New warm white LED lights at Lowes

[seestuff]

I'm confused. I see two versions of "warm white" (I hope) lights that Lowe's sells. So:

1) Do we know for sure which one of these two uses the warm Nichias?

2) Which is brighter?

3) Which has a nicer tint?

One:

http://www.lowes.com/lowes/lkn?action=productDetail&productId=283278-82850-29112&lpage=none

Two:

http://www.lowes.com/lowes/lkn?action=productDetail&productId=283277-82850-29110&lpage=none

When I bought the puck kit at Lowe's there was a guy working in the lighting section who appearantly was into lights. When I mentioned to him that I wonder how those two lights would compare away from the display with all the other lights, he promptly snatched one of each off the shelf. We plugged each of the kits into the power outlet under his computer desk where it was semi-dark. The tint looked the same from both of these lights. As for brightness, it's hard to be truely objective without a meter. The pucks seem brighter though (alltogeter and similarly spaced, of course).
The pucks are far more practical to me. Extra wire is spooled inside a deep slot around the edge of each puck. One can neatly spool the wire up inside each puck to position them close or unspool the wire to position as far as 32" apart. I have 18" between my countertop and upper cabinets. I have tentatively mounted the three pucks 14" apart just to see the effect. Once I get the other kit, I think I'll place them 12" apart. It would be great if this kit was made as 6 single LED pucks instead of 3 doubles. That would be much more versatile. I would really prefer to have 3 LEDs under the left cabinet and 9 LEDs under the right, that would give me a more even distribution of light.
The bar, on the other hand, gives you one choice: 5 LEDs stuck in a 18" bar. You have no verstility to spread the LEDs apart to vary the intensity of light cast onto your countertop.

Of course, if you're just looking for Nichias to scavenge, then this info may not be helpful to you.

I don't know if these are Nichias or not. But I took closeup pics through a jewelers loupe so that someone more familiar can identify them.
I plan to go to Lowes today, so I'll try to remember to look at the bar's LEDs to see if they look the same.

You all can benefit from me paying the $50 for the puck kits. Good deal or not, my wife wants undercabinet lighting NOW! So for me, YES, it's worth it. I can just here it now, "Why do you have to bulild everything yourself? Why can't you just buy the ones at Lowe's? We don't have to have the best under cabinet lights known to man!"

 

[LEDAdd1ct]

Wow, good luck to you with the undercabinet project, and what you say about versatility with respect to the model which can be separated certainly makes sense. Now, if I can find a way to get them on sale, as fifty smackers seems just a little too high.

 

[LEDAdd1ct]

Here's the story:

I've been on hold with one or more companies for over an hour. First, I called a number I found on a website, who said that "Utilitech" is not actually a company, just a brand slapped onto a product sourced from different vendors. Then, I called at least four different Lowe's, who put me on hold for an eternity, before one in New Jersey finally had someone around in electrical. He found the puck version with the six LEDs, and discovered that they are made by Aztec Lighting. A quick Google later, I discovered Aztec Lighting's number, and was placed on hold for an interminable period of time, while several sentient civilizations rose and fell in other parts of the galaxy. :sick2:

Patiently, I tried to explain to the representative that I was not interested in buying a replacement "bulb", and that I was calling on the behalf of an enthusiast lighting community. *sigh*

Anyway, although they could not find out who makes the LED or what model it is, I did get this information. I am hoping perhaps someone here can correlate it to a brand and model (Nichia 083, I am hoping!). Here's what I got:

Country of Origin: China
Rated Voltage: 32 volts
Actual Voltage: 27 volts
Lumens Per Chip: 70
Color Temperature: 2500 - 2800 degrees kelvin

Does this sound like the Nichia 083? :thinking:

 

[LEDAdd1ct]

According to information on the 'Net, each Nichia 083 has six chips inside it:

"The Nichia 083 has 6 chips inside it run in parallel." (see post Number 5)

Source:

http://www.thesignsyndicate.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=2048&st=0&p=11715&#entry11715

also,

"Each Nichia 083 LED is comprised of six individual chips which enhances the long term reliability of the system."

Source: http://74.125.45.132/search?q=cache...df+specs+Nichia+083&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=22&gl=us


Looking closely at seestuff's first photo of the LED, I count six...umm...I do not know the word...little things with wires inside it. I would say this stands in favor of the chip being the Nichia 083.

 

[seestuff]

OK. i just got back from Lowes.
I pulled the 'bar' version out of it's package to check it out.
The LEDs look the same as the ones in the 'pucks'. So basically it looks like you can get these 5 LEDs in an 18" bar/strip for $60 or you can get 6 LEDs in the pucks for $50. Assuming the circuitry is the same, the better option is obviously the pucks.
I grabbed the last one on the shelf while I was there, giving me two kits to finish the under cabinet lighting in my little kitchen. I guess this has become a pretty popular little item.

