Under-cupboard kitchen lights - how to switch?

You can get wireless switches

Owain

In article , Biggles@flies_undone.com writes

Run them off a fused spur from a socket, then put a separate switch where you want it.

The idiots that fitted the kitchen in my house put a fused switched spur in the most inaccessible place they could find and didn't bother installing a separate switch, which meant reaching behind the microwave to switch the lights on and off.

I fitted a separate switch in a more accessible location, and put it on the underside of the cupboards so it is hidden (for neatness). Ran the cable behind the voids at the back of the wall cabinets.

If you've got a switch feeding the location and a live at the lighting end, you can split 1 feed into 2 by having switch 1 feed the cable via a diode one way, and switch 2 feed it via a diode the other way round. At the light ing end, use 2 relays with diodes to decode the logic.

NT

Bite the bullet and put the switch where you actually want it. Anything else will lead to regrets each time you use it.

A friend recently added plinth and cornice lighting to his kitchen. He already had pelmet lighting.

Power was available to all places -via different circuits- but there was no switching available. He used remote control sockets.

Agreed.

Depending on the size of the kitchen, several switches might be better so you needn't have all the lights on at once. Architrave switches are quite a lot more compact than 'normal' wall-plate ones.

I assume you'd prefer a two-gang switch and this is entirely possible without running extra cables to the switch. I have similar arrangements in several rooms (not kitchens), where one gang operates the main ceiling light (not often used) and the other gang operates table- and floor-standing lights.

The system I use is EasySwitch:

It's not cheap but it works well and looks perfect. I use LM EST1 Wall Switches connected to one of the two gangs. In one case it was a solid wall so I fitted a deeper back box for the transmitter, and in another case it was a studding wall so I dangled the transmitter in the cavity. For the receiver I used plug-in adapters but you could probably more neatly use the (unnecessarily weatherproof) wire-in units.

Yup.

If you're refitting the entire kitchen, how hard can it be to run one extra cable, really?

If your budget allows:

Colin Bignell

Very nice, but this is a fairly modest kitchen (and not mine!)

That's what my conscience is telling me but it means: emptying the room above, lifting the flooring, making holes in the floor, stripping-off plasterboard to get past the noggins (or making holes), etc. The alternative is to put a small switch under each of two cupboards!

An interesting idea, but if I was to go to the bother of lifting parts of the floor above to get to the switched live I may as well run a second cable - although it might reduce the work slightly.

That (and the TLC and other) is a nice system but the cost mounts up. This is a "modest" kitchen, and not mine.

end, you can split 1 feed into 2 by having switch 1 feed the cable via a di ode one way, and switch 2 feed it via a diode the other way round. At the l ighting end, use 2 relays with diodes to decode the logic.

Do you mean the 2 lighting points are far apart?

How about another simple option: Feed the lightswitch with 6v, and run enam elled copper wire from that to relays at the lighting points in 1-3mm deep grooves in the ceiling/wall cut with a knife. Smear filler over and Robert' s your relative.

NT

If it's under a cupboard, then surely they are very low wattage lights, so what I'd do is fit something that can be supplied with low-current flex with a miniature in-line switch, or a light fitting with build-in switch. This is what I used in my bedroom cupboard:

jgh