Kitchen plinth LED lights mediacenterhouse.com

I used to have LED spots in the kitchen plinths but after buying 2 different sets from Ebay and B Q and them both failing, I seeked out a new way of getting that bling in my kitchen. Plus I ve just had cream ceramic tiles laid throughout the whole ground floor so was after something with a bit more kick. As it was before

So from a recommendation off the internet, I bought a 5m reel of LEDs off a Chinese seller on ebay and requested another 2m so that I had a 7m run long enough to go around my kitchen. The total price for the 7m reel and an RF wireless controller was ?120. They can display 6 static colours (White, Red, Green, Yellow, Blue, Purple) or colour change between those in a very smooth way. If you look at the refelction of the individual LEDs in the floor (too bright to stare dirrectly at), you can see the RGB elements gradually fading in sequence so as to give a smooth colour change.

The colour setting and speed of colour change is controlled by a natty little controller.

The strip comes with a 3M adhesive backing which although good, is not practical if you need to remove the lights at anytime due to maintenance or changing a cupboard, so the first hurdle was working out how to attach them. For this I bought some timber beading with the intention of screwing this to the underneath of the cupboards.

The LED reel has cut marks every 30cm with the neccessary solder points as well; the 4 contacts just need connecting up with the same contacts on the next run.

So with the LED reel cut to lengths and stuck to the beading, I screwed them under the cupboards. The beading only needed a few screws per length.

The corners and connections were done by soldering short lengths of wire to the ends of each run (I used some leftover speaker wire) and connecting the wires together with small 3A connector blocks which hide behind the plinths. Soldering them was very easy; they have insulating grease between the contacts stoppping any excess solder from shorting them.

And on one external corner I had to use some electrical tape to keep the wires from hanging down.

And the top corners of the plinths needed some of their corners removing so there was room for the connecting wires to pass behind.

And at the start of the whole 7m run lives the wireless controller, which takes it power from a lead run under the cupboards.

And once all wired up it s ready for lights on