RGB LED kitchen lighting help

[Lindsayb]

Hi

I'm about to refit my kitchen and am looking in to some lighting for it. At the moment I quite fancy fitting colour changing RGB LED tape both under the wall units and around the plinth. I'd like this to all be run from one remote control (something like ) but I am not sure how it will all need to be connected together to achieve what I am after.

At plinth level, there will be a run of just under 3 metres, then a gap of 90cm (range cooker) then a further run of about 2m. For the wall cabinets it's roughly 80cm, then a big gap (2 metres ish - window) then a 60cm unit, 90cm gap (extractor) then another 2m run of units. Basically a U shaped kitchen with a window in the first leg and a big cooker and hood in the middle bit.

Can anyone help with advising me what I need to buy in order to make this work? It will be fitted by a pro but I am getting a bit lost with the various connectors, receivers, controllers, transformers and power supplies so am struggling to work out of it will even be affordable! Also any recommendations of the best place to order from?

Oh, one last question....is it possible/safe to fit this to the underside of the extractor so I have the same coloured lighting over the cooker? I would probably still need a gap in the LEDs as the bottom of the extractor will be higher than the bottom of the surrounding cupboards.

Thanks in advance

 

[bernardgreen]

Kitchen or disco.

Food lit by green light looks ghastly,

The kitchen is a work place and needs the lightning necessary to make it a safe working place.

 

[Lindsayb]

It won't actually be green very often - more likely purple, pink or blue!

This isn't the only lighting - there will be proper ceiling lights too. But the kitchen will be visible through a glass door from our lounge so we thought it would look nice in the evenings when it isn't being used for more than grabbing a glass of water.

 

[333rocky333]

Usually it all plugs together with made up small plugs and leads you buy seperate, these are ready made in various lenghts, to suit the gaps you need to make one complete run, or just used as joiners , you also get small plug in joiners for closer joints if needs to be all linked as one, this is to enable the colours of all sections to be in sync or it will look rubbish.

you need to work out the total length of led lighting, inoring the gaps to know the load.

This load dictates size of the transformer/driver to be fitted at start of the run, they usually plug in so you may need a mains socket nearby
.
You will also need the colour control receiver between the driver and the first led strip to handle the same assessed load.

You can also get T connectors if its more convenient to power the Led's from a midway point rather than the end

The remote control signals to that receiver and you can have the colors changing or lock on to any colour between the RGB spectrum.

Ignore the others i leave mine on one color at night and they look

 

[333rocky333]

Its cheaper to get off hong kong ebay,
Dump the crap mains power supply they supply and buy a UK equivalent from RS maplins or similar

Google SMD 5050 led strip lighting
I think the waterproof version is better personally

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/1M-2M-3M-...tem2ec2b75393&clk_rvr_id=412353468448&afsrc=1

 

[Lindsayb]

Thank you, that is really helpful. And massively cheaper than it seems to be locally so worth the extra hassle of getting it shipped!

Given that I need basically 10m worth and I have the big range in the middle anyway, am I easier to just do this as two 5m sections? From looking online I think that in addition to the type of set you showed there I just need to get a bunch of snap connectors for the breaks (plus some appropriate wire to extend these) in the run of LEDs, and obtain a different power supply (well, 2, one for each run) - is that correct or am I miles off?

Do you know if it is possible to get both runs responding to one remote or is this likely to just be a pain and easier to put up with two?

Thanks for all the help. Due to timescales if I am going to order stuff online I need to do it pretty quickly - if I wait and speak to the electrician fitting it I will probably end up paying through the nose to source locally!

 

[Lindsayb]

Sorry I somehow missed your first post! Thanks!

 

[333rocky333]

Look on uk ebay first though as nowadays you may get the uk power supply you need.
I got mine from hong kong, free postage when it first came out and rare in the uk, so got a horrid plug adaptor and the power supply was not CE approved
Most is made in hong kong anyway so the strip is usually the same as what you get here but you can cut out the middle man.
You get the tape and leads made up all with female sockets and as you say you plug them in using them male pin connectors, if you cut the tape it then that has to be an end as you cannot easily fit a socket yourself
Same as you cant really make the link leads yourself

All remotes are same so if you position the antenna on the receivers close it would pick up from 1 remote pointed same direction, though some controllers can do 10 metre depending on how many led