Cabinet Striplights
When it comes to under-cabinet striplights, there are two principle technologies vying for your attention: LED and fluorescent. With Lyco you’ll have plenty to choose from in either flavour, but let’s briefly go over some of your options and their advantages:
The LED Advantage
Doesn’t matter which way you cut it, the only real disadvantage to LED in most instances is the extra investment required up front. An LED striplight is likely to be up to twice as energy-efficient as a fluorescent tube; it lasts twice as long as fluorescent; it produces negligible heat; and it doesn’t contain the toxic mercury content of fluorescent, so it’s more eco-friendly, more easily disposable, and is less of a landfill burden than other lighting forms. It’s also a solid-state form of lighting that’s shockproof, vibration proof, and therefore well suited to a wide variety of demanding applications.
LED Striplights
Having established its status quo, what types of LED cabinet lights are available? For a kick-off there are LED flexi-strips, which are flexible in both name and nature. These work in conjunction with an LED driver and can be arranged in an infinite variety of ways according to your needs. They’re generally available in a variety of different colours, too, so your cabinet lighting can create mood as well as being functional. The beauty of these strips is they can be as inconspicuous as you like - they’re suitable for use under or inside cabinets, under shelves, in enclosed spaces, or around mirrors, monitors and desks as mood lighting. The potential uses for LED flexi-strips are many, but they are ideal as cabinet lights. Some LED strips are even self-adhesive for complete ease of installation.
Other, surface-mounted LED strip lights are available, providing low energy cabinet lighting for task orientated or display purposes. As with fluorescent solutions, LED striplights are often linkable, either directly or via a connection cable. In addition to the advantages already outlined, LED striplights are instant-on lights without the warm-up time and flicker associated with some fluorescent lights.
Fluorescent Striplights
Lyco offer a wide choice of fluorescent striplights, and while they might not offer quite the dazzling set of future-proof advantages of LED they’re still eons away from the inefficiency of original incandescent lighting. They offer impressive low-powered performance at an attractive up-front price and they’re fit for purpose - delivering bright light that’s ideal as under-cabinet task lighting.
At Lyco you’ll have plenty of choice when it comes to fluorescent cabinet striplights, which are offered in popular T4 and T5 sizes. Many models are linkable, and some have diffusers that soften the light and make it more tolerable in your line of vision. Triphosphor fluorescent lamps produce a natural white light, as opposed to the yellow or blue bias sometimes found in single phosphor lights.
For an affordable and efficient form of cabinet lighting, fluorescent strip lights are worthy of every consideration!