kitchen plinth lighting

psd99

psd99

psd99

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I'm thinking of getting some lighting for the plinth in the kitchen

How can I work out how many lights I need? How far apart should they be spaced?
 
A meter gap seems like a reasonable choice. Do you have space to keep even meters around the kitchen? i.e it'll look a bit stupid if one plinth is 2.1 meters long, and you end up with a light stuck right in the corner.

I would first start with the full length of the plinths added up, and then lengths that make up each side.
 
+1 for LED strip if you really want plinth lights. Always reminds me of emergency lighting on planes. Now put it on top of wall cupboards and use it as wall / ceiling washer and that looks very nice.
 
I have a LED strip light under the worktop already where the breakfast bar is.

in hindsight this is not for the plinth it is more underneath the breakfast bar. I would have thought lights here will look nice too.
 
I've in the middle of doing my kitchen lighting, done over cupboards and under plinth and just about to add under cupboard with more RGBW led tape. Love this stuff so much, transforms the room.

Pictured below with a few setups but with the controller i'm using you can pick any colour and brightness to a zone and then save as a scene. I have two zones so far (top and bottom) and will be adding under cupboard next as zone 3. As white lights they are so much better than the spot lights, RGBW has a separate led for white only so you don't get a fudged light when you want white.
Not cheep but when you've spent a few k on a kitchen it brings it to life :)

Kitchen lighting by https://www.flickr.com/photos/123473419@N06/, on Flickr

Kitchen lighting by https://www.flickr.com/photos/123473419@N06/, on Flickr

Kitchen lighting by Paul Jones, on Flickr

Untitled by https://www.flickr.com/photos/123473419@N06/, on Flickr

Kitchen lighting by https://www.flickr.com/photos/123473419@N06/, on Flickr
 
Thanks, I'm really liking what they look like too. I've done a similar setup about 5 years ago so it was good to try again and see what had changed.
Well if you want to know then here's what I've done :)

Most of this I have had to take a flyer on, documentation was thin and comparability wasn't assured. When I did it before there weren't any proper wall mount controllers, just remotes that floated around the kitchen but now they sell wall mount controllers, it seems to have evolved again since I brought mine last month into one that fits in a standard light switch size.
https://www.led-lighthouse.co.uk/le...i-zone-wall-mounted-led-panel-controller-ex8s
Is the controller, coming in at £60 with vat and needs a 240v supply, has its own little 12v power converter, no other wires needed as the controllers i used are RF. You turn off the "beep" as its flipping annoying!

Then each zone needs a receiver, I wanted wireless so went with RF receivers compatible with the controller so to be safe I ordered the recommended ones.
https://www.led-lighthouse.co.uk/le...eceivers/f4-5a-wireless-zone-control-receiver
Each one is £48 each and you need at least one for each zone, you can have more than one registered to the controller as the same zone so for example I have two on zone 1, one to the left over cupboards and one to the right. You turn them on and then press the register button on them and you have 5 seconds to press the zone number button on the controller, they bleep, job done. They remember zone when power is cut to them which is great and better than last gen which would forget when there was a power cut.
My under plinth lights are done by one controller here, from the end of the first strip i've run 5 core cable behind the back plinth and jointed to the second plinth. Cable is dead cheep and available on amazon and most of the suppliers.

Each receiver needs a power supply for power and to supply the lights. The strip I use needs 14w per meter so its a simple sum to work out what you need, no harm in going slightly high so I have brought 60w and 100w supplies, 60 left and right upper and 100w for the run round the plinths.
Changed supplier for these and the rest as prices were better and they have discounts of 15% currently
https://www.wholesaleledlights.co.uk/led-strip-lights/led-power-supplies/60w-12v-power-adapter.html
£15.73 for 60w

https://www.wholesaleledlights.co.u...apter-for-led-strip-lights-and-led-tapes.html
£19.63 for 100w

Then comes the RGBW tape, its £8.65 per meter, sold in 5m rolls but they will cut and solder to the lengths you specify on the order, joining a short piece of 5 core to each to help you connect.
https://www.wholesaleledlights.co.u...p-lights-60-x-5050-smds-14-4w-p-m-1020lm.html
It took 10 metres to do the setup i have s far but I've brought another 5 since to do under the cupboards :D Th
10 meters is around 86.50 before discounts but you can up the water resistance for a small amount. I actually used uncoated but they supplied some IP65 for my last order and I'd say that would be better on the cupboard tops as the coating rubberises the tape slightly which will protect it.

Last bit is the profile that the under plinth sits in, the tape on top of the cupboards is just stuck to the tops but the plinth could be seen so I put it in

https://www.wholesaleledlights.co.u...profiles-extrusions/bendable-led-profile.html

at £10 a meter I didn't think this was good value, in fact I think its a rip off but it does finished the look, the cheaper versions don't seem to fit RGBW tape which is wider, i brought 4 lengths so
£40

So total cost was
60
48 x 3
15.73 x 2
19.63
86.50
40

So in the region of £380 with delivery i'd say. I'm so pleased with it that i'm getting the stuff to do under the cupboards now too as said in my first post. Slightly addicted and the wow factor is great:)

There is a wifi controller so you can control by phone app but its not clear if it can be integrated further (alexa and the like) and it may mean I can't use the panel so i'm sticking with the panel, we have 4 "scenes" set, a morning one which lights the room up gently, suitable for making coffee and letting you eyes wake up. Then 3 further favourite lighting combo's. If you want white on you just press the W button on the panel. If you tap a colour it changes the whole set or just the selected zone to that colour.

Short video of transitions, excuse the untidy stuff, just had dinner.

 
nice setup

I got something like this already with similar parts.

who did your soldering? I found that particularly difficult

also how can you control this setup wirelessly? Esp if you are away from home I know they got parts that let you control the lights if you are connected to the wifi in the home.
 
I only had to solder one set of tape due to the way I wanted to loop the back low row and didn't find it a problem, you can buy kind of crimp connectors. I'm sure if you asked them to solder on both ends of a tape they would.
There is a some network version of the controllers but I couldn't work out how much you could really do over network so didn't bother. Not personally interested in away from home control but if I could get Alexa do do scenes or morning timed setups I might be. Trouble is that documentation is poor so basically you end up buying stuff and seeing what it does, you can return things however :)
 
peige said:
I only had to solder one set of tape due to the way I wanted to loop the back low row and didn't find it a problem, you can buy kind of crimp connectors. I'm sure if you asked them to solder on both ends of a tape they would.
There is a some network version of the controllers but I couldn't work out how much you could really do over network so didn't bother. Not personally interested in away from home control but if I could get Alexa do do scenes or morning timed setups I might be. Trouble is that documentation is poor so basically you end up buying stuff and seeing what it does, you can return things however :)
Click to expand...

there is this device here:

https://www.led-lighthouse.co.uk/le...106-led-strip-controller-single-or-multi-zone

It can work via an app on your smart phone but only when you are connected to the wifi it seems.


but yes I agree, pretty much feels like an untested situation.
 
I tried to solder one of my strips but I just gave up in the end, gosh soldering like that for those 5 wires is just too difficult.never again lol
 
Yep, thats the controller I looked at but yes, no idea what you can really do with it!

Soldering isn't too bad but as I said, if you told them that on the 200cm run you wanted wires on both ends they would be happy to i'm sure. As it is they put on a short length of every cut they do for you.
 
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