 

[seestuff]

OK, I know it's been a while, but I've been busy with remodeling and I decided to rehang my upper cabinets. They were racked from being on a non-plumb wall and house settling issues.
I'm finally getting around to mounting these pucks permanently. I opened them up again to check 'em out. I verified with my multimeter's continuity circuit that the 6 LEDs contained in the 3 pucks are all arranged in series. The 'wall-wart' power supply is labeled as Output: 350mA Constant Current, 35VDC. My multimeter showed it's output to be 28 volts.

These kits are wired with 24AWG stranded and terminated with a RCA type phono plug to connect to the power supply. I need to customize the lengths of the wires to accommodate a smooth distribution of light on my counertops. So I'll probably stop by Radio Shack and pick up some phono plug terminated 24ga wire to make an extension between the existing termination and the power receptacle on top of my cabinets. Then there's the issue of extending the wire between the 2nd and 3rd puck on one of these kits to cover the distance through the chase over my kitchen sink.

I suppose that if I had a 700mA, 70VDC rated transformer, I could daisy-chain the six pucks together, where all 12 LEDs would be in series. But I don't.

It would be so much better if they just made a expandable kit made of single LED pucks that could be daisy-chained as a parrallel circuit. If they made a 5V power supply that could handle current up to around an Amp and label it as a limit of up to 20 pucks, wouldn't that work?
Let's say they made this hypothetical kit with this power supply and five single LED pucks for $40-50. Then you could buy expansion kits of just pucks in 5 or 10 packs where the cost is around $5/puck, these things would be flying off the shelves once people became aware of them. Then they would become more popular, increasing demand, yeilding more production> less production expense> more competition> cheaper better undercabinet lights...
...I'll just stop wishing and mount my lights.


BTW, for those of you who thought $50 was too much. How about $40? During Thanksgiving and Christmas, Lowe's ran a promo where you'd get $10 off $50 coupons printed on receipts. So I returned my first kit for a refund. Then bought a plastic putty knife which generated a $10 off $50 coupon. Then bought the LED kit back for $40 and used the coupon generated by that transaction to get another for $40. Two kits for $80 + tax of course.
And my store sold out of these for a few weeks.

 

[ledstein]

The LED pcb looks is real bad. They look hand made in China and actually it says China on the back. Don't even dream about Nichia LEDs in some led product you find at the local store. Those Leds are just some china power led (which are all bad).

 

[James S]

I was excited to see these at lowes when they started to carry them. Big improvement over the old style 5mm led arrays they had in there previous. Sadly I've watched the ones on display slowly degrade everytime I"m in there they are a little bit dimmer. One of the puck ones has gone dark, a second one is at about half brightness and the third appears to still be working. The larger version has dimmed unevenly to about half it's output and all of them get very very hot to the touch. The new bar version they have looks better again, but the price is so high I think I'll watch the one in the store for a few weeks and see what it does.

 

[MaxIcon]

Yeah, as a longtime collecter of wall warts, higher voltage ones can be tricky to find.

The other option is to measure the actual current they draw as they're set up now - it should be under the max rating of the supply - then rewire them all in parallel and use the appropriate supply. You could make your own daisy-chain setup.

Let's say they pull 300 mA in the current configuration of 3 wired in series. Based on the actual output of 28 Vdc, that's 9.3 V each, or based on the PS rating, it's 11.7 Vdc each. Both 9 Vdc and 12 Vdc are pretty common.

To run all 6 from one supply, you'd wire them all in parallel. At 300 mA each, you'd need 1.8 A, and you'd want to increase that by 10% for a buffer. With modern wall warts' mediocre reliability, I'd think about 20% would make for a better lifetime. Anyway, that would be 2 to 2.2 A.

Unfortunately, that's going to be a pretty big wall wart, and you're back into the hard to find arena again. Alternately, you could go with a power supply module, like this:
http://www.unitedsale.com/product_info.php?cPath=206_392&products_id=17972

 

[John_Galt]

About a year ago, the old (probably from the 80's judging by the fixture) Fluorescent tube light above the kitchen sink in our house finally burned out. As such, my dad wanted to replace it with a few of the 12 volt puck style halogen ?i think? lights that we already had in a few places in our home. (Namely, above the two computers, and the under the kitchen cabinets.)

