Cabinet lighting

[cinimod]

I've just recently bought a nice secondhand cabinet to replace my IKEA tall one. The bit the models are in is about 3' wide and tall and about 1' deep so need some different lighting that isn't ones of the spot variety.

How do others illuminate their models, i.e under the shelves at the front or from the sides or both. I think the ones to go for would be the led bar ones but Tam doesn't want to see fittings so the flatter the possible would be best. Also which type of light is going to be best to show them off to their best as I want them to be a clear as possible, do you use warm, cool or white light to achieve the right effect.

The best news is that it has significantly more shelf space than the old one.................dom

 

[Landrotten Highlander]

I know you can get LED lights on a self adhesive strip. Only thing to watch out for is the colour temperature.

 

[Ferris]

I just installed LED light strips in my IKEA Besta cabinet and am very happy how it turned out.
Took quite some effort to get right though:
- one 30cm led strip per shelf
- installed at the bottom front of each shelf, at the very edge close to the door.
- I have glass shelves, so needed to invent something to fix the light...didn’t want to use tape, because at some point gravity will win and the light will drop on figures.
- Didnt want to look into the light, so the led strip had to be hidden behind some ledge.
- The led strip needs to be tilted inwatd a bit to light the whole area.
- Ended up using an L-shaped cross section MDF strip, one side of the L facing out front, the other resting on the shelf. The led strip is mounted in the inside corner, screw-mounted on sloped blocks of wood. The whole contraption is screw-fixed to the side walls with a small bracket.

Do take care to get sufficiently bright led strips of the right color light.

Hope this helps.

Cheers,
Adrian

 

[kagemusha]

Suggest you have a look at this site.....very helpful people....and everything you could possibly need to do a good job.

https://www.ledhut.co.uk/led-strip-lights/led-strip-kits.html

Ron

 

[cinimod]

I just installed LED light strips in my IKEA Besta cabinet and am very happy how it turned out.
Took quite some effort to get right though:
- one 30cm led strip per shelf
- installed at the bottom front of each shelf, at the very edge close to the door.
- I have glass shelves, so needed to invent something to fix the light...didn’t want to use tape, because at some point gravity will win and the light will drop on figures.
- Didnt want to look into the light, so the led strip had to be hidden behind some ledge.
- The led strip needs to be tilted inwatd a bit to light the whole area.
- Ended up using an L-shaped cross section MDF strip, one side of the L facing out front, the other resting on the shelf. The led strip is mounted in the inside corner, screw-mounted on sloped blocks of wood. The whole contraption is screw-fixed to the side walls with a small bracket.

Do take care to get sufficiently bright led strips of the right color light.

Hope this helps.

Cheers,
Adrian

Morning Adrian and thanks for the reply. What color temp are yours? I had a look around last night and 4200 seem to give a good light without being as white/blue as 6000's. Good idea to incline them in a bit and I wonder if some angled timber mouldings from B and Q would be a good choice. The good thing about the new cabinet is that's it's timber so attaching shouldn't be a problem........dom

 

[cinimod]

Suggest you have a look at this site.....very helpful people....and everything you could possibly need to do a good job.

https://www.ledhut.co.uk/led-strip-lights/led-strip-kits.html

Ron

Thank you Ron, just had a look at the link and there is some good info and kits on there. Probably the place to get things from........dom

 

[Ferris]

Dom,

Dont know the color temp...sorry. Threw away the packaging.

Best to have a look in the store....the blueish tinge is not nice for model lighting.

Cheers,
Adrian