Chris Green wrote:

We have a dozen or so linked 'slimline' under cabinet fluorescent
lights that I installed many moons ago when I fitted out our kitchen.

They are beginning to show their age and I think they should be
replaced with LED ones. As they don't have external starters I
assume I will need to replace the whole thing as LED 'tubes' won't
work in the existing units given that they have electronic starters
that can't be accessed.

Does anyone have any particular recommendations or 'gotchas' that
might affect our choices of replacements?

Mine's about the same, the slim tubes don't seem to like heat from
toasters and steam from kettles much. A few tubes have been replaced
and a couple more are now dead, so I've bought some 45° aluminium
profile with milky cover for waterproof LED tape, I already drop 240V
down behind wall units in several places, so can pop a 12V psu on top
and drop the low voltage wires down instead, save too much voltage drop.

I just went with Amazon for everything, considering if I might do
another LED run down at kickboard level while I'm at it?

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We have a dozen or so linked 'slimline' under cabinet fluorescent
lights that I installed many moons ago when I fitted out our kitchen.

They are beginning to show their age and I think they should be
replaced with LED ones. As they don't have external starters I
assume I will need to replace the whole thing as LED 'tubes' won't
work in the existing units given that they have electronic starters
that can't be accessed.

Does anyone have any particular recommendations or 'gotchas' that
might affect our choices of replacements?

--
Chris Green
·

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
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Andy Burns <usenet@andyburns.uk> wrote:

Chris Green wrote:

We have a dozen or so linked 'slimline' under cabinet fluorescent
lights that I installed many moons ago when I fitted out our kitchen.

They are beginning to show their age and I think they should be
replaced with LED ones. As they don't have external starters I
assume I will need to replace the whole thing as LED 'tubes' won't
work in the existing units given that they have electronic starters
that can't be accessed.

Does anyone have any particular recommendations or 'gotchas' that
might affect our choices of replacements?

Mine's about the same, the slim tubes don't seem to like heat from
toasters and steam from kettles much. A few tubes have been replaced
and a couple more are now dead, so I've bought some 45° aluminium
profile with milky cover for waterproof LED tape, I already drop 240V
down behind wall units in several places, so can pop a 12V psu on top
and drop the low voltage wires down instead, save too much voltage drop.

I just went with Amazon for everything, considering if I might do
another LED run down at kickboard level while I'm at it?

+1. You cannot get much slimmer than LED tape even in a profile and less
prone to physical damage.

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On 13/04/2025 12:34, Chris Green wrote:

We have a dozen or so linked 'slimline' under cabinet fluorescent
lights that I installed many moons ago when I fitted out our kitchen.

They are beginning to show their age and I think they should be
replaced with LED ones. As they don't have external starters I
assume I will need to replace the whole thing as LED 'tubes' won't
work in the existing units given that they have electronic starters
that can't be accessed.

Does anyone have any particular recommendations or 'gotchas' that
might affect our choices of replacements?

I went for "ordinary" LED tape (not even a waterproof one), and it has
worked perfectly for 10+ years. I hid the LED driver PSU in the adjacent
cooker hood, and switched it from the cooker hood light switch, so they
power on together. Not been affected by toaster or kettle that sit
underneath them.

--
Cheers,

John.

/=================================================================\
| Internode Ltd - http://www.internode.co.uk | |-----------------------------------------------------------------|
| John Rumm - john(at)internode(dot)co(dot)uk | \=================================================================/

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
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Chris Green <cl@isbd.net> wrote:

We have a dozen or so linked 'slimline' under cabinet fluorescent
lights that I installed many moons ago when I fitted out our kitchen.

They are beginning to show their age and I think they should be
replaced with LED ones. As they don't have external starters I
assume I will need to replace the whole thing as LED 'tubes' won't
work in the existing units given that they have electronic starters
that can't be accessed.

Does anyone have any particular recommendations or 'gotchas' that
might affect our choices of replacements?

