Here are the pics of what my electrician mocked up.

i plan on putting mine towards the front of the cabinet, right behind the light rail. that way it won't be seen. also, most of the light will be in the center of counters instead of the backsplash.

Ours were too close to the trim in the front and I had shadows. Sparky moved them back about an inch or 2 and they are perfect.

We had ours wired up and then we held it in a few spots to see where we liked it. Like A2G, we ended up about 1.5 inches back from the front trim.

Is the direction I have it mounted look right? Should the light face forward?

My recommendations with LED strip lighting: mount it to the back of the light rail's vertical portion and point it toward the back splash. LED light is highly directional, not omnidirectional, so it will have at most about a 60 degree dispersion. Aiming the light toward the back splash will give you indirect reflected/diffused light off the splash and off the bottom of the cabinets. This will give you the most even light with less glare and shadowing.

GWlolo, your lights are great the way they are. Some down lighting, some aimed toward the splash. That's how it's supposed to be. If you reversed the orientation, your light would be brighter but less even, with more glare and shadowing.

The lighter your splash, counter, and cabinet bottom color, the more task lighting you will get.

I pretty much use Hafele on my jobs- light spread for them is 120 degrees. Still LED's are a bit more directional than others. Typically we mount them to a block that is beveled 30-45 degrees, or use the angled channel that Hafele offers which is maybe 10 degrees.

I tried it last night in the dark and David is right. The dispersion is perfect as is. But oh boy! these babies put out a lot of light. I was also glad to see that the light was quite warm not bluish at all. But I am glad that they are dimmable :)

I saw a kitchen where the underside of the uppers were routed out in the center of the bottom to fit some sort of undercounter lighting. I don't know what the lighting was or how it was wired. I did not see wires anywhere. I am going to see if I can get ahold of the people who have the kitchen and ask them what they used. I just remember thinking it was such a clean look and fully integrated into the cabinet.

I am on my computer, so can show pictures. Also - take a look at 2LittleFishies - she used a different style light and hers are right at the front.

Now you see the lights(from underneath - also can see the plug mold)

A2gemini, where did you get your plug mold and light strip? Are they both direct wired? LED lights?

Thanks,
Patti

Hope not too much of a hijack
The lights are GMLarc LED dimmable -so yes they are hard wired.
They did require a transformer. They are 3K
purchased at a locally owned lighting store.

The plug mold came from Sparky aka electrician. They are standard GFCI strips and GC built a 45+/- strip to mount them. I didn't like the industrial look of the angle plug mold that I saw. My only regret - I left a couple plugs in the backsplash.

I will start a new thread when back at the ranch on more specifics if you or others are interested

Yes, please!

Hang on, you are saying I should point the LEDs towards the backsplash? Really? And this is in part to avoid the reflection of the lights on the counter? If my backsplash is glass subway tile, won't I instead just get the reflection on the backsplash?

davidahn, you are also saying to vary the direction? Some pointed down, some towards the backsplash? How would I do that? Cut the LED strip into little bits and vary it?

And how would this affect other things mounted under the cabinets such as CD player, paper towel holder and cookbook holder? I thought I could still do those things with LED lights since they are so skinny.

GWlolo - I would test your position before putting them everywhere. I think you are fine with the your lights

Oliver - it depends on the style of lights - I could put a CD or paper towel holder without a problem. Some styles would leave shadows.

Oliver,

We tested that question with our setup. With the light pointed at the backsplash it was brilliant indeed, but the tradeoff was less light on the front edge of the countertop which is right where you are standing. So for us it was a clear choice to position the light more toward the front and aim it straight down. The backsplash is still radiant, but the countertop gets the lion's share of the light. I think the angle of the light beam from our LED bars is something like 110 degrees.

Hope that helps.

@Olivertwist, I recommend rear-facing LEDs to avoid hot spotting and glare. If you have 110-120 degree LEDs, downward facing is just fine. I was not suggesting varying the angles. I think if you have glare-prone backsplash material or glass tile which I imagine would give you all manner of odd reflections and even sharper glare, I would recommend working hard to source wide dispersion LEDs or LEDs in housings with diffusers like GWlolo's.

LEDs in either orientation should not affect other under-counter items unless they're in the path of the light. And with pure strip LEDs without housings, you can certainly rout out a 1/2-5/8" x 3/8" groove in the bottom of the cabinet and bury the strip light in it. For a cleaner look, you should put a frosted plexiglass strip over it; that'll look pretty snazzy.