Looking at my cabinets, I have some odd lenghs. In looking at lighting, there are a model I like that come in 8, 12, 16, 24 and 32 inch sizes. They a capable of daisy chaining.
question: Do most folks light the full length under the cabinet, or just get close and call it good? I think that may work for 12 inch cabinets, but for 56 inches, I think daisy chaining would work better. Thoughts?
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Replies
ether,
I have found it not necessary to pack UC lighting modules tight together in order to light the counter semi-evenly. You can easily leave up to a foot between fixtures, fall short of a corner at each side, etc. Evenly spaced seems to make a bigger difference.
Also, Ambience by.............sorry, dumb attack.
A small track you clip in a cable (like flat ext. cord), puncture wire with small clips that hold a horizontal small bulb. This is Low Voltage and you need to size the transformer for number of bulbs used. A 4-6 inch center/bulb is pleasing and fills the area with light. Dimable.
A Great Place for Information, Comraderie, and a Sucker Punch.
Remodeling Contractor just outside the Glass City.
http://www.quittintime.com/
The ones I found are American Lighting. They have xenon, LED and fluourescent. Only the first is dimmable though.http://www.etherhuffer.typepad.com
I put fluorescent strip lighting under my cabinets, and am quite happy. Even this heats up the bottom of the cabinet, so we must put our chocolate at least one shelf above (bitter experience; but I have found that under the proper circumstances children CAN learn).
Considering how hot halogen bulbs run, I would hesitate to mount them, but that is my own preference.
Also these days of 'green' would speak against halogen and their relatives. They burn more energy than the fluorescent.
Light the whole thing. With linear lamps. It's a cable cut to length, hooked up to a transformer. In my opine, they're the best kitchen undercab lights made.
Here you go, proper spelling does make a difference.
Ambiance Lighting
A Great Place for Information, Comraderie, and a Sucker Punch.
Remodeling Contractor just outside the Glass City.
http://www.quittintime.com/
That's them.
They also can be had in different lamp spacing for brighter applications - such as jewerly cases. Very easy to change bulbs. And one or more burnt out bulbs does not appreciably affect the perceived light output.
Im looking at the "hockey pucks" for my application but get all confused on wiring them...im wondering since they come in 3 or 4 packs and I need like 12, can they all be wired together and not have all that wire running around I would need to hide?
What voltage are they? That's gonna determine your wiring pattern.
http://www.lowes.com/lowes/lkn?action=productDetail&productId=240124-207-XPV50HCL&lpage=none
This is basically what Im considering..I want some above the cabs to light flood the wall above and undercabs for work lighting
1. I'm no electrician. The ones you show look to be 120 volts.
2. I'm not familiar with that type.
Perhaps someone else will step up that knows.
Here is ones I found that daisy chain. http://www.americanlighting.com/products.cfm?ID=3http://www.etherhuffer.typepad.com
with 120 volt lights, you can wire them all together,but if they are low voltage you can only run a certain number of lights off each transformer.
I saw where an electrician sat a hockey puck type light bulb side down on the counter while installing them. Someone turned on the lights while he was gone. The puck didn't just discolor the p-lam. It turned it to ash. I'd be ugly if someone stuffed the grocery sacks under the cabinet after installation especially if they were close together.Maybe some of the guys here have some comments on what type are the safest. I talked to another electrician about it and he likes low voltage LED's.
Cleaning ladies working on the tops of cabs managed to turn 3 over-face down on the cab tops.
2 melted to the melamine, 1 burnt a nice round spot in the wood valance top. This was found (smelled) by the homowner upon their return from vacation (after turning on the lights and luckily b/4 going to bed).
I had just completed a drop ceiling with new troffers in the basement below.
That call at 10 pm had me over there in a flash.
Had they not called and / or I didn't find the source, I can see the headlines in the paper. House Burns After Minor Remodel.
If ever used, please fasten down so something so simple doesn't happen.A Great Place for Information, Comraderie, and a Sucker Punch.
Remodeling Contractor just outside the Glass City.
http://www.quittintime.com/
I use pucks in my work environment, and have gotten the hot finger several times. Really a fire hazard if not properly installed.http://www.etherhuffer.typepad.com
Wow!
I've had one other occasion in the last 20 yrs that could have had my rear in the wringer by timing.
A fan speed switch, melting into itself in a 3 gang switchbox. Again, the smell (burning electrical) caused the homowner to call the day after we redid some wall oven/reefer cabinets (modified) to fit new appliances. My sub electrician reworked the box and direct wire for the wall oven (moved to a diff location in the cab space).
I had other work there so during the day I cleared the house of the smell, shut down all motors/exhaust fans/furnace and the wall oven circuit. Walking by the switch location (unknown at this pt.) I still picked up a slight aroma. I ran the whole house fan and that really sucked the stink out of the box. I found the source easily-looked up at a ceiling fan way up in the two story vaulted room to see the fan turning slowly. Switched the control to high-fan still turning slow. Took apart the box and found the melted switch.
