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I want to share my pantry lighting project that I tried to copy from our esteemed member Howson. As soon as I saw his great write-up with pictures and parts source, I knew I had to do this for our new 295RL. I'm sorry I don't have pictures but if you look up Howson's post from 12/11/19 in the electrical section, you will see my inspiration post and his pictures.
I ordered the led light strip from Amazon and studied Howson's pictures. The light strip came with one plug installed and had another plug and some connectors included. I liked the plug idea as that would simplify the connections required so I visited a local shop called PCH Cables. Lo and behold, the plug is a common size and they had quite a selection of configurations. I found a made up splitter that I could plug two strips together and also have a plug to match up with one I installed in the existing light in the pantry. Basicly it was a tee with a cable and a plug on each end.
Again using Howson's article and great pictures, I concluded that the simplist thing for me would be to attach the lead from a plug directly to where the two wires in the existing light actually are soldered onto the board containing the led's. This would make my lights in parallel with the existing light and I wouldn't have to modify anything. After carefully making notes of all of the positive and negitive wires I was dealing with (why isn't there any standard color code for DC wiring?), I removed the pantry light and found where the two wires actually connected to the led's mounting board inside and proceded to solder my 2 wires with plug attached at the same point.
A quick test and I knew it would work. I easily stuck my led light strip to one side of the pantry inside molding, just peel and stick, just like Howson did. I did not go across the top, rather I started my lights at the top of the molding side, went down the side and fed my lead with the plug across the top. When my light strip got close to the floor, I cut it at the closest designated mark. Then using the supplied plug with lead, I connected it to the remaining strip and attached it down the other side of the pantry, again sticking it to the inside molding and feeding the lead across the top. Just plugged the two strips together at the center of the top of the door molding. Easy peasey! All that remained was to remount and wire up the existing light fixture and simply plug in the plug from the two strips to the plug lead from the light fixture!
It was so simple and wow, what a difference! By paralleling my light strips with the existing light fixture, the motion sensor and on/off switch works just like it always did and having the existing light fixture still lighting the top shelf, I didn't think it was necessary to have my strip across the top which eliminated trying to make the strip bend to make the corner. Today DW got to see the finished project and she was very happy. I hope this explaination doesn't sound complicated because it was a very easy project and I would recommend it to anyone with a pantry in their rig.
If you have any questions, please let me know and I'll try to explain myself better.
I ordered the led light strip from Amazon and studied Howson's pictures. The light strip came with one plug installed and had another plug and some connectors included. I liked the plug idea as that would simplify the connections required so I visited a local shop called PCH Cables. Lo and behold, the plug is a common size and they had quite a selection of configurations. I found a made up splitter that I could plug two strips together and also have a plug to match up with one I installed in the existing light in the pantry. Basicly it was a tee with a cable and a plug on each end.
Again using Howson's article and great pictures, I concluded that the simplist thing for me would be to attach the lead from a plug directly to where the two wires in the existing light actually are soldered onto the board containing the led's. This would make my lights in parallel with the existing light and I wouldn't have to modify anything. After carefully making notes of all of the positive and negitive wires I was dealing with (why isn't there any standard color code for DC wiring?), I removed the pantry light and found where the two wires actually connected to the led's mounting board inside and proceded to solder my 2 wires with plug attached at the same point.
A quick test and I knew it would work. I easily stuck my led light strip to one side of the pantry inside molding, just peel and stick, just like Howson did. I did not go across the top, rather I started my lights at the top of the molding side, went down the side and fed my lead with the plug across the top. When my light strip got close to the floor, I cut it at the closest designated mark. Then using the supplied plug with lead, I connected it to the remaining strip and attached it down the other side of the pantry, again sticking it to the inside molding and feeding the lead across the top. Just plugged the two strips together at the center of the top of the door molding. Easy peasey! All that remained was to remount and wire up the existing light fixture and simply plug in the plug from the two strips to the plug lead from the light fixture!
It was so simple and wow, what a difference! By paralleling my light strips with the existing light fixture, the motion sensor and on/off switch works just like it always did and having the existing light fixture still lighting the top shelf, I didn't think it was necessary to have my strip across the top which eliminated trying to make the strip bend to make the corner. Today DW got to see the finished project and she was very happy. I hope this explaination doesn't sound complicated because it was a very easy project and I would recommend it to anyone with a pantry in their rig.
If you have any questions, please let me know and I'll try to explain myself better.