LED Tape lighting

[John Miller]

I'm considering installing some under cabinet lighting in my daughter's new house. It's an study room so the cabinets have no pelmet and to make it less obtrusive, I'm considering fitting LED tape inside aluminium profile but I've not used this stuff before. I want to incorporate a switch which ideally would be placed within the profile at the end of the tape but I can't find anything to do this other than a strange looking sensor which is activated by waving at it. I'd prefer a proper rocker switch. Is such a thing available and if so, could you point me in the right direction? Tried lots of Googling but nothing has turned up so far. John M

[Archibald Tarquin Blenkinsopp]

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Shouldn't have a problem. Personally I would go directly to Ebay and rocker switches are small and neat, but for something hidden from sight I would probably go for a roun bodied latching pushbutton switch.

You didn't Google "light switch" did you?

AB

[Adrian Brentnall]

I use led tapes in ali extrusions to back-light stained-glass panels - I tend to use these people

The ali can be cut to length and has a diffuser strip fitted into the extrusion. The ali also acts as a heatsink. The 'cut to length' idea is quite flexible, and low-profile when installed.

I found a few years ago that all led tapes are not created equal - and some 'no-name' eBay cheapies don't last very long - so it's worth buying something a bit more expensive..

As to switching, this stockist doesn't do any kind of 'built-in' switch

- the tapes are all 12v, and you'd really want to be switching the mains into the power supply, rather than the 12v out of it...

I dealt in the past with these people

- they do a 'light-bar' system that's ridiculously cheap at the moment - and is a modular set-up that you simply plug together. I fell out with them after they supplied me some LED candle-bulbes (not cheapies!) that tended to fail if you switched a fluorescent tubes on/off in the vicinity. Their solution was 'Don't use these bulbs if you have fluorescent tubes installed'.... at which I rather lost faith in them!

[John Miller]

Perhaps I didn't explain myself properly. LED tape lighting has been around for some time and I know that solderless connecting leads are available. Given that many people want a switch directly on the lamp, I thought that by now somebody might have produced a connector like that which incorporates a switch - doesn't seem to be too much of a leap to do that. Apparently no such thing is available which seems odd. There are lots of other switches around - I just wanted something that would integrate with the aluminium profile.

[tabbypurr]

Nah, people want handwavey things now. Make a pretentious gesture and off it goes. Never mind the high rate of false positives & false negatives, they just want it to appear hi-tech.

NT