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Step 5Finishing Touches
At this point it should look pretty nice. However, you have pesky wires hanging down in places and lights may be visible. Here are a few more thoughts on how to improve the setup.
Wire Management
Use staples or other cheap wire management hardware to hold up your wire. You can find all sorts of hooks things for holding up wires at your hardware store or even the ever-present Wal-Mart. I used raised staples with a staple gun and it was fast and easy. Just take care not to puncture any cables. Don't use a staple gun that doesn't leave the staples sticking far out of the surface or you should cut into the wire.
Hiding the Lights
If your lights are visible, there are a few ways to hide them and make them more pleasing. You can add some trim to the edge of your cabinets to obscure the view, or you can go to your hardware store and find plastic hoods to fit over them. Though my mom's are slightly visible from the other room since the kitchen is raised, we opted to leave it as is since it looks great when you're in the kitchen.
Keep the Power Supply Cool
Be sure to get a power supply that is rated high enough for your setup. Mine is being pushed pretty hard so it gets quite warm. It is within limits but to help make it last longer I cable tied on a couple of CPU heatsinks with CPU grease to help dissipate heat. It seems to pull the heat off pretty well. Be sure to keep your supply in ventilated area and not to put stuff on it. If I did this over, I would get a slightly higher rated supply so it wouldn't be pushing it to so close to its max current output.
Conclusion
I hope you found this instructable informative and useful. I was able to significantly improve the lighting in my mom's kitchen on a tiny budget. While pricing 'professional' under cabinet lighting systems, the prices for this kitchen ranged from $400 to $2,000. I think my $40 version was well worth it, especially compared to the professional version's much higher costs.
Wire Management
Use staples or other cheap wire management hardware to hold up your wire. You can find all sorts of hooks things for holding up wires at your hardware store or even the ever-present Wal-Mart. I used raised staples with a staple gun and it was fast and easy. Just take care not to puncture any cables. Don't use a staple gun that doesn't leave the staples sticking far out of the surface or you should cut into the wire.
Hiding the Lights
If your lights are visible, there are a few ways to hide them and make them more pleasing. You can add some trim to the edge of your cabinets to obscure the view, or you can go to your hardware store and find plastic hoods to fit over them. Though my mom's are slightly visible from the other room since the kitchen is raised, we opted to leave it as is since it looks great when you're in the kitchen.
Keep the Power Supply Cool
Be sure to get a power supply that is rated high enough for your setup. Mine is being pushed pretty hard so it gets quite warm. It is within limits but to help make it last longer I cable tied on a couple of CPU heatsinks with CPU grease to help dissipate heat. It seems to pull the heat off pretty well. Be sure to keep your supply in ventilated area and not to put stuff on it. If I did this over, I would get a slightly higher rated supply so it wouldn't be pushing it to so close to its max current output.
Conclusion
I hope you found this instructable informative and useful. I was able to significantly improve the lighting in my mom's kitchen on a tiny budget. While pricing 'professional' under cabinet lighting systems, the prices for this kitchen ranged from $400 to $2,000. I think my $40 version was well worth it, especially compared to the professional version's much higher costs.
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