DIY under-cabinet LED lighting

Furniture & Lighting Technology
DIY under-cabinet LED lighting

DIY Under Cabinet LED Lighting

Instructable user Esterill shows how to make your own swanky under-cabinet LED lighting scheme on a budget and the results are quite professional looking. For extra measure, Esterill used a microcontroller to fade the LEDs up when they’re turned on and added a “half bright” mode for times when dimmer light is desired. Nice touch!

20 thoughts on “DIY under-cabinet LED lighting

  1. pete rip says:

    If you find the led color irritating like i do, a trip to a local theater supply store or website (in Boston there is Backstage Hardware) will get you color gel, a translucent, colored plastic used for lights in theater and movies. its durable, and won’t catch fire under most circumstances.

    The gel you would want to use is CTO, an orange that turns that blue led more into a lightbulb color. There are different fractions, example 1/2 CTO is half the strength, down to an 1/8th. You can read more about this here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Color_correction

    Many other colors are also available, including a frost like white which makes an even, soft cast.

    1. Matt Richardson says:

      That’s a great tip. I was thinking that a good riff on the project would be to use RGB LED strips so that you can program different color temperatures for different times of day.

    2. Matt Richardson says:

      That’s a great tip. I was thinking that a good riff on the project would be to use RGB LED strips so that you can program different color temperatures for different times of day.

    3. Matt Richardson says:

      That’s a great tip. I was thinking that a good riff on the project would be to use RGB LED strips so that you can program different color temperatures for different times of day.

    4. Anonymous says:

      The other possibility is to acquire warm-white LEDs. They are definitely out there, and while a little less efficient, I doubt it is any better or worse than the paint you suggest.
      The LEDs he’s proposing using aren’t particularly efficient, so using a warm white CFL would be just as efficient. Alternatively there are warm white high power LEDs (by CREE and others) which could be used, only 3 or so would be needed to create the same effect.

  2. income tax calculator guy says:

    Pretty awesome under cabinet lighting. I Iike this idea. Looks like it’s becoming very popular.

  3. Carla Adler says:

    Great, wonderful. I was looking for the same thing. Thanks for sharing.

  4. Denise Hamm says:

    I really needed this. Thanks for the link.When placing the under cabinet LED lighting fixtures distribute the
    units equally and evenly for better light distribution on you
    countertop.

    led christmas lights

  5. Electricity Birmingham says:

    Cabinet lighting in your home with minimal cost and difficulty using affordable cold cathode tubes normally used for PC case mods. 

  6. justin wood says:

    I just found a new website: http://www.cabinetledlighting.com Looks like they have great product and price. Does anyone know about them?

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Matt Richardson is a San Francisco-based creative technologist and Contributing Editor at MAKE. He’s the co-author of Getting Started with Raspberry Pi and the author of Getting Started with BeagleBone.

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