LED Recommendation for under kitchen cabinet desk

We have a small desk area in the kitchen with an existing fluorescent light assembly under the cabinet shining down onto the desk. The bulb is a F15T8CW, basically an 18" fluorescent light. It has failed and I tried the easy route of replacing the tube which did not work. I now have a valid excuse to upgrade to an LED assembly (don't want to replace the ballast and prefer LEDs anyway).

I'm looking for low cost ideas (< 30/40$).
I prefer AC/DC not battery.
I'm not really interested in the small stick on led modules that push to "on".
It is currently wired to a lightswitch, I'd like to reuse that.

Any thoughts?

thanks in advance

Nip down to your local diy centre ,the type that sell kitchens dozens of them in there to choose from.

Or you could use a light strip kit. You need to determine if you need waterproof or not. Order from e-bay. You can hard wire the driver, just cut off the plug, into the circuit. I have never seen one that is not able to be cut every three inches. Use as much as you need and use the rest in another area. They come in 5 meter lengths. I did my whole kitchen for less than $30.

Lowes has led AC powered straps in various lengths starting at 18". I believe they go up to 36" lengths.

A few years ago I had a similar situation with my daughter's desk lamp.

I could not find exactly the LED I wanted mounted on a star board, so I purchased some Philips Lumileds Rebels in 4000 K high CRI and reflowed them onto a blank star board using a frying pan. At the time, the LEDs were around $7 / each, but now they are super cheap (around $ 1 - 1.50 each) but if you can find an LED you like already mounted, that is better of course. Future Electronics and others carry the Lumileds parts.

I had an existing 12V DC 700ma power supply from the various DC devices we have had around in the past, I think this one was from an old router or DSL modem. (yes, it is a voltage based setup rather than the more proper current control)

I pulled apart the existing fixture and screwed in LED stars, wired them in series with the 12VDC + 1 ohm resistor, and flipped it on. It works great, and the existing diffuser really make it hard to tell what the light source is. Three years later, there are no obvious issues, and if the LEDs ever failed, they are cheap to replace.

If you are handy and have a 12VDC power supply around, you could do this yourself for $ 10 - 15.

2x to 3x more money than you want, but interesting approach, I'm tempted to try these out.

http://www.designingwithleds.com/led-startup-klauf-lighting-kicks-the-tires-on-kickstarter/

They identify the supplier for the 'remote phosphor' material,
http://www.intematix.com/products/chromalit
and they sell through DigiKey
http://www.digikey.com/product-search/en/optoelectronics/optics-remote-phosphor/525582?k=chromalit

narrowing that down:
http://www.digikey.com/product-sear...=1&stock=1&quantity=0&ptm=0&fid=0&pageSize=25

so I'm very tempted to try this homebuilt.
(blue LEDs with a heatsink and air space separating them from the phosphor -- rather than painting the phosphor right on the (hot) LED)

Some of the phosphors are 80 CRI, no 90 to date. _Lots_ of shapes and sizes available, not particularly pricey.

Hm. I may put this behind a flashlight lens with an ultraviolet or blue P60 dropin behind it --- ultimate floody light source, no glare. Hmmmmmm