Show Us your rope lighting

Blue LED rope from 100bulbs.com

This is soffit design:




Blue Led light:


Unfinished room:


Pretty much finished room

Here:

Blue LED light from Ebay (no one else had 50 foot runs in 12 v for less)

Blue has a good look/feel - I like it. Anyone on this thread install blue, then went to white? Not sure if I'm 100% committed to blue.

This is the cheap incandesent rope light from Lowe's.

Hope this helps
Chip

Gonzo went white to blue. Check his thread.

Woolly - did you PM Sleeks to add this to the sticky?

I am building my HT room currently. Do I need to run the rope lighting on a low voltage transformer?

Thanks.

I just saw the thread. I'll add it to the sticky. The resources in this forum never cease to amaze me.

You can do it either way, although low voltage (12v) transformers sometimes humm. I used a grafik eye dimmer, which will dim rope light which is line voltage (120v). Be aware, that a G-E (presumably other dimmers too) need a certain minimum wattage to work, which can be an issue with LED rope of shorter distances. My run is about 35-40 feet, and about 0.8w per foot, dims fine.

Incandesant rope by its nature will use more electicity, and thus won't be an issue in shorter runs. I prefered LED to take a heat source out, plus its nifty.

EDIT - to answer questions below w/o further cluttering a picture thread:

I am not a GE expert, clearly, I didn't know the GE could do low-voltage, presumably w/a transformer. I went line voltage since I saw a discussion that it would work with the GE (maybe it was the transformer specifically).

Nifty - is in that it is cool to the touch and won't generate heat, that it should be long lived w/o bulbs going, that it is newer technology, and more efficient - but the operating costs would probably never be recovered by the upfront cost.

I have rope light in my family room, living room, and theater. All bought from Birddog.
Family room (same color in living room)


Theater:

so how about a rope light 101 for dummies (me ) class?

how does one wire it up? do i need an outlet in my soffit or just tie it into a wall switch?

i would like to run some down the soffits on both sides of my room.

thanks.

I did LED lighting for my steps and my stage steps. I will post pics later. However to wite them up is no big task. I got the 12V low voltage version and I wored them up to a transformer, which BTW does not have to be big becasue they LV LED's only draw .84 watts per foot. Then I wired the transfornet to a switch which will be controlled via a creston systems.

I bought my lights from noveltylights.com, but I think they are all the same. when you buy them, they add on a 2 foot wip at teh end of the rope lighting so you can wire it up.

I also know you can buy them with a plug ready to go. It just depends on how you want and control them.

Blue from Walgreens Christmas clearance :-)

I am in the design process of building my basement HT and want to use rope lighting. Since my ceilings are low, what would be the minumum gap distance I could get away with, with it still looking great. As anyone experimented with different distances from the ceiling?

I have a red rope lights in placed around my hometheater ceiling but I don't have a soffit or anything to hide it, I'd love to cover them but I am avoiding a soffit due to my ceiling height and I am thinking of crown moulding but don't know where to start. Need help for what size and is it safe to put a crown moulding close to the rope lights? the diagram below is this gonna work? the vertical line represents the wall. sorry for the drawing.

 

Rope light.doc 19k . file

Thank you scott, and sorry for hijacking your thread. I was gonna put up another thread for my inquiry but put it here instead, I know you wont mine.

I have another question. Do you think a wood glue will be strong enough to hold the moulding? I plan to attached the moulding to the wood about 1'' thick and 2'' deep and then glue it to the drywall I have doubts doing it that way maybe you or anyone here can suggest how to attached it the wall.

Thanks again,

I never knew there was such a big price variation between the incandesent rope light and the LED lights........they definitely want a pretty penny for longer runs.

I am going the exact same route. I don't have a sofit( I currently have crown molding up) and was just going to build a combination between yours and gonzo's to hide the rope lighting.

I would definitely recommend nailing it to the wall (I'd actually use nails and glue). Just go pick up a finish nail gun and have at it.

I saw your drawing above and did something similar, albeit on a soffit, not the wall.

My crown attached to 1x1 wood, then my side soffit - all with a combination of liquid nails (glue) and brad nails. I also added a piece of molding to the bottom of my crown, essentially hiding the bottom surface of my 1x1, and making the "crown" bigger.

Here is the finished two piece crown (some of the molding needs to be glazed, which makes it easier to see the pieces)

That's why others and myself went for the cheaper Lowes lights...had to cut some costs.

For my riser/stage lighting I bucked up and spent the extra money for the LED's. I just liked the extra piece of mind of the cooler bulbs. For the ceiling I am going to go with incan. as the heat shouldn't be an issue in that area, not to mention it is a lot longer run so the cost savings are significant. 1000 bulbs has incan. runs for very little money.

Dave,

Thanks for sharing that's absolutely perfect. And very nice too and the double moulding to cover the 1x1 is a great idea. Many thanks now I can start with my project.

Actually I did get LED's for my riser as well and from Lowes and they were very reasonable. I am using incan in the soofits as well so looks like we are both doing the same thing.

BTW, my incan lights are the blue xmas ones from Lowes....

I don't have them turned up much in this picture, probably two clicks on the Lutron 3506 dimmer. I'll try to get a better shot later today.

Are all rope lights 'dimmable'? Or should I be looking for a special kind?
Thanks!

I know in another thread some people had issues dimming LED rope light from costco, might have been hit or miss. I haven't seen any dimming issues with incandescent.