, but are cool and use hardly any power.

I believe these are the ones.

http://www.homehardware.ca/en/rec/i...D-3LGT-MATTE-NKL/_/N-ntk0a/Ne-mixy/R-I3698583

 

[Gary S]

I used florescent lights. Menards has them available in enough different lengths to fit whatever length cabinets you have. I don't know how we lived without them before.

 

[vertguy]

I have the 13 inch GE under cabinet florescent lights that were done when when house was built in '06. We somehow forget to do one under the wet bar, so I just added a matching one there before tiling the backsplash.

 

[jhelrey]

I have under cabinet lights which are all hardwired in. I love them. They are the ones from Home Depot- Xenon

 

[Relie]

I have under cabinet lights which are all hardwired in. I love them. They are the ones from Home Depot- Xenon

That's just what I used for mine. And they are not real expensive.

Good Luck!

Dave

 

[CitadelBlue]

I have under cabinet lights which are all hardwired in. I love them. They are the ones from Home Depot- Xenon

Concur ..some good ones here ... 2 settings hi/low ..but they do 'heat up' the counter ..

 

[Worsedog]

We used these http://www.environmentallights.com/EnvironmentalLights-High-Brightness-Premium_C385.aspx

They were $. But we are happy with the result.

This was taken no flash or other lighting. The light over the sink is attache to the glass rack and the uplights are attached at the back of the cabinet tops. The backlight effect is pretty cool. A single 150w power supply drives all of the lights. There is an inline dimmer/on off switch under the cabinet just to the left of the sink.

 

[Mmfh]

I have the little round ones from Costco a few years ago, Halogen. They do get a little warm after awhile, but they look very nice at night.

I wired upper and lower lights separately. The main kitchen light switch is one of those three way switches, they don't control two light there are three separate switches.

Kitchen main lighting is the top switch, middle is the upper cabinet lights, bottom switch is for the under cabinet lights. Pretty cool and I think adds value to the house.

Do It!

 

[IONH]

The coolest part of the kitchen is I have a RGB LED strip above the cabinets, which shines up the back wall and onto the ceiling. The combination of the EcoSmart's at 15% brightness and the colored accent lighting is my favorite

Can you show us a picture of this?

 

[green.bubbly]

Question for those with hard wired lights. How are they powered? Do they just plug into a receptacle and if so, where is the receptacle located? Is it in the cabinet or...

I am the process of wiring my home and I would like under cabinet lighting controlled by a wall switch. I was thinking about putting necessary receptacles along the top of the cabinets all controlled by a wall switch. Then I can the wires down though the cabinet to each individual under cabinet fixture.

 

[moserjj]

My hard wired lights have the wire coming out of the wall just above the bottom stile of the upper cabinet. Wired to a switch and power feeds the switch. No outlets as they are direct wire flourescents

Sent from my SPH-D710 using Tapatalk

 

[prosee]

i put some LED strip under the cabinet, it is very beautiful, you could have a try

 

[TommyK]

I used these:

http://www.prolighting.com/xetali1118w1.html

 

[Worsedog]

Question for those with hard wired lights. How are they powered? Do they just plug into a receptacle and if so, where is the receptacle located? Is it in the cabinet or...

I am the process of wiring my home and I would like under cabinet lighting controlled by a wall switch. I was thinking about putting necessary receptacles along the top of the cabinets all controlled by a wall switch. Then I can the wires down though the cabinet to each individual under cabinet fixture.

When we remodeled the kitchen, new cabinets, floor, sink etc we discovered an outlet behind the cabinets in the corner about 7 ft from the floor. No clue why it was there, there is also another one in the opposing corner, way to the right of what you see in the photo.

 

[rkevins]

thanks everyone...the lights are for mom's kitchen we found some led lights today at lowes and are going to install one tomorrow for a test then if it works pick up some more.

 

[whatuusay1]

I'd recommend checking out http://www.ledwholesalers.com/ if you are looking at LEDs. I used them under my garage cabinets - very happy with the light output. I have a few pics on my build thread --> http://www.garagejournal.com/forum/showthread.php?t=121344&page=2

 

[boston813]

Price just came down on these -
http://www.ikea.com/us/en/catalog/products/20119418/

I installed them in my kitchen and have not turned them off since they were installed. My dad saw them and picked up a set later that week. For the price they work great and are easy to install.

 

[hdshinn]

I prefered the color of the xenon over LED and fluorescent as well as the lower operating temperature over halogen. Ours are hard wired with power feed just under the bottom of the cabinets and controlled with wall switches.

 

[Mmfh]

Question for those with hard wired lights. How are they powered? Do they just plug into a receptacle and if so, where is the receptacle located? Is it in the cabinet or...

I am the process of wiring my home and I would like under cabinet lighting controlled by a wall switch. I was thinking about putting necessary receptacles along the top of the cabinets all controlled by a wall switch. Then I can the wires down though the cabinet to each individual under cabinet fixture.

I hard wired mine in with the separate switches for different area's of lights. I grabbed the power for these lights from the already powered kitchen main light switch. I have the three way bank of switches that I ran the wires inside of the cabinets to the lights.

