Kitchen Led project advice (DIY)

[Carloss]

Hi all
New to the forum and wanted to some advice for a project, although I’m not an electrician I’d consider myself able to do some handy work.

Im wanting to put some led lighting under my kitchen wall hung units, I have 3 sections of units that I will putting the lighting on, I will be taking the power from a double socket into a fcu with a 5amp fuse and then to a dimmer switch, from there I will take the power to my led driver, with all this part I’m more than happy with what I’m doing and competent. My question is how should I join the 3 separate sections of the led strip to the driver as I’ve had some conflicting advice and wanted some clarity the manual does say wire them in parallel. The driver I’ve got is a constant voltage driver, I’ve uploaded some pictures of the led strip and driver and a little diagram(sorry I’m no Picasso) of how I was planning to do it with either the top drawing or bottom drawing, also I was going to use just one driver but I’ve been told to use two drivers any advice and constructive criticism welcomed.

 

[PaulDay]

Hi all
New to the forum and wanted to some advice for a project, although I’m not an electrician I’d consider myself able to do some handy work.

Im wanting to put some led lighting under my kitchen wall hung units, I have 3 sections of units that I will putting the lighting on, I will be taking the power from a double socket into a fcu with a 5amp fuse and then to a dimmer switch, from there I will take the power to my led driver, with all this part I’m more than happy with what I’m doing and competent. My question is how should I join the 3 separate sections of the led strip to the driver as I’ve had some conflicting advice and wanted some clarity the manual does say wire them in parallel. The driver I’ve got is a constant voltage driver, I’ve uploaded some pictures of the led strip and driver and a little diagram(sorry I’m no Picasso) of how I was planning to do it with either the top drawing or bottom drawing, also I was going to use just one driver but I’ve been told to use two drivers any advice and constructive criticism welcomed.

Just did something similar. In the pic with the drawing, the right side is the way to go. Wire leads should be all the same length for all runs.

I'm running two parallel runs, each containing three sections in series. One for under the upper cabinets and one for under the lower cabinets above the kickboards. Each parallel run is less then ten feet in length.

The LEDs will burnout if not mounted on something to adsorb the heat that they generate. My first set lasted about two years with daily use before starting to dim. They were sticky mounted directly to the underside of wooden cabinets. I replaced them and mounted the new LEDs to aluminum channel that has a frosted cover.

Love the clean look with the covers.

In the MB, I have LED mood lighting installed under the raised bed, lighting the Captain's drawers. I applied 2" wide foil tape to the wood frame first and then mounted the LEDs to that to help adsorb the heat from the LEDs. Two years and they still look new and bright.

Good luck.

Have a good day.

 

[Avo Mk8]

As above, your top drawing (nearest the spine of your notebook), is correct for a constant voltage supply.
I make the total power required by your three lengths of led strip about 55 watts, so well within the rating of the single driver you show. You don't need two drivers.

 

[Carloss]

Just did something similar. In the pic with the drawing, the right side is the way to go. Wire leads should be all the same length for all runs.

hi Paul
Thanks for the advice, yer I’ve got some shallow aluminium profiles I’ll be mounting them in, it’s not clear in the picture but the cable going to the strips would be about the same length for the 2 sections about 1.5metres but the other section would be closer to 3metres, I can’t really make them the same length based on where the driver is going to be fixed, unless I just leave load of slack on the other 2 which won’t be ideal.

 

[PaulDay]

I took a few pics of my kitchen LED project. Believe it or not, these pics were taken with the LEDs at half brightness.

6500K for the upper and 3700K for the bottom LEDs.

Have a good day.

 

[PaulDay]

hi Paul
Thanks for the advice, yer I’ve got some shallow aluminium profiles I’ll be mounting them in, it’s not clear in the picture but the cable going to the strips would be about the same length for the 2 sections about 1.5metres but the other section would be closer to 3metres, I can’t really make them the same length based on where the driver is going to be fixed, unless I just leave load of slack on the other 2 which won’t be ideal.

My understanding is the having leads different lengths can cause a variance in brightness. I would try and see if extra wire lead can be bundled and hidden. I have a feeling that the 3 meter run may be a bit dimmer then the other two.

Have a good day.

 

[Avo Mk8]

My understanding is the having leads different lengths can cause a variance in brightness. I would try and see if extra wire lead can be bundled and hidden. I have a feeling that the 3 meter run may be a bit dimmer then the other two.

Have a good day.

An issue here is that each of the three sections of strip are different lengths, and draw different currents, so you would need even longer lengths than 3m for the other strips to equalise brightness differences.
I took the view that it's better to use a decent rated flex or cable. If 1mm csa then you would have only about 0.2v drop in the 3 m cable, (under 1% of the supply voltage) which I don't think you would notice.
I guess you might get away with 0.75mm.
I would lash it up and see if there is any obvious difference in brightness before final Installation.

 

[Carloss]

An issue here is that each of the three sections of strip are different lengths, and draw different currents, so you would need even longer lengths than 3m for the other strips to equalise brightness differences.
I took the view that it's better to use a decent rated flex or cable. If 1mm csa then you would have only about 0.2v drop in the 3 m cable, (under 1% of the supply voltage) which I don't think you would notice.
I guess you might get away with 0.75mm.
I would lash it up and see if there is any obvious difference in brightness before final Installation.

I was going to use 0.75, but I will go with the 1mm if it means I can keep the cables the way I originally intended.
this why I wanted to ask the question in the first place as I was told the better option would be to link another identical driver for the section which has a 3m cable which I think would be overkill for my design. Appreciate the advice