If you're going for LED strip lights, rather than LED tape (often the strip lights are just tape in an enclosure), some of them are 'linkable', ie you
can daisy chain them in a line. I bought some cheap CPC ones:

https://cpc.farnell.com/w/c/electrical-lighting/lighting/commercial-lighting/led-batten-fittings?brand=pro-elec&ta_product_range=Pro+Elec+-+T5+LED+Linkable+Light+Fixtures

(a variety of lengths and colour temperatures)

They're fine for garage/loft lighting. They provide a cable to daisy chain them, but that cable has moulded plugs on each end and is only 13cm long.
The connectors are specific to this lamp - they can't be bought separately.
So if you want to space them out more you need a junction box to extend the cable (splice the male end of the daisy chain cable onto the female end of
the inlet cable that comes with the second lamp). This is rather ugly.

Maybe not relevant if you aren't buying this sort, but the moral is to not assume that you can purchase extra connectors.

Theo

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Theo <theom+news@chiark.greenend.org.uk> wrote:

Chris Green <cl@isbd.net> wrote:

We have a dozen or so linked 'slimline' under cabinet fluorescent
lights that I installed many moons ago when I fitted out our kitchen.

They are beginning to show their age and I think they should be
replaced with LED ones. As they don't have external starters I
assume I will need to replace the whole thing as LED 'tubes' won't
work in the existing units given that they have electronic starters
that can't be accessed.

Does anyone have any particular recommendations or 'gotchas' that
might affect our choices of replacements?

If you're going for LED strip lights, rather than LED tape (often the strip lights are just tape in an enclosure), some of them are 'linkable', ie you can daisy chain them in a line. I bought some cheap CPC ones:

https://cpc.farnell.com/w/c/electrical-lighting/lighting/commercial-lighting/led-batten-fittings?brand=pro-elec&ta_product_range=Pro+Elec+-+T5+LED+Linkable+Light+Fixtures

I didn't find those when I searched earlier today at CPC, they seem
very reasonably priced. Thanks for the warning about interconnect
cable length, shouldn't be a problem here though.

--
Chris Green
·

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
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On 13/04/2025 14:59, John Rumm wrote:

On 13/04/2025 12:34, Chris Green wrote:

We have a dozen or so linked 'slimline' under cabinet fluorescent
lights that I installed many moons ago when I fitted out our kitchen.

They are beginning to show their age and I think they should be
replaced with LED ones.  As they don't have external starters I
assume I will need to replace the whole thing as LED 'tubes' won't
work in the existing units given that they have electronic starters
that can't be accessed.

Does anyone have any particular recommendations or 'gotchas' that
might affect our choices of replacements?

I went for "ordinary" LED tape (not even a waterproof one), and it has
worked perfectly for 10+ years. I hid the LED driver PSU in the adjacent cooker hood, and switched it from the cooker hood light switch, so they
power on together. Not been affected by toaster or kettle that sit
underneath them.

I used some kick-board lighting with LED tape on my units, and it did
start to peel away after a couple of years. So either I did not clean
the surface well enough , or the modern tape isn't as good as the older
one. I think this is more likely. I did try clips with not much success.
If I did it again I would put it in channel.

For under unit lighting, I have used some very slim units from Ikea but
they no longer seem to be available...

Dave
g4ugm

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On 13/04/2025 18:00, Chris Green wrote:

Theo <theom+news@chiark.greenend.org.uk> wrote:

Chris Green <cl@isbd.net> wrote:

We have a dozen or so linked 'slimline' under cabinet fluorescent
lights that I installed many moons ago when I fitted out our kitchen.

They are beginning to show their age and I think they should be
replaced with LED ones. As they don't have external starters I
assume I will need to replace the whole thing as LED 'tubes' won't
work in the existing units given that they have electronic starters
that can't be accessed.

Does anyone have any particular recommendations or 'gotchas' that
might affect our choices of replacements?

If you're going for LED strip lights, rather than LED tape (often the strip >> lights are just tape in an enclosure), some of them are 'linkable', ie you >> can daisy chain them in a line. I bought some cheap CPC ones:

https://cpc.farnell.com/w/c/electrical-lighting/lighting/commercial-lighting/led-batten-fittings?brand=pro-elec&ta_product_range=Pro+Elec+-+T5+LED+Linkable+Light+Fixtures

I didn't find those when I searched earlier today at CPC, they seem
very reasonably priced. Thanks for the warning about interconnect
cable length, shouldn't be a problem here though.

The ones I fitted in 2020 came from Screwfix. They came in a few
different lengths, so I could do runs matching cabinet widths, with no interconnecting cables required, as the fittings matched the 500/1000 or 600/1200mm cabinets and plugged directly into each other.

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