LED Lighting – Adapting Kitchen Undercounter Pucklights

We all know the advantages of LED lights, the main ones are they draw very little power and they last a long time. You can buy LED bulbs as replacements for most standard automotive and RV light fixtures, but I personally hate the looks and the poor quality of RV plastic RV light fixtures.

Most low voltage lighting, including many LED packages, sold for household use often under cabinets in kitchens are 12V DC, check the packaging or the label on the transformer, if it say 12V DC you can use it. The lighting I am using in my Boler consists of 12V LED lights designed for kitchen under counter from Rona (Canadian equivalent to Home Depot).
There are 4 bright puck lights (2 on each side mid-cabin) that provide very good general task and work lighting. We have used these at dusk right through to total darkness and they provide all the light that is needed to cook, play cards or read.

In between the bright lights are 2 low intensity lights (one on each side) that provide enough light to get ready for bed or check the time at night.

To wire these lights in you do not need the transformer that comes with the kit, just wire them directly to a switch that is connected to the battery positive. Connect the negative to the battery ground. One thing to keep in mind when you are wiring LED lights, most are polarity sensitive. To identify which wire is positive and which is negative connect a voltmeter to the 12V output of the transformer (be very careful, don’t touch any bare wires with your fingers).