# LED Kitchen Lighting



## ambassador (May 1, 2008)

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May 1, 2008 

This post requests recommendations regarding the most economical sources from which LED kitchen lighting can be obtained. Specifically, the associated LED kitchen lighting will be installed underneath kitchen cabinets - the cabinets located immediately above the kitchen counter tops. 

There are; of course, a myriad of such sources that may be found via the Internet. This post requests the experienced recommendations from the Candle Power Forum membership. 

Thank you in advance for your helpful recommendations. 


Ambassador 
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## tsask (May 1, 2008)

Hello

If you live in California you may find LED kitchen lighting: under cabinet, "PAR" and pennant in some professional lighting stores.

Remember you have many colors to choose from that can be dimmer friendly. "Permalight" ofers some appealing products for this application.

Additionally, I have found some 3AAA 5mm? white LED track type lights from Glowbug.com that provide excellent emergency lighting. I have used these to compliment some under cabinet lights without doing any wiring.


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## jtr1962 (May 1, 2008)

Undercabinet kitchen lighting is a niche use of LEDs which is very viable at this time. The alternatives aren't that great anyway. Incandescent gets too warm, gives a crappy light, and burns out too frequently. Fluorescent is usually 15 watt tubes which are only available in halophosphor cool white or warm white (i.e. both of these also give crappy light). LED gives better light quality, is dimmable, plus lasts virtually forever in this type of application.

For regular kitchen general lighting LED still has a way to go. For now one or more 4x32W T8 linear tube fixtures are the best, most economical way to light a kitchen.


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## mahoney (May 1, 2008)

Permalight has some really classy stuff available, and their products are pretty robust. But those products are too expensive IMO for a technology that is not mature yet. Once we have LEDs that are not eclipsed in terms of efficiency in 6 months but remain close to state-of-the-art for a couple years, then it might be worth spending serious money on LED based lighting. And I have not seen much mass-market low cost LED fixxed lighting available


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## LukeA (May 1, 2008)

String a few Cree 7As up behind diffusers and run them at 350mA from a MicroDriver9.


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## ambassador (May 4, 2008)

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May 4, 2008 

Regarding "... String a few ...", could any of the Candle Power Forum members offer the details for a practical, do-it-yourself LED kitchen lighting project? 

How much would it cost - in materials - to brightly illuminate an eight feet long by two feet deep area of counter space via LEDs mounted unerneath cabinets located a standard 18 inches above the counter tops?


Ambassador 
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## LukeA (May 4, 2008)

ambassador said:


> -------
> May 4, 2008
> 
> Regarding "... String a few ...", could any of the Candle Power Forum members offer the details for a practical, do-it-yourself LED kitchen lighting project?
> ...


A Microdriver4 from LEDsupply - $12.99
4 Cree P4 7A emitters *on 20mm stars* from Cutter.com.au - $7.79 ea. $31.16 (don't forget CPF disount code CPFDISCOUNT for 5% off)
Wire - I got some at radioshack - $5.99
For diffusers, lots of things will work, like old tupperwares or cut pieces thereof, clear plastic or glass with window-frosting spray (basically a clear lacquer with a ton more crystalline material suspended in it than regular matte finish lacquer), really anything translucent. I guarantee you already have enough of something usable in your place right now.

The Microdriver has a cover that you remove to find two pairs of screw clamps for wires. One pair is for your 110VAC hot (L) and neutral (N) lines. The other is for LED+ and LED-. Both pairs of clamps are clearly labeled. To wire the LEDs, start by clamping a wire in the LED+ clamp and soldering it to one of the LED+ pads on the star. Then solder from the LED- to the LED+ of another LED. Keep doing that until you get to the last LED-. Clamp that last wire in to LED- on the MicroDriver. For the 110VAC side, that's pretty simple. You can hardwire the MicroDriver or you can harvest the cord from something (only use round cords, the pressed ones that look like speaker wire won't have hot and neutral marked inside). The wire that goes into L should be black, while N will have a white wire leading into it.


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## 2xTrinity (May 4, 2008)

> Undercabinet kitchen lighting is a niche use of LEDs which is very viable at this time. The alternatives aren't that great anyway. Incandescent gets too warm, gives a crappy light, and burns out too frequently. Fluorescent is usually 15 watt tubes which are only available in halophosphor cool white or warm white (i.e. both of these also give crappy light). LED gives better light quality, is dimmable, plus lasts virtually forever in this type of application.


IMO at this point IF you want warm white it's not hard at all to find ~3000k 85CRI triphosphor t5s (far better than old school single phosphor "warm white" which you have to watch out for). That will certainly be easier than finding LEDs of comparable color temperature, lumen output, and price. But come back in ~2 years and that will be VERY different, I believe LED will be vastly superior in just about every respect soon.

