Organization of LED lighting of the kitchen working area

The organization of lighting using LED-devices allows not only to save on paying electricity bills, but also to solve a number of other problems that cannot be solved by traditional methods. This article will discuss how to make your own LED illumination of the working area in the kitchen.

The number of household appliances in every home today is very large. TVs, microwaves, washing machines, irons, and electric kettles all add up to huge electricity bills. One way to save on electricity is to cut down on their number. However, how to imagine life, for example, without a TV. It turns out that this option is far from the best, or even generally unacceptable, but it is quite possible to reduce electricity consumption by using energy-saving technologies for lighting. Recently, LED technologies have been gaining popularity – lighting devices based on LEDs. Compared to traditional incandescent lamps, LEDs consume about ten times less electricity with the same light output. In one of the articles “Master class on the manufacture of LED chandeliers” we talked about one of the options for using LEDs in household lighting devices. This article will discuss the organization of LED lighting of the kitchen working area.

We have a standard kitchen with an installed set. Initially, the illumination of the working area is not provided.

Any standard solution, in addition to its economic impracticality, is also quite cumbersome, since any lamps, including fluorescent ones, have tangible dimensions. Accordingly, the organization of lighting with their use either requires the manufacture of some kind of boxes, where the lamps themselves will hide, or, when installing lamps inside the cabinets, reduces the useful volume of the shelves. LED strips do not have these problems, since they are practically flat. In addition, the LEDs on the tape are evenly distributed along the entire length, so LED lighting is completely even, without pronounced dark and overexposed areas..

Required materials and tools

1. It is clear that LED strip will be the main material for backlight production. It is sold by meters, and it should be bought completely for the entire length of the illuminated area. Since it is precisely the backlight that is organized, which is not the task of illuminating the entire room, then you should buy a tape with a power of no more than 5 W / m. Such a tape costs about 60 rubles / m. Where it will be necessary to wash surfaces with tape attached, it makes sense to use waterproof options. Their price is about 130 rubles / m.

2. Power supply 12 W. The power should be more than enough to power the LED strip of the required length. The price for a similar power supply unit is about 300 rubles.

3. Flexible two-core wire with a cross-section of 0.75 mm².

4. Switch or tumbler.

5. Wiring brackets or cable channel with a section of 10×10 mm.

6. Heat shrink tubing or electrical tape.

7. Soldering iron with solder.

Making LED lighting

1. Prepare the surfaces on which we will place the ribbons. To do this, we degrease them, for example, with alcohol..

2. Cut the tape to the desired length. Can be cut into any pieces you like. You need to cut as shown in the photo.

3. We serve the ends of the wires and contacts on the tape.

Solder RGB pins together, this will be a negative contact. Second, positive, we leave it as it is.

4. We solder the wires.

5. Insulate with heat shrink tubing or electrical tape.

6. Prepare all other tapes in the same way..

7. Glue tapes to the surface of the cabinets.

8. Making holes for wires.

9. We stretch the wires inside the cabinets. We fix with wiring brackets or we fix the cable channels along the back wall and lay the wires in them.

10. We bring the wires to the place where the power supply is installed, for example, in the cabinet above the hood. We connect all the wires in parallel, not forgetting about the polarity – plus to plus, minus to minus. We connect the resulting connections to the twelve-volt output of the power supply.

11. Install the switch in a convenient place for you. In our case, this is a toggle switch on the side surface of the hood. We make a hole for the toggle switch, stretch the wires so that when turned on, we provide the power supply with electricity.

12. Install the toggle switch on the hood.

13. It remains to connect the supply wire to the power source and the backlight is ready.

Using various LED strips, for example, changing color, you can not only illuminate the kitchen work area, but also decorate it with lighting of the desired color. This will be especially true in large kitchens, where you can highlight separate areas with different colors..