My wife would like me to add some under-cabinet lighting (UCL) to the kitchen. Both of us are a little fussy about quality of light, so it has to be high (>85) CRI. 4100K would be preferred but anything from 2700-4100K is acceptable. Anyway, in looking at LED UCL, I'm finding VERY few companies even specifying a CRI, let alone having a high one. Does anyone know of a system that would meet our requirements? Off the shelf is fine, but I'm also open to DIYing it, so long as it's at the level of "connect strip A to strip B, then to transformer 1", not soldering bare emitters to stars. I'm definitely willing to do some work to bring down the price compared to a turn-key designer solution. Any ideas?
Does High-CRI Under-Cabinet Lighting Exist Yet?
- Thread starter williaty
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brickbat
Enlightened
If I was to install new UCL today, I'd go with T5. (Starcoat/Pentron/Silhouette) They're 100l/W, 85 CRI, available in standard CCTs, available with dimmable ballasts, etc. Their biggest limitation might be they are not available in lengths under 22.5", but my narrowest cabinet is 24", so they'd work... (The old fashioned T5 lamps are available in shorter lengths, but I'm leery of them...)
I can't imagine our kitchen without UCL. It's one of the most important sources of light in the room.
I can't imagine our kitchen without UCL. It's one of the most important sources of light in the room.
mds82
Enlightened
Are you willing to make your own under cabinet lighting? If is actually quite simple to do and only requires a few tools. The Cree XP-E2 for example has a bin that is a Min of 90 CRI. That would give you a very cool color range. You only need to mount the LED's and attach a power supply. It would actually be less expensive and smaller then most anything else.
As well the Cree ML series also goes up to 90 CRI and those are incredibly easy to work with and you can do it without even re flow soldering the LED's to a board.
As well the Cree ML series also goes up to 90 CRI and those are incredibly easy to work with and you can do it without even re flow soldering the LED's to a board.
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Within some limits, yes, I'm willing to DIY it. The thing that I'm afraid of doing is the step of taking the bare emitter and having it solder it to some sort of fixture/substrate. As long as we're at the "take these lego pieces, wire them together, figure out what's required for the power supply, and mount them to the cabinet" level of DIY, I'm golden. I don't mind wiring them up, having to solder that kind of stuff, etc. I'm just nervous about starting with a bare LED.
AnAppleSnail
Flashlight Enthusiast
LED Stars are your friend. Several LED Supply companies (LEDGroupBuy, LEDSupply, etc) have "solderless" LEDs. These are bare LEDs, mounted on a nickel-sized disk of metal with solderless (Spring-loaded) electrical contacts. Stick a wire into the contacts, correctly attach the LED to a heatsink (Use thermal epoxy or electrically-isolated screws), attach your optic and driver, and you've got a light. Those cost about a buck more per LED.
The other week I priced Cree-based LED lights at about 2-3 cent per lumen. This includes optics, LEDs, an aluminum-stock heatsink, and drivers. The cost for fluorescent UCL is about half that or better... But it's a large bar of light, with less control over the optical spread. I'd love to make a UCL with wide-flood elliptical (Oval-shaped spot) optics....
I'm kind of at the same place as you. With very little knowledge I'm wanting to put something together using those nice Nichia 219's.
At bare minimum I think you would need the LED's on stars (are 20mm's the best for this?) and using some kind of thermal adhesive to stick them to at minimum an aluminum block. Wiring would consist of chaining the stars in series (?) to a driver which would have a dimmer control coming off of it.
Try this...Two links for one of their products. The first is their main page and the second the product we used.
Note that the CRI is listed as over 90. Installation is easy and much like outdoor low voltage products. Transformer, low voltage cable, lamp housing that presses into the cable, and LED lamp that snaps into the housing. May sound cheesy but it really works well. There may also be a plastic track that holds the cable and housings in place and nice and flat. None of the housings have come loose. I checked the light pattern again last night (hours after I had posted this) and they do produce a nice wide flood. How many lamps you need will vary according to your design. Some of my small and narrow cabinets have only two lamps, the larger ones may have four to six lamps. The only issue with this arrangement is that you may need a specific dimmer switch if you want to dim them. The cheap CFL / LED dimmers will make the lights flicker. I believe you may need the $60+ dollar dimmer switch. Once I helped the young electrician trouble shoot the flicker (He never thought of bypassing the dimmer switch to see if that was the problem ???) I opted to just scrap the dimmer.
http://www.seagulllighting.com/ld1-pg1/LED-Lighting.htm?singular=LED Lighting
http://www.ambiance-lighting.com/28999/Ambiance-Lx-Lamps-96118S-33.html
We just added 6 feet onto the front of our house with complete remodels of the kitchen, master bath, and master bedroom. We chose these as our under cabinet lighting. They exceeded my expectations, and I am quite fussy. Another neat feature is that if you do not like where the lights are located, you just remove the LED module and the separate base and place it elsewhere on the cable. I was very concerned when the electrical contractor suggested these because I did not want a spotty output. The light pattern on the frosted LEDs is a VERY wide flood.
Note that the CRI is listed as over 90. Installation is easy and much like outdoor low voltage products. Transformer, low voltage cable, lamp housing that presses into the cable, and LED lamp that snaps into the housing. May sound cheesy but it really works well. There may also be a plastic track that holds the cable and housings in place and nice and flat. None of the housings have come loose. I checked the light pattern again last night (hours after I had posted this) and they do produce a nice wide flood. How many lamps you need will vary according to your design. Some of my small and narrow cabinets have only two lamps, the larger ones may have four to six lamps. The only issue with this arrangement is that you may need a specific dimmer switch if you want to dim them. The cheap CFL / LED dimmers will make the lights flicker. I believe you may need the $60+ dollar dimmer switch. Once I helped the young electrician trouble shoot the flicker (He never thought of bypassing the dimmer switch to see if that was the problem ???) I opted to just scrap the dimmer.
http://www.seagulllighting.com/ld1-pg1/LED-Lighting.htm?singular=LED Lighting
http://www.ambiance-lighting.com/28999/Ambiance-Lx-Lamps-96118S-33.html
We just added 6 feet onto the front of our house with complete remodels of the kitchen, master bath, and master bedroom. We chose these as our under cabinet lighting. They exceeded my expectations, and I am quite fussy. Another neat feature is that if you do not like where the lights are located, you just remove the LED module and the separate base and place it elsewhere on the cable. I was very concerned when the electrical contractor suggested these because I did not want a spotty output. The light pattern on the frosted LEDs is a VERY wide flood.
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