Introduction: Replacing Your Dim Kitchen Hood LEDs

When we remodeled our house the kitchen was designed as our center piece. We enjoy having company over and our kitchen always ended up being where everyone hung out. I’m sure many people can relate.

Being that I’m the cook of the family, I’d always have my back to our guests. So now that I had a chance to start from scratch, I designed the layout placing the stove and oven in a deep island of our open-concept kitchen, with an extracting hood directly above the stove.

After many days researching the right hood that met our style and budget we decided on this one. It was very straightforward to install and looked great in my kitchen!

Unfortunately, there were a couple downsides. Since the hood was 36” wide, it cast a shadow over my stovetop and the included LED lights were very dim and had a blue tint, which were very different from the temperature of the rest of the bulbs in my house.

That’s when my mission began. I searched everywhere for replacement bulbs. Google, Chinatown, China (via Google) and even contacted the manufacturer. After almost a year after finishing my house and giving up, I decided to give it one more shot. This time I put on my DIY hat and took the fixture apart to find a very simple circuit. And after searching AliExpress.com, I found a perfect replacement. In my case I needed exactly 32mm, so the 3W was perfect. I just needed to wait about a month for them to arrive from China. But, for the price it was worth it.. I even have 6 extra just in case on burns out or I come up with another project.

This was a fairly quick project considering I had all of the tools at hand. Each light fixture took me approximately 5 minutes each from start to finish. I then took the opportunity to clean the grates since I had them down.. and they needed it.

Step 1: Open Fixture

After removing the LED fixture from the hood, I removed the 4 screws from the back which exposed the panel of DIP (Dual In-line Package) LEDs.

Step 2: Out With the Old...

The LED circuit just popped right out revealing the PCB board which was connected to a positive and negative lead. There was barely and solder, so with a touch of my iron the wires came loose.

Step 3: In With the New

This next part was actually easier than I expected. It was as if the new PCBs were made for the fixtures. With the help of my helping hands, I got the leads soldered on and placed the PCB into position.

I then placed the cover back on and screwed in the 4 screws.

Step 4: Finished and Happy With My New Lights

Getting the fixtures back in their spots was satisfying. These new LEDs are really bright making it possible to see what I’m cooking.

In the final picture, my ceiling lights are off and I only have the hood lights on. I’m very impressed with the brightness of these 3W LEDs!

Thanks for following along with me and I hope this helps someone somewhere.