Positioning of kitchen downlighters

LED panel lights - and they can be more of a "designer type" rather than the type fitted in offices. Being a work area rather than a living area consider LEDs towards the blue/cold end of the colour temperature spectrum.

I'd have lights under the cupboards, but not strip lights. Makes a big difference.

I think the 500mm is about right. Make sure your GU10 bulbs have a 120deg beam angle rather than 36 deg to reduce shadows.

I have 10 spotlights on kitchen ceiling in a 2 x 5 config (room is 3.6m x 4.8m) and the two long walls have worktops and cupboard along them so the actual visible floor area is 4.8m x 2.4m.

Consider where people will be standing to prepare or cook food. Try to position lights to both their left and their right as their body will cast a shadow from any light directly behind them.

You want a light close to cupboard to light front half area of worktop and a 2nd light further back to then light the back half of the worktop

So thats how I ended up with 2 rows of 5 spotlights along the 4.8m length of the two parallel worktops and from both worktops, the first row is 60 cm from the cupboards and the 2nd row is 1.5m from teh cupboards.

(Its symetrical so the two light rows are also the same other worktop is also the same distances from the cupboards on other side of kitchen.)

However, I also added undercupboard lights as this makes food prepping life so much easier. I have LED lights under all cupboards and thats on a 2nd switch next to the switch to the main cveiling lights.

We have 4 of these round LED panels from TLC : GLCPL18CT

They look quite smart and inconspicuous, whilst providing shadow free light on all the work surfaces.

Not quite what you asked, but I thought I'd throw that out in case it helps.

Another +1 for undercupboard lights; mine are old mini fluorescent strip, daisy chained, but I have never had to replace one. I'd go for LED panel or strip when replacing.

Incidentally, you can now get white LED strip lighting that is self adhesive, see:

If your cupboards go all the way up to the ceiling like mine do, you

Often if there there is steel or plastic conduit to the wall switch, one can often push through some fish tape and then pull through a new switch cable and chang eteh face plate to a twin switch if you desire being able to control ceiling lights and undercupboard lights independently of each other.

Downlights are the pits. Use big LED panels. 4000K is neutral white. Don't get colder (bluer) ones. They are unpleasant and make food look weird.

I did my kitchen with 4000K panels 300mm x 1,200mm. Absolutely beautiful light quality.

Bill

Supermarkets use lighting to enhance the look of vegetables and meat. It's worth looking at what you put in your basket in another part of a supermarket to see what yo are actually buying.

Put lights under the cupboards. otherwise you are working at least in part in your shadow.

Why don't you want lights under the cupboards? A lot of the issue will depend on the sort of light you use. Many of my visually impaired friends find the very blue whites and the very warm whites difficult, The first is harsh and hurts the eyes, the second seems to make the light a bit noisy, ie like the things under it are granular. Something in between is needed. Not being in the seeing category any more I don't know what these are called these days. I'd have thought that as many lights from different angles as possible was the way to go to avoid shadows, but often that depends on the colours used on the surfaces. Brian

Only way to get decent lighting under cupboards is with lights under the cupboards. As it is impossible to beam light there from the ceiling. If everything is white and reflective, it might not be too bad. If you're easily pleased.

Fine if you like it to look like a commercial building.

The equivalent of having a couple of florries in the old days.

Not necessarily. A low profile rectangular panel on a flat light coloured ceiling really doesn't look out of place. If you also have square (false) ceiling tiles then it may look like a commercial premises.

IMO any flat LED panel looks a lot better than a maxtrix of many individual downlighters.

However, I also consider a butler sink in modern kitchen looks completely naff ;)

Even modern LED tube fitments tend to be a lot slimmer and better looking that of yesteryear. No need for reflectors as led light is not directed upwards.

Not to me. Flat panels look like the sort of commercial lighting you get in offices, etc.

"We have 4 of these round LED panels from TLC : GLCPL18CT" How are you finding the reliability of those? I installed 12 less than a year ago, and already 3 have failed..

We have had 4 of that size plus 10 of a smaller size for several years without any failures.

It is, of course, possible that build quality has dropped.