under cabinet light fluorescent or LED? Suggestion pls!!
cooking_MaMa
12 years ago
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drainbead
12 years agotubeman
12 years agoRelated Discussions
LED under cabinet lighting
Comments (9)I just installed the LED strip lights under our cabinets as well as using them for up lights. I used the tape variety. They come in two versions the low intensity and high intensity. I used the warm white high intensity, which is not as warm as a regular bulb, but not as ugly as cool white and nothing beats a good old fashioned incandescent bulb. LED's also come in a packaged unit (this looks just like the fluorescent styles) that has all the parts need to run them off of line voltage 120v. The one thing I did not like about those was they had switches built into them which you could use to dim them as well. I just wanted lights all the time. You can dim LED's as long as you use the correct driver and electronic dimmer switch. They are more money for both, and it depends on how many LEDs you are going to use will dictate the driver used. The dimmer switch could also decrease the output (have an on going issue with this on a chandelier that has xenon lights that are dimable). Also the switch cost me $140.00. After getting quotes of over $1000 for the electrical contractor to install, I did it myself for about $300. Luckily I know how to run the wire myself and do the electrical hook up. I had the electrician use a switch to power up an outlet which was over my upper cabinets. We have 9' cabinets and much higher walls so this was not an issue. It can be if you need to use up cabinet space to install the driver/s and wiring. As for glare with under cabinet lights, all lights will add some glare to a point. I found going to a cabinet display store and looked at what they had helped a bit. There are three main types of under cabinet lights. LED, Fluorescent, and halogen other wise called rope lights. Halogen runs the hottest of the three and draws more power. I also do not like the look of fluorescent bulbs. All light creates a glare on the surface of the counter when you walk up to them. For example since I have a polished counter top when you walk up to the counter and look into it you can see the strip lights in the reflection. You will get this with any lights you use. Unless you have honed counters. As for changing the look of the counter I would recommend you try and hold up different types of bulbs to your counter and see what you think. Most light should not change the color of your granite, but stranger things have happened. We have white quartzite counters so are less likely to see a change in color. We have all of the unders on one switch, but then again we only needed about 5' of lighting. Not much upper cabinets here. With just the unders on we have more than enough light to be task and it works for ambiance as well. If we really want it bright we turn everything on, recessed, pendants and unders. Fluorescents are now dimmable but it would cost more just like the LEDs to do this. As for cost you would have to add up the wattage of all the bulbs to see. The LED strips use 2.6 watts for each 12" strip. I have 7' of them being used, this adds up to 18.20 watts. That is about the middle of the fluorescent bulbs for one. Since we are in CA we had to use fluorescent recessed as well. we have 9 cans and each one has a 26 watt bulb in them. When they turn on we are using 234 watts for those. Best way to see how much power you might use is to add up all the light wattage and see. Power is based upon kilowatt hours, which is a 1000 watts. Hopefully this helps a bit....See Morehard-wired / self driven led under cabinet lights (ucls)
Comments (1)There are a couple of 120V options. Following are descriptions of 2 options The first is Powercore from Philips http://www.colorkinetics.com/ls/essentialwhite/ewprofilep/ http://www.westsidewholesale.com/20-120v-led-strip-undercabinet-light-fixture-white.html You may find the following discussion useful although it is focused on 24v DC. Here is a link that might be useful: LED UCL DIY...See Morelighting in kitchen? fluorescent, halogen, or LED
Comments (9)"we haven't sold one fluorescent fixture in over 4 years ..." Well, sure. Stores sell what they push. If you don't suggest that customers buy a product, most won't. (I'm the exception, as I usually know what I want long before I step into a store. :) "the difference between low voltage halogen and fluorescent in terms of energy use and life is nothing close to what the numbers claim." As the old saw goes, the plural of anecdote is not data. If you have your lights dimmed most of the time, you've probably chosen the wrong light. Curiously, low light output is one of the places where low voltage incandescents "shine" (sorry). For a given wattage, the filament is thicker for better life and durability. Compared to line voltage incandescents, they can run hotter (and whiter) for better efficiency at low light output. But that's when they're run at normal voltage. You lose that advantage when you dim them. As you dim any incandescent lamp, its efficacy in lumens per watt, already overall the lowest of modern lighting systems, becomes even lower. This is a natural consequence of the lower filament temperature. In other words, your energy use is low because you aren't producing much light, not because your lights are efficient. So you could use even less energy if you'd use even lower voltage lights running flat-out - assuming you could find such lights. (Practically speaking, this is where LEDs come in.) BTW, a dimmed halogen lamp also loses one of its other great advantages over a conventional incandescent - maintaining light output over the full life of the lamp. That's because the chemical reaction that keeps tungsten boiled off the filament from deposting on the lamp envelope doesn't run at the lower temperatures of a dimmed lamp. "most fluorescents can't dim..." There are some retrofit dimmable CFs that dim rather nicely. I'll admit that they don't dim as low as many people would like, however. "Mercury is one of the biggest contaminants in land fills." I don't doubt that it could be a concern, but I'd like to see your source for this statement. Here's what counts, folks. When you use a fluorescent lamp, you are releasing LESS mercury into the world. Period. Most people state that and let it go, but here are the hard numbers. The amount of mercury in fluorescent lamps has gotten drastically smaller in the last couple of decades. A typical compact fluorescent lamp has only about 5mg. There are even some full-size linear fluorescent lamps (Philips Alto range, for example) that contain so little mercury - less than 3.6mg per 32 watt F32T8 lamp - that the EPA has actually approved disposing of them in regular trash, though I still recommend taking them to a household hazardous waste (HHW) disposal site (and do this myself). Now, a coal fired powerplant will emit about 3.5mg of mercury powering a 20W CF for its lifetime, taking that as 7500h (a rough average). If you chuck the CF in the trash, you've just released 8.5mg of mercury into the environment. If you take it to the HHW center and they recycle the mercury, you've released only 3.5mg. Now let's say you use a 75W incandescent bulb instead. Since it lasts an average of 750h you'll need 10 of them to the one CF. This uses more landfill space and more raw materials, but we'll neglect that for now. The salient point here is that although those 10 bulbs contain no mercury, the powerplant emits 13mg of mercury powering them. And there's not a thing you can do about it. You can't haul any of that mercury to your local HHW center. So, here's the bottom line. Using an incandescent bulb releases at least 53% more mercury into the environment than using a CF, and that's if you junk the CF in a landfill. If you use a CF and dispose of it properly at a HHW disposal center, the mercury released is only 3.5mg. In that case, using the incandescent bulb releases 270% more mercury, or 3.7 times as much. "Again, this boils down to personal preference." Absolutely. Choice is good. Informed choice is better. That's why I take the time to write this stuff. :)...See MoreUnder cabinet fluorescent lights - Need advice
Comments (6)I chose halogen. They do get hot, but it doesn't bother me. I will probably use more discretion with them in the hotter summer months though.(but I'll have better natural light at that time as well) I don't regard the heat as a deal breaker, because I also change the way I cook in the summer due to the heat--less oven, more outdoors, etc. I don't see a real difference in the same accomodations for lighting. I chose Progress Lighting Counterbrite fixtures because I liked the look. I have some high cabinets above the peninsula and this was one of the few designs I thought I could live with "exposed" to view. I like the quality of the light, and each one covers a lot of area--roughly 36" each--plus they have two light settings (dim, full and off)so I have each one set for its specific location and then all tied in to a wall switch. Each has a switch I can flip if I change my mind about how any of them are set. Here is a link that might be useful: Progress Lighting Counterbrite...See More
Bunny
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12 years agoBunny
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12 years ago
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12 years ago
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