Bar Downlights (LED's)

My home bar (see photograph below) has an above eye-level shelf for hanging glasses, but this makes storing other items on this shelf area dangerous as an uneven surface is created by the inverted glasses. Further, any overhead lighting in this area (such as a small fluorescent tube) is blocked and does not illuminate the work surface below.

A small 'shelf' that sits over this area would solve the problem of the uneven surface, but not the lighting difficulty. A seperate project resulted in strip lighting to illuminate my electronics workbench. By utilising the same circuit and using high power white LED's, 'downlights' could be installed in this 'shelf' to provide the desired lighting.

Such 'downlights' from LED's would be economical to operate, easily 'concealed' in the shelving thus being un-obtrusive, and utilising the hanging glasses as 'lenses' also create a pleasing 'ambience'.

The circuit used to power the LED's is the same as that used in the strip lighting project. The bill of materials is re-produced below for reference.

The circuit used to power the LED's is the same as that used in the strip lighting project.

The only difference being in the actual physical mounting of the LED's.

The Photographs Section shows how a wooden shelf was constructed to fit within the over-head storage area of the bar-unit. Within this wooden shelf a slot was cut to provide a conduit to house the LED's and associated cabling.

Each LED was mounted so that the 'down-light' so formed coincided with a position available for hanging of wine glasses etc. This enabled the glasses to provide in consequence a 'lens' effect, which created a pleasing 'ambience' rather than just a straight 'spot light'.

Note: Image loading can be slow depending on server load.