This location about 10 ft away from our work. But how close can or will a fire inspector find a source for a fire?
Another reason to sub out electrical to a licensed and insured and trusted sub for areas such as these. You as the contractor would certainly have liability issues even in this case, but sleeping at nite might be a tad easier.
A level on the rack of a pickup isn't everything.A Great Place for Information, Comraderie, and a Sucker Punch.
Remodeling Contractor just outside the Glass City.
http://www.quittintime.com/
It's great they had you to track the problem down.
I have several circuits of Seagull Ambiance - it's great. Not enough light? Plug in a few more heads.
No reason to dim them, really.
Jeff
What's good is that it didn't sit much longer. Imagine a melted styro coffee cup. It had to be just short of ignition. After that, my luck sure would have been down the tubes.
But you can bet I have become their "go to guy". They've recently sold their beautiful home-but are still in the area. I am hopeful there'll at least be a referral.A Great Place for Information, Comraderie, and a Sucker Punch.
Remodeling Contractor just outside the Glass City.
http://www.quittintime.com/
I'd definately want them dim-able or on two switches. My wife likes to have lights on in the kitchen for ambiance and has them on most of the day. But when you work you'll want more light.
I started off using halogen pucks, then went to units like Kichler's xenon fixtures, available in various lengths.
Now I use Juno Trac 12 with xenon bulbs spaced at 4 inches, and they can be run to any length I need.
The Trac 12 rail fits right tight to the light rail, getting the light source pretty close to centered over 24" counters, when uppers are 12 inches.
Trac 12 is low voltage, so you need to figure on getting a transformer into the picture somewhere. We usually find a way to get one mounted way to the upper back region of a base cab.
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"A stripe is just as real as a dadgummed flower."
Gene Davis 1920-1985
I'll second that system you use (Juno Trac 12). I put two runs in on my own kitchen and really like it. The Xenon bulbs may not be as efficient as fluorescent or LED but the quality of the system is very good and the appearance is great. The ability to field cut the track and insert/remove bulb holders and reposition them makes the system easy to adjust and to install in non-standard length situations. The biggest downside is cost. I think I spent about $700 for the two runs- one about 10 feet and the other about 6 feet.
I don't know if there are better manufacturers of puck lights, but the ones I got from HD to install in some shelving units several years ago were garbage. The connectors on half of them stopped making good contact very early on.
Trac 12 is low voltage, so you need to figure on getting a transformer into the picture somewhere
I really like the Juno Trac 12, too. I like using the top shelf of a corner cabinet for the transformer. Barring that, the cabinet over the fridge--these tend to be the least accessible spots in the kitchen. Third choice is the cabinet over the range hood, for similar reasons.Occupational hazard of my occupation not being around (sorry Bubba)
Might be a little late with my comments, but here goes anyway. I worked as a kitchen/bath designer for a good place back here. Our electrican always told the designers that the halogen puck lights were not code for under cabinet lighting. We did use xenon bulbs but just about as hot. They were code.
Good luck.
Never heard of that one. Maybe someone that knew the old or might be current can say yeah or nay.
A Great Place for Information, Comraderie, and a Sucker Punch.
Remodeling Contractor just outside the Glass City.
http://www.quittintime.com/
Recently we've used xenon fixtures similar to those in your link, on 3-4 jobs. The bulb spacing can be an issue. If you put them at the back, against the wall, the bulbs show as brighter areas on the wall. I would put the units end to end as close as you can, and try to fill the entire space.
Previously we've used fluorescent inch lights but the color is not as good and they are not dimmable, or at least they weren't. Evenness of light was better.
Never used the Trac 12 yet but I would check that out.
You can plug the Juno xenon bulb bases into the Trac 12 rails, or you can plug their LED units in.
Get out your wallet for the LED parts. But, hey, LED is green, and aren't we all going green? Maybe the feds will reimburse us for the cost premium.
Here's what the LED thingies look like.
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"A stripe is just as real as a dadgummed flower."
Gene Davis 1920-1985
I've been meaning to order some LED strips from dealextreme to see how they look. They're certainly cheap enough.http://www.dealextreme.com/details.dx/sku.13087They also have tons of inexpensive LED MR16/GU10s etc. And yes, they're in Hong Kong, and the shipping is free, but I usually get my stuff within a week or so.Z
I picked up some LED "pucks" suitable for under counter use at Costco. Don't remember the price, but they were less than what I recalled seeing for similar Xenon units at the local hardware store. Haven't installed them yet but they appear to put out a reasonable amount of light. They are 120V and each package of 4 pucks are "daisy chainable". Just looked at the Costco website and they are not listed, however.As an aside for most of you, California has adopted some very stringent lighting codes, particularly for the kitchen. Incandescent lights (including Xenon and halogens) can be only 1/2 of the wattage of lighting in the kitchen. That means that I could only have two 50 watt halogens after I installed six 14 watt and two 9 watt fluorescent lights under and over the cabinets. The actual term they use is that "high efficacy" lighting has to comprise at least half of lighting wattage in the kitchen.