Author Topic: Under cabinet LED lighting  (Read 3548 times)

Joel Weiss

  • Guest
Under cabinet LED lighting
« on: September 22, 2012, 11:13:31 PM »
I just completed installation of flexible LED strip lighting under the cabinets above the three front windows of our coach.  The strips are less than 1/2" wide so the lights are hidden by the lip at the bottom of the cabinet.  There are lots of strips available these days; the one I chose has an output of ~300 lumens/foot and a color temperature of 3200K which is essentially the same as an incandescent bulb. One roll of lights was enough for all three front windows.  Each bank of lights is controlled by its own dimmer so we can use them both for reading and mood lighting.  The lights were purchased from http://www.superbrightleds.com/

I had considered replacing just the halogen bulbs in the under cabinet fixtures, but I wasn't impressed with the light output one got for bulbs that cost $10-20 each.  In addition quite a few of the higher output bulbs would require some modification to the fixtures.   The cost of the roll of lights was ~$150 plus accessories such as the dimmers.

The effect of the new lights is dramatic.  Each bank of lights is roughly 20 watts of LED which translates to about the output of a 100W bulb.  When they are on at full brightness they are brighter than the wall sconces.  I powered mine off of 120V primarily because the dimmers were designed to work with the inexpensive 12V power supplies I also bought.  I could have saved a couple of $$ by opening up the inside of the cabinets to access the 12V wires for the halogens but I wasn't sure if I could double the current draw on those circuits since I wasn't planning to replace the halogens with LEDs.    

Here's a picture looking up at the cabinet from below: