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Inexpensive lighting solution?

George Farmer

George Farmer

Founder
UKAPS Team
Joined
30 Jun 2007
Messages
7,098
Location
Cambridgeshire
I went shopping in Lidl yesterday. A great value store if you're interested. I can recommend their continental cold meats and cheeses in particular...

Anyway, they sell 'random' home products and I saw some light units advertised as cupboard lighting for kitchens.

I didn't have time to analyse them properly but I am fairly confident they were 1 x 24w HO T5 mounted in attractive brushed aluminium housing with a rocker switch. Cost £8.99 each. They measure 60cm length. T5 lamp supplied but I'm sure it will be replacable if the spectrum isn't up to scratch.

They also had similar LED units, consisting of 4 x 0.5w LEDs.

Worth taking a closer look I reckon.
 
Excellent find George I will keep my eyes peeled for these over here, just what I need, I have a light gap in a growout tank that I am useing and didnt fancy having to spend a lot of money filling it in, a couple of these would be perfect, great find thanks for the heads up :thumbup:
 
Five Great British pounds says you could make a absolutely excellent luminaire for about £60 with a bit of elbow grease and some spare metal!
 
I was tempted to try something like this.

Will they be waterproof from the humidity? For £10 a pop its worth a shot :)
 
Hi all,
I use ordinary T5 "under cabinet" lights. They aren't waterproof (and the mains electricity in to the luminaire is 240V.), but you can tape the ends with some water-proof tape.

Once I've installed the tube, I just run a bead of silicon around the end of the contacts, and another around the mains lead and butt end plug (if the light units aren't daisy chained). You may find 849mm long 24W replacement tubes are difficult to find, but the more readily available 21W will do (the 14W, 21W, 24W tubes are all about £4 ).

If you can find 2' 14W units (widely available on Ebay) that ballast is actually rated for up to a (549mm long) 24W tube and it will overdrive a 14W tube and it will chuck out a lot more light than you would think. The 14W 860/865 6500K tubes are really bright.

The only problem I've had with them is that the really cheap ones are prone to failure of the electronic ballasts.

cheers Darrel
 
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