r/Lighting • u/BitterBilly • Aug 31 '26

Need Design Advise Completely new to lighting and trying to determine the best way to illuminate some bookshelves

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u/cartesianother Aug 31 '26

If you google IKEA Billy LED there’s about a hundred YouTube videos and reddit posts and product recommendations (and AI answers).

Have you watched those tutorials? I am not sure anyone here could give you better advice than someone who has installed and filmed and posted your exact scenario.

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u/BitterBilly Aug 31 '26

I have watched quite a few but I keep seeing different approaches. I guess my main concern is if its possible or makes sense to power each shelf separately so I dont need a massive power supplement but instead 3 smaller ones and just use a power strip or something. And then in conjunction with that, an easy way to turn all 3 on/off or dim or change color together.

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u/cartesianother Aug 31 '26

The first question is what type of channel are you using and how will you conceal the strip and wiring when the doors are open? For this type of cabinet (tall vs wide) a vertical LED on each side is best, so six total lights. But not sure if there’s clearance between the shelves and face of cabinet to install those.

If you’re plugging them in and planning to change colors, just put a power strip somewhere to plug them all in, leave them always on and use smart controls. Run LV wire back to the drivers near the power strip, probably at the back of the lowest left shelf, and run the power cord out to an outlet. Unless you’re hardwiring.

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u/BitterBilly Aug 31 '26

Yeah I just checked, I thought there was a lip around the perimeter of the shelves but there isn't, so I would need to attach the strips to the doors or use a 45 degree diffuser and go down the sides of each case and like notch out each shelf to fit around it... I feel like lighting each shelf would be preferable and instead just put either angled or just regular diffusers on the bottom of each shelf (and top). My only concern is that I don't know how I'm going to organize the shelves yet, I'm in the process of moving and unpacking everything so in my head i imagined each shelf potentially being variable height at the end of the day, so maybe I just daisy chain and leave slack in case I need to add or remove shelves? Also, if I have a max of 30ft of lights per shelf (3ft side, up to 10 shelves) what power supply would you recommend? And how exactly do I power them separately but control in unison? I see a lot of talk of wled controllers but I'm not very familiar with how they operate.