LED lighting suggestions for kitchen?

[RyWen]

Does anyone have a brand or supplier they like for LED lighting?  I'm specifically looking for kitchen under counter task lighting at the moment.  Daylight color temperature or maybe 'natural' (~4000k). 

I'm trying to find a "Sweet spot" in price to performance and reliability ratio;  I see a lot of 'generic' led lights out there, but I don't want to buy something cheap then have it all fail in a couple years.  (I'm actually buying these to replace some moderately priced xenon light fixtures that had a failure rate of about 40% after three years.)  Also I see some places don't even sell fixtures in any other color temperatures than 'warm' light (~3000k)

Does anyone have any experience with the "tape" style led lighting like Lee Valley sells for under counter lighting?  Is it too harsh and directional compared to a bigger fixture with more diffusion?

 

[tbellemare]

If you look at the last image of my first post in this thread, you can see how it looked after I used some LED strips hidden in a valence around a skylight vault. I really like it especially as sort of a night light.

I bought them from ledwholesalers on Amazon. They're easy to work with, self-adhesive, etc. I hid the transformer in the pantry and drilled a hole from there to the corner of the valence in the skylight vault.

Tom

 

[jimbouk]

You can get an aluminium extrusion that is either recessed or surface fixed that allows a plastic difuser to be placed in front of the light that looks great. Not sure about suppliers your side of the pond tho!

 

[tjbnwi]

Juno Track 12 or 24. You can pick the light kelvin to suit your needs.

Tom

 

[GreenGA]

Talk about fortuitive timing...

The Lee Valley intro 2015 catalog arrived today and they list an LED light strip setup in the back. It might be what you're looking for, or at least know what to order from LED Wholesalers.

 

[E30Mark]

The shop I work for uses a lot of LED's they tend to use 24V, which is colour temperature adjustable. With the remote you can vary the colour from cool white to warm white, also brightness is fully adjustable.

Again we also use diffuser extrusion from Hafele.

 

[mark60]

I've done a lot of 12V LED strips and love the stuff. A lot came from Hitlights.com and some from superbrightleds.com. The strips are expensive at superbright but they have a good assortment of switches and accessories. I just picked up some 110V LED strip from Amazon, I think CBConcepts was the seller on Amazon. If you want to match incandescent color temp you'll want 2700K. The stuff is cheap enough that if you don't like the temperature you can find someplace else to use what you bought and get a different temp.

 

[JPF Woodworking]

I am working on a "lighted" display cabinet right now and after some extensive research I selected some LED puck-lights from Lee Valley (as noted above in this thread)....,what atracked me to these units was the 2700k light as anything under 3000k is considered warm light and not the harsh blue light you may normally see. Pretty reasonable at about $20.00 per unit....totally recess able eAch unit is rated at 3watts so for my project I am figuring on unit every 6 - 8 inches (36 total in this display case)....for what it worth....hope this is helpful.

 

[Jak147]

Hey guys
I very recently completed a renovation project that had a lot of led lighting and to say that there was a very steep learning curve would be an understatement!

First up and sure its obvious now but not all LEDs are created equal. The classification 'warm white' is anything 3000 and below, as mentioned above 2700 being normal incandescent, the difference is massive. A room lit by 3000k gu10s is very cold

LEDs tapes are extremely hard to find at 2700, in order to match the nice 2700k gu10s I had to get some specially made at the factory... This is an option and is not very expensive at all, thou the lead times are crazy!
Cheap led tapes without any water proofing are only ok if you live in a dessert and are expecting a drought. The splash proof ones are ok if sealed into a diffuser. If used in an area where there is likely to be steam go full waterproof.
Even the lowest 4.8 watts per meter tapes give off shed loads of light, dimmers are your friend .... Not all tapes can be dimmed.
Jpf I would test ur light pucks in place before you cut any recess. Every 6in sounds a lot. You may be able to see your install from space
Large orders of tape can vary in colour temp from packet to packet, even the expensive stuff so test each roll before you install it.
I learnt all this the hard way and am now find lots of new ways to use up the 200+ meters of tape that cannot be returned!

 

[Jak147]

Oh and long runs, the perimeter of a room for example, can be very hard to get the brightness equal in each tape, obviously there is a maximum length of continuos tape but voltage drop in the small wires that run to the next strip can mess you up. In an ideal world the driver would be central to keep all the run outs equal, this was not an option for us so we had some fun and games I can tell you, at one point the electrician was as close to tears as a grown man can get
Have fun
Jamie

 

[Bhrestorations]

I've had good success with the Juno brand on kitchen remodel projects. WAC Lighting however, not so good luck.