Lighting up the lower cabinet

[BlackTip]

What did you guys use for lighting the cabinet?

I need to install light in my 96" cabinet and I don't want to spend hours at HomeDepot to find parts that fits together.

Do you use LED, flood lights, neon, anything else?

 

[EvenFurther]

There's many plug n play kits on Amazon and Ebay. Search for "under cabinet lights" or "under cabinet led". I have a kit installed in my kitchen and its been going great for 4+ years. All I had to modify was the length of one wire.

 

[ryeguyy84]

my stand is only 24X24X?. I light mine with my refugium light that I wired to a switch on my apex. when I open the door the light comes on.

My fuge light is a home depot. Maybe you could get away with 2 of them? won't be fancy but it'll work.

http://www.homedepot.com/p/HDX-150-Watt-Incandescent-Clamp-Light-HD-300PDQ/205031467?N=5yc1vZbm8p

 

[perkint]

I made one with a couple of cree XTEs, small heat sinks, cabinet switch and a meanwell APC 16 350

Could probably have bought one cheaper, but where's the fun in that?

Tim

 

[rgulrich]

I used a couple Ultra Bright LED strips from these folks for not only under the cabinet of my 300 (used warm white in there), but also for undercabinet task lighting in the kitchen (cool white there).
www.inspiredled.com
Heavy duty glue sticky backing, stick'em up, plug'em in, and if you want you can install a switch within reach (they sell those too) or even a dimmer. Prices aren't bad at all, and the lighting is extremely bright (with the Ultra Bright strips).
If you have questions, give them a call and they'll happily walk you through it. They're out in AZ, and also have a live chat feature on their site.

Hope this helps,
Ray

 

[DreamLand]

Bought a reel of LEDs from eBay and cut and wires them up.

 

[Tommy_13]

24 inch white led strip from Home Depot. Lights up my 48 inch stand, no problem.

 

[Toddrtrex]

Picked up some under cabinet LED lights from Home Depot, work great. One day I will hook them up to turn on when I open the stand door.

(( weren't fully mounted yet, the wire isn't hanging in the way any more ))

Adds the perfect amount of light, very happy with it.

 

[sleepydoc]

What did you guys use for lighting the cabinet?

I need to install light in my 96" cabinet and I don't want to spend hours at HomeDepot to find parts that fits together.

Do you use LED, flood lights, neon, anything else?

As you can see by the responses, there are many options. First, what do you want/need to do? Are you lighting a fuge to grow chaeto, or do you just need some light to see what you're doing when doing maintenance? If it's the latter, pretty much any light will do; it's a matter of what kind of light you want or like, how much light you need, etc.

As people have noted above, it's nice to have a switch on the doors controlling the lights so they turn on when you open the doors and off when you close them. This can both save electricity as well as minimize unwanted algae growth in your sump. You can easily wire a switch in a convenient place as well to turn them on or off manually.

If you're looking for something to grow a macro algae, Rapid LED and build my LED sell refugium light kits. Many people also use CFL bulbs with a reflector like ryeguyy84 linked to.

Personally, I like strip LEDs. I got these from Home Depot for a book case; They stick right to the surface and have a nice quality light that's evenly distributed. There are certainly plenty of other options, though.

 

[billdogg]

I bought a cheap battery operated LED that has a magnetic base. Gives me plenty of light to see what I need to see. I think it cost me $10.