I say if it's something you want to do for fun or as a hobby, with a ustom rig you could also get better results particularly customized to your own kitchen. Just be aware you'll probably end up spending a lot more time and money than pickup up a few t5 undercabinets, or ceiling t8 fluoro fixtures from Lowes.


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## Fallingwater (May 5, 2008)

I think at the current state of technology any household light that isn't a spotlight will benefit far more with a CCFL than with LEDs.


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## handyman85 (Jul 27, 2015)

Klauf brand lighting is what i use. i love my lights. they also just put up a version 2 kickstarter! i'll be putting my order in asap.


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## Anders Hoveland (Jul 27, 2015)

ambassador said:


> Do you consider LED lighting to be a viable option for kitchen lighting today?


Absolutely YES ! And this is coming from someone who does not think LED lighting is really such a viable option in the rest of the home.

Kitchens have often traditionally used fluorescent fixtures, so why not use LED instead? Recessed downlights work great in a kitchen, and LEDs are very suitable to work as downlights, being that they are inherently directional. Many people often leave the lights in the kitchen on all the time, LED is great in this respect because it has such a long lifespan and does not need to be replaced. Not to mention it produces less heat, since sometimes things can already get a little uncomfortably warm in the kitchen with everything cooking. For your kitchen, I would suggest higher CRI LED fixtures to bring out those red colors to make the food look more appetizing. It can also be a little harder to tell if meat has been fully cooked all the way through when the light has poor red color rendering.

If I could choose an ideal LED color temperature for my kitchen, I think I would go with 3200K. It is just not possible (or at least not realistically practical) to get this brighter white color from incandescent bulbs. The higher CRI LEDs can also have much better red color rendering than standard fluorescents, important when there is food around.


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## SemiMan (Jul 28, 2015)

handyman85 said:


> Klauf brand lighting is what i use. i love my lights. they also just put up a version 2 kickstarter! i'll be putting my order in asap.



A brand new poster necroposting an advertisement ...??


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## RoGuE_StreaK (Jul 29, 2015)

Necromancer.... Just reminded me to check whether one of my favourite bands, Zeromancer, have any new material... unfortunately not. However their preceding incarnation, Seigmen, do :naughty:


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## poiihy (Aug 9, 2015)

Anders Hoveland said:


> Absolutely YES ! And this is coming from someone who does not think LED lighting is really such a viable option in the rest of the home.
> 
> Kitchens have often traditionally used fluorescent fixtures, so why not use LED instead? Recessed downlights work great in a kitchen, and LEDs are very suitable to work as downlights, being that they are inherently directional. Many people often leave the lights in the kitchen on all the time, LED is great in this respect because it has such a long lifespan and does not need to be replaced. Not to mention it produces less heat, since sometimes things can already get a little uncomfortably warm in the kitchen with everything cooking. For your kitchen, I would suggest higher CRI LED fixtures to bring out those red colors to make the food look more appetizing. It can also be a little harder to tell if meat has been fully cooked all the way through when the light has poor red color rendering.
> 
> If I could choose an ideal LED color temperature for my kitchen, I think I would go with 3200K. It is just not possible (or at least not realistically practical) to get this brighter white color from incandescent bulbs. The higher CRI LEDs can also have much better red color rendering than standard fluorescents, important when there is food around.



Yo Hoveland, I suggest you take a look at the date of the post before replying. 
This is almost 10 years old!!


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## Anders Hoveland (Aug 9, 2015)

poiihy said:


> Yo Hoveland, I suggest you take a look at the date of the post before replying.
> This is almost 10 years old!!


It is true that I do that all the time, but *handyman85* was the one who posted first and revived this thread, if you go back and look.


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## PsychLight (Aug 11, 2015)

LEDs are classy. Not gonna lie bout that. but you gotta make sure that your lights are stylish and fab! Ive been recently buying barn lights for my living room and kitchen from cocoweb. I put a barn light in my daughters room and she loved it. a bit mad that she couldnt get it in pink though hahah! but hey, check out the barn lights and let me know if they're your cup of tea or not! hope this helps: http://www.cocoweb.com/barn-lights?cate=3


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## chainrash (Aug 20, 2015)

I'm a big fan of linear lighting to be honest. This site breaks all the linear options down and shows the best for kitchen lighting in this post: https://www.ledsupply.com/blog/ultimate-guide-on-buying-led-strip-lights/. I think these are some great options for under cabinet lights. There is a variety of strip lights but you wouldn't need a ton of light so I would suggest using a standard flex strip: http://www.ledsupply.com/led-strips/standard-density-led-flex-strips. Or if you want a more professional looking fixture I have a few of these and they are amazing! Been running mine for 6 years and still going strong!


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