Ours are low voltage by SeaGull. They are xenon. The transformer is in the basement. The dimmer switch is just a regular dimmer switch, nothing special. (I know someone had posted once that their low voltage lights required an expensive special dimmer).

Ours are on the track with the wire....(we also use the frosted bulbs)

Here is a link that might be useful: seagull lighting ucb

I have Wac xenon puck lights (i think model HR86 or HR88), on a dimmer switch.
I think we had to put the transformer between the swtich and the lights for the dimmer to function.

After reading about dimmable LED's in the lighting forum I contacted the company that was suggested. I got the premium Led under cab.

There were installed yesterday and they look great.

Here's a link..

Here is a link that might be useful: Environmental Lights

Thanks for replies

Wizardnm, did you get soft or neutral and normal or high brightness? Also, did you get the angled installation clips?

Regards

mark

We are just finishing up our install of Environmental lights premium lights - soft white. They are plenty bright and dim nicely. We did not buy the angled clips, but I may try to tilt the lights by 10% which you can do with the regular clips - this would be to minimimze the shadow at the top of the back wall - it is not that noticable but I am a bit sentitive to it since some other brand of lights I tested really threw a large shadow. I think the 10% angle would pretty much eliminate the shadow and still give good light on the front edge of the counter.

BTW, on the lighting forum (some great info there) they said it would look funny if my lights had gaps between them - mine do have gaps and it is not noticable at all - BUT that may be because my counters are honed and not shiny. Shiny surfaces, especially dark colors, will reflect the lights.

If you are in the Bay Area, Elemental LED is awesome. Their web site has lots of examples from cool bars, swimming areas at night, kitchens and homes... We are using them through our lighting designer / electrician folks. They left an example of their lights here yesterday so we could see it at night on our samples of backsplash and granite. It looked great. We mounted it under the existing cabinets above the granite sample and lived with it last night. Hope the ease of use is as good after install!

We also tested our hardware by screwing in samples to all our top drawers. We are visual hands on types.

Here is a link that might be useful: This si the elemental LED site

We looked at LED's for undercabinet lighting, and really loved how slim they are. But the ones we saw were very expensive, so we chose xenons's and think they're great. We have the Juno xenon undercabinet lights, their UPX line, which has the low voltage transformer built into each strip. Some xenon UCL's have the transformer separate, which makes them significantly more expensive and harder to install, plus you need to find a spot for the transformer. The Juno UPX's are not the cheapest of the xenons - you can go to HD or Lowe's and find cheaper. We chose the Juno's because of the good name of the brand, the sizes of the strips offered, and we like that the covering (the "reflector") is glass (most other brands have plastic reflectors). We cut the expense a bit by shopping for them online.

Regarding Beekeeperswife's comment about the dimmer being "nothing special", I think there's an error there (sorry). As far as I know, all xenon undercabinet lighting require either a "magnetic low voltage dimmer" or an "electronic low voltage dimmer". You cannot have the xenons connected to a dimmer for regular incandescent lights, or you will get buzzing. Whatever brand xenons you get will have instructions as to whether it needs an electronic or magnetic low voltage dimmer. That's not to say you have to spend a lot of money on the dimmer--not at all. But you do need to get the correct one. Our Juno UPX's required an electronic low voltage dimmer. Lutron and Leviton make them. The plainer designs can be found easily at Home Depot or Lowes. They come at varying price points, like about $45 for the Lutron Skylark Electronic Low Voltage Dimmer, or about $65 for the Lutron Diva Electronic Low Voltage Dimmer. But--like anything in a kitchen reno--if you want you can spend more; fancier designs can cost well over $100. While these prices seem a lot for a dimmer, in the scheme of a kitchen re-do, $45 or $65 or so isn't really a big proportion.

I am linking to the site where we bought our Juno UPX's; they seemed to have the best prices. Some of the items were on backorder, but only were delayed a couple of weeks, and that was OK with us.

Here is a link that might be useful: Juno UPX's Xenon Undercabinet Lights

Wizard -- how does the color of your Environmental Light LEDs look, compared to incandescent? The specs on the website give a range in color temp, 2600-3000K, which is a huge range.

Asking cuz I'm finding that most LEDs, even at 2700K, look too 'cool' to me. And I've heard that quality control on color is a nightmare; sounds like they're getting around that problem just by saying it's somewhere within a pretty wide range.

I did a lot of research on the led lights and chose Phillips Color Kinetics. They are dimmable at the wall using an ELV dimmer switch. And yes, the ELV dimmers run anywhere from $60 to $ 80 by themselves. We haven't hooked up the dimmer switches yet, but have the lights hooked up and love how bright they are. We used them in cabinet as well.

This link might be of help Essential White

Hi Seaduck

Don't understand your comments about LED's feeling cool at 2600-3000K (not actually that a big range: I bet most people wouldn't notice unless they were looking for it). Artificial daylight is 6500K, as you go higher the light gets bluer (i.e. cooler).

At 3000K, you're down around tungsten ranges, so it would be yellow/orange and thus very warm.

Regards

Mark

Seaduck, I would describe the warm LED light as clean. There is halogen bulbs in the stove vent right next to the cabinets with the LED and that is a little warmer than the LED.

Would anyone else notice? I really don't think they would.

I also have the new LED flood bulbs in my 6" cans, that is the same warmth as the under cabinet LED's.

Nancy

My kitchen is all LED. CREE LR6 cans and Environmental Lights warm color.

The light does not seem cool at all. It's very bright and warm. Easy on the eyes.

Hi Mark--
I admittedly think about and notice light color and so may be more sensitive. But I think most people at some level can see the difference between 2600 and 3000K. It's most obvious in direct comparison of course. But I think that the extremes present enough difference to affect people's general perception of a space.

Someone (I wish I could remember who) recently posted a terrific photo on this site showing the installation of CREE LR6 cans in their kitchen, next to the original downlights. The difference is clear. Not objectionable, but different.

Without comparison, I suspect that CREEs -- as in Marcy's kitchen, probably look fine.

But consider these differences, all of which are perceptible:
cool white fluorescent: 4200K
warm white: 3000K
100W tungsten: 2900
40 W tungsten: 2500.

I think most people can distinguish between warm white fluor and tungsten. I'm guessing that tungsten lighting in a lot of houses is 60w or 75w, which would be between 2900 and 2500.

I got my dimmable LED's on ebay from ledpro. I didn't end up buying the dimmer though because we decided to put the big lantern pendant on a dimmer instead. This is what mine look like and they were pretty cheap.

http://s1004.photobucket.com/albums/af170/jterrilynn/kitchen%20progress%20pictures/?action=view&current=lcdangledplugs004.jpg"; target="_blank">

I wish I could get a decent picture of the LED undercabs but they seem to not get along with my camera's white balance default settings and come out green!

Hi jterrilynn

i couldn't find that seller. Is ledpro their seller ID?

Regards

mark

Hi Mark, I can't remember his whole ebay seller name, it was ledpro something but Sean also has an online site called Photonier. Here is his other site which I orderd from as well. http://www.photonier.com/pdt_view.asp?sn=63
I got his site/name from people on the lighting forum who used him. Some people bought their power source from enviromental lights but if you order from them they will ask if you bought the led's from them, if you say no they may tell you they are out (thats what they did to me) so I just bought the cheap power source from photnier and it works fine. I was told the led bars that ledpro/photnier sells cheap are the exact same bars as envirmental by some guys who would know. Although my kitchen is small it only cost around $225 for everything... seven 12" connectable bars and power source.