I still haven't found lighting that I'm satisfied with. I tried the rope lighting, but I hate the multiple (several sections of cabinet) heavy cords snaking down to the outlets. Originally, I had chosen rope lighting to avoid the pools of light from puck lights reflecting off the granite that Evilbunnie mentioned. But since the rope lighting didn't work out, I picked up a couple of battery-powered, LED puck lights and tried them, but the light is bluish and doesn't look very good. Then I got some of those cheap, battery-operated *moon* lights (pop lights, push lights, whatever varied names they go by) to try. They also don't give off much light. If they gave off more light, they would work fine for me. I guess I'm spoiled by the flourescent bars that my mom has in her kitchen -- but hers are installed behind a front piece that hides them from view (too late for me to do that, plus I have long, 42-inch cabs and wouldn't want to lose the counter clearance). The heat factor on the xenon lights does worry me a bit. It may not be a realistic worry, but it would make me nervous about it possibly causing a fire. Yes, my backsplash is already installed. In fact, at this point, I'm going to have to live with what I have for a while. But what I'd really LOVE to find is rope lighting that's battery-operated and gives off plenty of warm, yellow glowing light. Sigh. A fantasy, I know. Doesn't exist. Oh well, I can dream.... ;P But now that I'm fantasizing...one of the salesmen in Lowe's mentioned that he has xmas lights in his kitchen instead of rope lighting. Think that would work? It would probably be much easier to hide the cord. (The rope lighting has THICK white cords, xmas lights generally have thin, dark green wiring.) Would it be *safe*?

Eliminate half the possibilities, get a good extension cord and connect the lights to that. If the flickering goes away it is the plug if not then it is in the lighting. If it is the plug turn off the circuit at the breaker panel until it is repaired because it is a fire hazard. Connect another lamp at the first puck and power up, if it flickers it is the cord, if not it is in the puck. It is possible you have a fuse in the cord,not sure, just a guess.

"They aren't designed to be enclosed ..." Pegasus lighting sells small 60 W AC-DC power supplies that are designed to be installed inside boxes. About $15 each. If raping near the lights (and not near the power supplies or transformers) makes them light up it is not likely a supply problem. The lights are probably just poorly made. They need to tolerate the very high temperatures of halogen bulbs while still providing solid low impedance connections at low voltage. The temperature swings are room to many hundreds of degrees. There is a real reason the typical bi-pin base used is a ceramic block. You may need to find out exactly what brand the lights are. The only ones I have had bad experiences with have been 120 V pucks including short bulb life, bulbs welding to contacts, and generally poor quality. Al l the LV ones i have (and have installed for others) are from Pegasus lighting and have been fine. And to top it all of the idiot PO used the zip cord from the pucks inside walls through a tile back-splash and put the lights on the countertop circuits with 120 V snap switches in the back-splash. At least one row of 3 lights had wire nuts on the zip-cord inside the wall. I need to go through from the other side of the wall to access the wring and pull a new branch circuit to fix this (already done on one section), two more to go.

I recently found a fluorescent puck light at Rockler Woodworking. Have no idea what kind of light it would give. They also have a xenon puck light. Environmentallights.com also have fluorescent puck lights. Of course, you could always fill up the hole with a puck light but not wire it, and use LED's instead. I was sorry to read about your near disaster, it could have been so much worse. Good luck in your search. Here is a link that might be useful: Fluorescent puck light - Rockler Woodworking