Too Busy For Words - the PaulWay Blog

Yesterday we got the electrician to install a switch in the dining room which would turn on a power point in the ceiling. This powers a 100W 12V DC power supply which in turn powers twenty metres of LED strip lighting. The parts list:

• 5 metre 12V warm white LED strip lighting = $54.80 x 4 = $219.20. You'd pay $80 per metre for this at a lighting store.
• 12V 100W regulated power supply = $69.95.
• Some 12V power connectors and several metres of wire = you have this lying around, right?
• Installation by professional = $264

The results are pretty much what I'd hoped for:

Trying to get a photo that shows what the eye sees of the strip when lit is hard - the camera just thinks it's way too bright. This is the closest I could get with our camera:

With the eye you can see the individual LEDs and they're bright but not so bright as to be difficult to look at. So the strip doesn't make the deck feel too bright or oversaturated. The light is warm without being monochrome or too intense. And the fact that it's a strip means that you don't get shadows or bits of the deck that are dark - the whole deck feels quite evenly lit, even at the corners.

100 watts feels like a lot, but in comparison to even one 18W fluorescent globe per space between beams (12) it is still much more efficient on power. That arrangement of fluorescent bulbs would also mean shadows, single point sources, and having to put an extra beam in the middle of the deck. And let's not even consider spot lights. No, this is a really good layout.