On Wed, 13 Jan 2016 13:31:09 -0800 (PST), Uncle Monster
wrote:

On Wednesday, January 13, 2016 at 6:49:22 AM UTC-6, Art Todesco wrote:
On 1/13/2016 5:11 AM, Uncle Monster wrote:
On Tuesday, January 12, 2016 at 7:23:54 AM UTC-6, Art Todesco wrote:
On 1/11/2016 2:09 PM, songbird wrote:
the past week, after being repeatedly told we were
living like moles (in the dark) i finally got around
to buying a replacement light for under the cabinets
(and over the counter where we do a lot of prep work).
it's the most frequently and most extensively used
light in the house.

a replacement CFL bulb was about $9. uck! i've
replaced enough of these bulbs over the past few
years and even replaced the light too when the old
one fried some component so it was time to look
at LED replacement options. the battery operated
stuff doesn't make much sense to me at all. why
spend a lot of money for an efficient fixture and
then waste the benefits by using batteries? i
mean, what are they thinking??? the other options
were the wire lines of LEDs and a direct wired type
like the one i was replacing. $35 is a bit steep,
but at new bulbs running $9 each i think i'll be
ahead after a few years.

direct wiring, always fun, especially when you get
the thing apart and realize the wire from the wall is
short and the wire connectors inside the light are also
not long enough. hmm, thought i was going to have to
become more extreme to get some more wire length out of
the wall, but it turned out i could squeek another inch
on the wire and so it would hold long enough after i
twisted it on. certainly did some choice wording about
the process along the way.

however, once it was back up and the power turned
back on the new light certainly is much brighter
than what we had before. in fact, it is almost
too bright. i'm sure we'll get used to it...

LED prices continue to fall. per lumen the least
expensive non-dimmable bulbs are about half of what
they were a year ago. picked up a three pack and used
them to replace the useless lights over the sink with
much brighter lights and the spare went in here so i
can test it for a photography project. eventually
the track lighting will get replaced, a lot of 60w and
75w bulbs getting towards the end of their time.

songbird

About 2 years ago I replace 3 - 7 watt fluorescent lamps with LED
strips. I used 2 strips because cool white was too white and warm white
was too yellow ... I know I'm a nerd. Anyway, I used a 12 volt switching
power supply (like from a printer) to power the strips. I put a few
regular diodes in series with each set of strips to adjust the
brightness and overall color rendition balance between the cool and warm
strips. There are actually 2 power supplies as it was not easy to get 12
volts from one string of cabinets to another, but as there was already
120VAC for the old fluorescents, it was easy to do. The old switch,
which turned on all 3 original lights, now turns on the LED strips.
Actually, the old switch was replaced, years ago, with an X10 wall
switch, but I digress. I even put the LED strips under the range hood to
light the cooktop area. The results are outstanding; extremely even
lighting across all the cabinets. Because of the X10 thing, they go on
at dusk and off around 11:30PM.

That is so cool but I wonder about the effect heat would have on the LED strips under the range hood. O_o

[8~{} Uncle LED Monster

Well, as I said, it's been there for 2 years and we do a lot of cooking.
The cooktop is gas, actually, propane. We do have an electric
toaster/oven on the counter. The LED strip are much closer to the heat
source than those above the cooktop, and no problems there either. One
other plus feature; many LED light bulbs tend to flicker at times ... I
really don't know why. My guess is that the LED light bulbs are made to
be very cheep and don't have really good filtering. But these never
flicker as they are on a tightly regulated 12 volt supply.

That's fantastic, you should do an instructional video and put it on YouTube. I'm sure a lot of people like to see how you did it and how it's working out. ^_^

[8~{} Uncle Impressed Monster

I have a strip of 9 LEDS over a small bar, under the upper cabinet.
They are the typical LED you see in a cheap flashlight (where I got
them) running off a 4.5v wall wart and they have been fine for years.
No real heat tho.