Hey, this is Dad&Son DIY, and today we’re going to be installing under cabinet lights
to this kitchen, transforming it from this into this!
We will be using an under cabinet lighting kit for this project that will be linked below.
It comes with the aluminum tracks, led strip lights, plastic diffusers, led connectors,
and some cover plates to keep the lights looking profesional.
This is the kitchen that we will be working in. As you can see, during the daytime, it’s
pretty bringt, but it can get kinda dark under the cabinets during the night.
Our first step is to measure the underside of the cabinet.
Then we can transfer the measurement to the aluminum track from the kit and cut it to
length. Aluminum can be cut with most woodworking tools but I recommend doing this pretty slowly.
After that, we can install the included cover plate on one side to make everything look
professional. Ours are kept in place with 2 screws. Honestly, this can be a little bit
fiddly but you get the hang of it.
And this is what one side looks like with the cover plate.
Once one cover is installed, we layed out the led strip and cut it to approximate length
along the recommended cut lines.
Then we placed some solder on the contact points for the wire to easily attach to.
As you can see here, we didn’t have much experience with soldering, but the more we practiced,
the easier it got. This project is a great for beginners who haven’t soldered before,
or are just getting into it.
After we placed some soder on the contact points, we attached the connector wires.
We then wrapped the connection with electrical tape to keep everything from to keep anything from shorting out.
We then peeled off the adhesive backing from the led strip light and stuck it to the track.
The kit also came with these plastic diffusers which we cut to length and slid into place.
We turned the light on and… whoa that's pretty bright!!!
We then drilled a ¾” hole in the underside of the cabinet for the wire to feed into,
and screwed in the clips that came with the undercabinet lighting kit, for the track to
snap onto.
We then plugged in the led track into a 12v power adapter. Our’s didn't come with the
lights, so we grabbed one from an old laptop charger.
After we got the lights working for the one cabinet, we started installing the lights
in the rest of the kitchen. To do this, we cut out the place in the sides where 2 cabinets
met for the track to easily run through. We did this with an oscillating multitool. We
made 2 cuts half an inch apart for the track to fit through, and broke off the piece with
a pair of strong pliers.
After that, we repeated all the steps previously shown to assemble and install the tracks.
We cut them to length, soldered the connectors onto the light strips, screwed on the cover
plates, applied the lights to the track, slid in the diffusers, snapped the track into place,
and connected the wires.
We did this until our kitchen went from this to this, to this, to this.
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