Power is at the main switch already, if you want additional switches put them there. Seemed like the best way to do it to me.

Mm

 

[eric_koski]

Just bought these: http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B003AKCT5G/ref=mp_s_a_1?qid=1328841934&sr=8-1

 

[gatchel]

I have seen these LED units at a customers site. The color was a very good. High quality. I'm sure the price reflects it.

http://www.kichler.com/consumer/products/detail/12303NI

 

[bigdav160]

I have these LED strips.

They are fantastic for my application (adequate lumins, nice color, no heat and low energy use)

 

[AussieDan]

I used 2 warm white 3528 self-adhesive LED strips off eBay, along with a plug-in transformer and a remote controlled switch/pwm dimmer box.

That was enough to run strips both under the cabinets and on top of the trim at the top, shining up toward the ceiling. Total cost was right around $100.

There was a lot more labor than I expected involved between fishing wires behind the cabinets and making connections at all the corners, but imho it came out amazing.

I opened up the remote and wired 3 push-button switches to the contacts for the on/off and brightness (up & down) buttons, then mounted them on a blank decora faceplate.

The finished product (in real life they're a nice warm white - not sure why they look yellow in these pics, and yes they are BRIGHT on full power):

I can grab some better pics if people want to see the details.

 

[green.bubbly]

I used 2 warm white 3528 self-adhesive LED strips off eBay, along with a plug-in transformer and a remote controlled switch/pwm dimmer box.

That was enough to run strips both under the cabinets and on top of the trim at the top, shining up toward the ceiling. Total cost was right around $100.

There was a lot more labor than I expected involved between fishing wires behind the cabinets and making connections at all the corners, but imho it came out amazing.

I opened up the remote and wired 3 push-button switches to the contacts for the on/off and brightness (up & down) buttons, then mounted them on a blank decora faceplate.


I can grab some better pics if people want to see the details.

You have any pics of the units installed under the cabinets?

 

[Interex]

Great thread, I'm looking to install some under cabinet lights in the kitchen and garage. Those IKEA lights seem like a good deal.

 

[TS057]

Some things to consider:

Light output
Light color
Dimmability

We went w/ Xenon's for the above reasons. Basically a decent light output, softer light color and they have the ability to be put on a dimmer (unlike fluorescent and most LED). We put as many lights as would physically fit under the cabinets and I do not regret it. The only downside (which isn't much of a factor for me) is that they put out some heat. They will soften butter if you leave it out under these lights for too long!

These are what I used (in various lengths of course):
Lowes - Link

I've been very happy with them.

 

[IONH]

There are dimmable CFLs now and they are not much more expensive than non-dimmable CFLs.

 

[AussieDan]

LEDs will happily dim all the way from 100% to practically 0 with the right PWM controller.

Here are the detail shots of my setup, first up the strip itself. You can see where the strip can be cut to length in 2" increments and the solder pads for joining it together. This pic also shows how the factory joins short pieces to make a 5m long roll.



Here is a close-up of the control switches, the top button is to increase the brightness, middle button is on/off and the bottom button decreases brightness. Behind the scenes they're just momentary buttons wired to the contacts on the 3-button wireless keyfob remote that came with the PWM dimmer box.



Next, a couple shots of how they're mounted under the cabinets and along the ledge at the top, the strip has peel & stick backing and they stay up well with some strategically placed staples. These pics also show how I made the connections by soldering hookup wire to the solder pads on the cut ends, and the 18ga in-wall speaker wire for power. There are 26 corners, by the end of the job I had them down to a science!



Some slightly better shots of them on, these came out a bit greenish for some reason, but show the difference between full brightness and minimum-useful brightness (as mentioned above they will dim down further but then you can't really tell they're on at all).



And finally the controller. This is a specialized LED controller and uses PWM to dim them without wasting power. It's fed off a 120v AC to 12v DC 5A transformer that looks like a laptop power brick, and pulls somewhere between 40 and 50 watts at full power.



I've been very happy with the system, and the only problem we've had with it was a loose connection on the feed terminals of the dimmer box, which melted one of the spring-clip terminals it used to have. I replace it with the barrel socket in the pic above and it's been trouble-free ever since.

 

[Ryan_C]

I accidently posted on the wrong thread when asking this, so here goes another try:

Does anyone know if the Ikea Dioder LED light kits support a dimmer switch?

I am really leaning towards this 4 strip set that you can set the color:
http://www.ikea.com/us/en/catalog/products/50192365/ - $39.99 (recent price drop)

If these don't, can anyone provide any examples that are not hard on the wallet? I do like the Cool White or 5000 K - 6500 K colored light.

 

[pentavolvo]

i bought cheapo's from menards about 1.5 yrs ago and I love them. All wires hidden behind cabinets to one hidden outlet I put in ran off a light switch

 

[pearltsi]

I dont have a lip underneath my cabinets to really hide a light. So we used these http://www.ikea.com/us/en/catalog/products/00119424/ You cant see them unless you know they are there

 

[Ryan_C]

Are any of the led light kits that have standard wall plugs be dimmed by a switch?