I'm building a floating shelf over part of our kitchen counter. I want to put an LED strip under the shelf for task lighting. But I really want to have a unique way to turn the light on.
I've thought about putting a metal accent strip in the edge of the shelf, and using that metal strip like a touch lamp to turn the lights on. Or maybe embedding a magnetic switch in the wood (walnut) and having a mug on the shelf with a steel disc on the underside of the mug. Slide the mug over a few inches to trip the switch.
I dunno.
I'm not married to either of these ideas, just spit-balling.
Any thoughts?
Motion switch for 12v-24v LED strip lights.
Toyman! said:
Motion switch for 12v-24v LED strip lights.
you can also get light sensitivity switches that will only turn the lights on when it's a certain level of darkness in the room. This is pretty cool when you pair them /w something like a smart things or other whole home automation tooling. right now i have all of my "accent lighting" on my first floor turn on at 1 hour before dusk, the nice part of this is that since dusk is ever changing the lights are always on when it gets dark and not before, they are also set to go off roughly 1 hour after we usually go to bed.
task lighting is still all on switches; so my kitchen is bright enough to get a glass of water, etc but when cooking dinner there is a light switch to turn on the rest of the lights.
Back when I worked summers a million years ago I somehow acquired a switch panel with some big old start and stop push buttons--like for big industrial motors. I've got it mounted uselessly on the wall in the garage. One of these days I'm gonna make it turn something on.
I feel like this thread is missing something...
Ahh yes, that's it.
In reply to Karacticus :
Those are hilarious! Bookmarked for sure for further study.
Put a push button switch in the toe kick of the cabinet. Easy to activate if your hands are full, or contaminated with raw chicken, etc.
It sounds like someone needs to dig around McMaster Carr.
Steve Jones, that's very much what I had in mind.
The other thing i was thinking about was embedding a piece of metal in the face of the shelf and using that accent strip as the switch, like a touch lamp. something like this, but the accent strip is much thinner, like 1/4"
