Model Railroading > Under Cabinet Lighting

I was browsing through the under cabinet lighting at the local home improvement store. These light fixtures are meant to be mounted under the kitchen cabinets to light up the counter top. Most of these fixtures use LED lighting. Also most of these light fixture are not that expensive. It seemed to me that these LED under cabinet fixtures might be a good for use in a lighting valence on the layout. Have any of you tried out this idea? If so, how did it work out for you? 

Bob Perkins
 

My local train club recently installed several 12" LED "under cabinet" fixtures to address (dim) spots around the lower level of the layout. The lower level of the 20x70' mushroom designed layout already has long (near continuous) rows of 3' & 4' 4100K florescent fixtures. Over time many felt there were still a few spots and odd angles that could benefit with just a little more light. 

A few photos of the installed lights and some before/after a to share...
 

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On Amazon, UltraPro sells a comprehensive line of LED fixtures from 12" up to 48". They come with the ability to adjust the white balance to 2700K, 4000K, or 5000K. We wanted something very close if not matching our existing color temp lighting.
 

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The six 12" fixtures were mounted and hardwired right into the existing layout lighting. Couple hours work for the two of us that were around and able to crane our bodies up and in there to install the fixtures. Sure was a heck of a lot easier to install the original lighting before there was a second level up above.

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Rope lighting is another idea. They also are LED. Home Depot carries them. works well against the inside of the fascia panel. 

We have tape lighting under our kitchen cabinets that looks great. I think it would work on a layout better than the old puck lights I put under our old cabinets. Those creates a spotlight effect where the tape is continuous. But haven’t tried it on a layout yet.

Nathan

Posted from iPhone

When I added an upper deck to my layout, I tried several types of lighting to light the lower levels.  I've had good success using 3000K LED tape lights available from Amazon.  The adhesive backed lights run on 12VDC power.  If interested, search for Kinglux LED strips IP62 warm white 3000K super bright, DC 12 volt SMS3528.  They worked out so well I replaced our kitchen under cabinet lights with them.  The only negative is the reflectiion of the individual LED light sources on the rails.

Dennis



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 04/19/21 20:06 by CNW.

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I like how that large brick building disguses the corner in that part of the layout!

CNW Wrote:
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> When I added an upper deck to my layout, I tried
> several types of lighting to light the lower
> levels.  I've had good success using 3000K LED
> tape lights available from Amazon.  The adhesive
> backed lights run on 12VDC power.  If interested,
> search for Kinglux LED strips IP62 warm white
> 3000K super bright, DC 12 volt SMS3528.  They
> worked out so well I replaced our kitchen under
> cabinet lights with them.  The only negative is
> the reflectiion of the individual LED light
> sources on the rails.
>
> Dennis

Looks great Dennis, that looks like the stuff they used in our kitchen.  You could probably put some time of diffuser in front of the lights to get rid of the glare on the rails, but that might not be worth the effort.

Nathan