When we were looking for a suitable replacement at Lowes, I saw a warm LED under cabinet light strip (the rectangular white model linked to above), and showed it to my dad. At first he was uncertain about the brightness, cause in the store, under all of the other 50w+ lights, and the overheads, it seemed very dim.
I managed to convince him they were worth the purchase price (~$50), and that if he didn't like them, we could return them. Long story short, we spent the afternoon wiring an outlet above the sink, out of view, and patching the hole in the wall left by the old fluorescent. (Lath and plaster walls, doncha know

.)
Overall, the quality felt pretty good, they seem well heat-sinked (the front surface gets warm to the touch after about 5 minutes), and they are definitely a lot brighter than they first seemed (even with our South facing kitchen windows across from the sink, this will still light up the sink, and the area immediately around it with a "warm" color temperature, that lends itself to accurate color perception.
Since then, we've bought a second one when the halogen puck lights above the main computer burned out, and both units are run for several hours each night.
Overall, I'd rate these units a 4.5/5.

 

[Illum]

I
I opened one up. Here's some pics:


They look like the ones in the McGizmo pictures above to me.

...and yes. The LEDs were that dirty when I opened the puck. But I still like the lights.

hmm...
from the looks of it...Nichia 083s have 6 dies

 

[ledstein]

Tell us if the brightness is the same after a few weeks or months.
Its very possible what you saw in the store did not seem weaker but actually was weaker. LEDs fade over time and this time varies from 100 hours to 10.000 hours (based on led quaility).

 

[seestuff]

I got mine installed finally a couple of weeks ago. I chopped up the wiring and crimped on some bullet connectors from Radio Shack so that I could make the stretch over the kitchen sink adding a length of wire. I just maintained the series wiring arrangement and used the one wall-wart per kit. The two wall-warts are up on top of the cabinets out of sight so no big deal. And the crimped on connectors make for some real ugliness but again, out of sight so it'll work.

I thought about doing some parrallel wiring modifications with these kits but I decided to leave well-enough alone. I may turn a working $50 kit into a non-working $80 kit. Besides I really don't have time for anymore projects right now.

I don't have a light meter so I don't know how well I'll be able to objectively identify any dimming of these lights. So far they look good. But if I can see them going bad I'll report back.

 

[John_Galt]

The two units that we put up over our kitchen sink, and main computer don't seemed to have dimmed very much. Although we bought the second unit a few months after the first one, and the first bar (kitchen sink light) does seem slightly greener in output. But our kitchen walls are a pale moss green, so it may just be that.

 

[PhotonWrangler]

An update on those undercabinet LEDs at Lowes -

I looked at them again today. The display units have been running continuously since last summer. The 9-LED unit has gotten significantly dimmer and the individual LEDs have drifted towards various shades of green and purple, although the 2-LED units are still going strong and still have very uniform color.

 

[Nitroz]

Three things I would like to see to change over to LEDs from flourecent.
1. Warm Cree LEDs
2. Be able to hard wire them
3. Dimmable

 

[seestuff]

My lights are still working fine. They seem to be as bright as when I installed them.

I agree with you Nitroz on all three counts.
But also I'd like to have a cleaner transformer. I was getting terrible AM radio reception on my living room receiver. I kept adjusting the AM antenna with no improvement. Then one day I was getting pretty good reception so I turned the volume up a little to hear it in the kitchen. My wife had turned the undercabinet lights off that morning (I usually have them on). So I flipped the switch to turn them on and the source of the nagging poor AM reception was revealed. This makes me wonder what other electrical interference these 'dirty' wall-warts are causing.

I do like the lights, but there's definitely room for improvement.

 

[blasterman]

1. Warm Cree LEDs
2. Be able to hard wire them
3. Dimmable

Easy enough if you do it yourself.

 

[EngrPaul]

I considered buying these, I liked the bright warm light.

Then I looked at how they are made. A string of 3 connected permanently to a wall wart. :sigh:

For $50, you should have:

(1) Power switch
(2) Dimmer
(3) Disconnect to route cables through a small hole without cutting and re-soldering

Pathetic!

...They felt pretty hot, I wonder how long they will last at that temp...

I'm still shopping... :shrug:

 

[seestuff]

I considered buying these, I liked the bright warm light.

Then I looked at how they are made. A string of 3 connected permanently to a wall wart. :sigh:

For $50, you should have:

(1) Power switch
(2) Dimmer
(3) Disconnect to route cables through a small hole without cutting and re-soldering

Pathetic!

...They felt pretty hot, I wonder how long they will last at that temp...

I'm still shopping... :shrug:

Yeah,
Unfourtunateley, there isn't any ready-to-use lights with better features to compete with these that I know of. You'd think that some light manufacturer would realize the potential for warm-white LED modular under-cabinet pucks with better quality features by now.

...but, if you find it, let us know.