Updated Pentel Countertop Lights

A few posts ago, I showed off the Pentel Countertop case with the lights I installed.

Now, I wasn’t really happy with this light setup for a couple of reasons.  First, the top tray really looked great, but the second tray and the items on the bottom had a hard shadow across them, so they did not look that great.  Second, the way I routed the wiring, interfered with the door at the back; it would close, but it was pushed out a bit.

So, I really wanted to get this re-wired with a better lighting arrangement, not just adding lights to the bottom of the trays, since that does not fix the second issue.

So, my wife was out of town this week, so I decided to do some lighting projects for the above display and the shelves where my collection is displayed, which I installed about a month ago, when my wife was on another trip.

I used the strip LED lights, as I have used in several other projects, and aluminum corner brackets that light at a 45 degree angle, for both the display and the shelves.  Over 3 nights, I worked on the lighting and got it done the way I like now.

Here is the new lighting setup for my pencils (and other odds and ends):

This shows off the new shelves to the left, the Pentel display below the cabinets, and the packaged pencils mounted on the cabinet doors.  The pieces of acrylic laying on the counter will normally be put over the pencils in the travel cases to keep the dust out, while making them available to view.

Here is a closer shot of the shelves and their new lights.  I mounted the angle brackets at the front of the shelf above, so it lights the shelf below and the back of the area.  Since the bottom shelf currently just has books under it, I have that light unplugged.

And here are the new lights for the Pentel Display.  I took black corner brackets and mounted them running up the sides.  This lights up the pencils much more evenly and also, gives the display a more framed look (it comes with black trim along the top and bottom).  I had to drill a hole on the bottom front left to run the wire out, so it does not interfere with anything on the inside of the case.  The white wire on the bottom left is for the IR receiver that works with the remote sitting there to turn on the lights on the shelves and the Display.

So, now, I am much happier with my collection on display.  I will try to get back to posting about my collection in a couple of weeks.