Are any of you using LED under counter kitchen lights? We've had halogen puck lights for a couple of years and I am really beginning to despise those things, they run hot as blue blazes and are always burning out ... a couple of nights ago one of the bulbs exploded inside of the puck housing, my wife and I both heard the pop whenever we were in two different rooms of the house.

I want to use LED under counter lighting that is hard wired and dimmable, have been casually looking for a while and haven't found exactly what I like. Now I want to get a little more aggressive with my search before these halogens burn the house down!

You should pick up what I am using for my "rope lighting" in my home theater. 16.4 feet (5 meters) of color changing lights. Just need to hide the power supply and control unit. You can cut the strip every 3-4 LEDs (I don't remember) and then run some small wires to the next "piece" under the next cabinet. Comes with a remote. It is only something like $32 for the whole thing, and others have tested that you can add another full 16.4 feet to the end of one set using the same power supply, etc...

It is cheap, but a bit of work to get done. Then you could have it on white, or some other color that compliments your decor or mood. Fully dimmable too (via the remote)...

Again, it *could* be cool to do, but would take a bit of work to solder the wires and run everything.

Rick, I bought a set from Inspired LED on Amazon. I haven't mounted them yet (yes, we have no kitchen cabinets at the moment!), but I tried them out when they came in and I was impressed. They weren't super bright, but I like the color temperature and the price is fantastic. These aren't hard-wired though.

I bought a Utilitech Pro 0102996 27 inch unit with 8 1.3 watt LEDs (for the life of me, I can't find any info at Lowes site or in a general Google search). It's also a plug-in and the only think I might be able to fault it for it's that it's REALLY bright! I didn't buy it for the kitchen, though, but rather a use in my office, so I'm OK with that. I didn't need more heat in the office or to draw more juice. I have problems with those two things already.

If you want to send me a plane ticket, I'll bring it down there and show it to you in January or February....since I can't find info on the web....

Good timing for this thread, I am looking for the same thing for my parents kitchen. I am hoping to find some LED strips that require no transformer/wall wart. I have 110V under the cabinets and do not want to install another receptacle just for these lights.

Rick,

I'm actually working on this now. If you are looking for "cheap", don't bother with this stuff, because it is not. I am not about to buy yet another friggin halogen puck light though.

I have a 25' roll of tape backed LED lighting. I just need to pick up some termination adaptors and a couple transformers. What I found most helpful were the videos on this stuff at Elemental LED. They have numerous videos on You Tube. From what I have been told by a cabinet maker, the quality of stuff they sell is very good as well (Mostly from Japan, and not China). http://www.elementalled.com/

Your options are pretty limitless with this stuff. Different colors, dimmable, water proof... It goes on and on.

Mike, we actually just had the LED tape lighting installed by an electrician just within the past few weeks, we did the den with non-dimmable lights and had dimmable lights installed under the kitchen counters.

The den lights...



And the kitchen...


They are relatively expensive, seems like ours were something like a little over $800 for the kitchen and den but well worth the expense we feel.

Looks great, Rick!

That's really weird.... I didn't notice the date on the post I responded to until just now. For some odd reason, it was on the first page of posts, which is why I responded.

The lights look great though Rick. What color temp did you go with? The lights I have are warm white, and I'm wondering if I should give them a go or send them back.

Thanks Ed and Mike, we are really digging the lights, I believe the electrician said all of the lights in the kitchen are less than 9 watts total. Mike I wasn't here whenever they were installed but my wife say's these are 'cool white', we did have two cabinets in the kitchen that had brighter white lights installed mistakenly and we didn't like the color, they were a very artificial whiter light and they just didn't look natural.

Here's the connectors for the strips...



Placement under the cabinet is something you'll need to keep in mind also, the kitchen and den lights didn't come in the same shipment so the electrician installed the den lights and came back a week later to do the kitchen whenever those lights came in. Whenever he first installed the den lights he taped them along the inside front leading edge of the cabinet and it created a shadow line on the cabinet top so whenever he came back the second time we had him move the lights back towards the middle of the cabinet. The first picture shows how much he moved them back.




Here's a couple of pics of the transformer and junction box the electrician used...

wow that is pricey but looks terrific!