DIY under-cabinet LED lighting

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By Matt Richardson
Posted 2011/02/05 @ 6:00 am
Category Electronics

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!

BY Matt Richardson

Matt Richardson is a Brooklyn-based creative technologist, contributing editor for MAKE magazine, and co-author of Getting Started with Raspberry Pi. He's also the owner of Awesome Button Studios, a technology consultancy. Highlights from his work include the Descriptive Camera (a camera which outputs a text description instead of a photo) and The Enough Already (a DIY celebrity-silencing device). Matt's work has been featured at The Nevada Museum of Art, The Rome International Photography Festival, Milan Design Week and has garnered attention from The New York Times, Wired, and New York Magazine.

mattrichardson.com

In the Maker Shed

10 Responses to DIY under-cabinet LED lighting

pete rip on February 5th, 2011 at 8:22 pm said:

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.

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- Matt Richardson on February 5th, 2011 at 8:30 pm said:
  
  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.
  
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- Matt Richardson on February 5th, 2011 at 8:30 pm said:
  
  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.
  
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- Matt Richardson on February 5th, 2011 at 8:30 pm said:
  
  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.
  
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- Anonymous on February 7th, 2011 at 7:08 pm said:
  
  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.
  
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income tax calculator guy on February 5th, 2011 at 9:04 pm said:

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

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Carla Adler on February 24th, 2011 at 12:56 pm said:

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

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Denise Hamm on May 15th, 2011 at 3:23 pm said:

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

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Electricity Birmingham on August 8th, 2011 at 8:17 am said:

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

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justin wood on February 21st, 2012 at 11:57 am said:

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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