Coving for LED lights - using regular curved coving?

[oldbutnotdead]

That does look rather good- someone else on here recently was trying to do a similar job & it was looking pricey and tricky. With those results I'm thinking maybe I might have a go at this in the Project House of Pain

 

[Rich_Yeah]

Yes I did do the coving and it looks really good. The design did get adapted slightly.
1. I screwed the battons in to the ceiling to give me the gap. I did not have a continuous line of battons though, only about 80% of each stretch was covered.
2. I ran wires under the battons. I have a largish room 5m*4m and each wall needed to be independently powered to get a continuous and consistent light effect. I also installed extra cabling for speakers.
3. I used regular coving and used coving adhesive as usual to attach it to the wall. I think it helped that there was fresh plaster with no mist coat from an adhesion perspective.
4. I cut thin strips of 3 mm ply at the distance between the ceiling and coving, and attached this to the battons to hide any gaps and improve the aesthetics (I just used an adhesive to fix them in.
5. I ran a line of caulk between the ceiling and ply to remove the gap.
6. I spray painted the ceiling, which worked well both because of the high quality finish, but also as I could get into the shadow gap with ease.
7. Lay the LED down onto the coving, stick them to the coving.

What would I do differently?
1. I didn't have pre-made wiring for for the LED lights. So I had to solder wires to the ribbon. Solder on these things is only so strong and when up a ladder trying to wire the thing up I ended up swearing a lot and breaking the solder. I was also using RGBWW LEDs which meant there were 5 wires per ribbon.
2. I tried to run string behind the gap between the coving so that I could run additional wires behind it in the future if I wanted to (I used velcro for the ply in the corners so that I could access the wires in the corner. The reality is that the string got caught in excess coving adhesive so that idea did not work. The learning is, run all the wire you may ever want behind the coving, there is limited ability to add more in the future.
3. I installed downlights in addition to the LEDs. Having ensured that I bought high power LED ribbon, we dont really use the down lights at all. I am not sure if I would not put them in if I repeated the project, but I would definitely have to think long and hard about it.
4. The LEDs are powered by 2 150w transformers. The original company I bought these from had cheap transformers designed for laptops. Whilst perfectly acceptable when being powered from a ring main, the power surge when they turn on tripped my circuit breaker. I subsequently purchased high quality units and only rarely have the issue. Luckily I rewired my house with 1.5mm lighting circuits so I can uprate my circuit breaker in the near future.

What worked really well and I would repeat?
1. It looks amazing and is a real feature. Everyone comments on it when they come to the house. I have had 5 people ask for details of how I did it as they want to do it as well. It is also dirt cheap compared with what some tradesman are quoting for a similar look.
2. I purchased RGBWW ribbon and used seperate controllers for each wall. That means that each wall can be controlled independently or together or in any combination. The RGBWW ribbon also allows any colour, plus a nice Warm White similar to downlight type lighting. This is an amazing feature. Warm White is used most of the time, but my 1yr old daughter absolutely loves playing with the different colours and we sometimes use the colours when we have guests or for Halloween etc. It does not cost that much more and again adds a wow factor.
3. After a bit of research I found the same LED controller that some of the high quality UK LED retailers were selling, were less than half the price when shipped from China. Saved a packet of money, and I have had no issue with the items - I can even control the lights from my phone!
4. Make sure you buy the 5050 LEDs if you want an even line of colour. The less LEDs per meter the more spotty it looks and I think that detracts from the look.


That is about it. I hope that is useful to anyone considering this project. I was a novice at doing all this, but consider myself to be a very competent DIYer. This project is not for the faint hearted, but with the right research and planning it is easily achievable.

Excellent job, I'm going to attempt this myself. I think I can handle the coving element but I'm clueless when it comes to the electrical side of things. I have a square room with a perimeter of approx 12m, is it possible to do the leds in one continuous length? I assume it's wired into the main electrics? I've having spot lights fitted too, hoping the spark can also do this for me

 

[jonwestuk]

Excellent job, I'm going to attempt this myself. I think I can handle the coving element but I'm clueless when it comes to the electrical side of things. I have a square room with a perimeter of approx 12m, is it possible to do the leds in one continuous length? I assume it's wired into the main electrics? I've having spot lights fitted too, hoping the spark can also do this for me

Heya,

The strips come in 5 meter reels that can be cut at specific points along the ribbon. You will then need to solder or get a connector for the different terminals. 2 terminals for White, 4 for RGB 5 for RGB+Warm White. The wiring (I used bell wire) needs to be connected to each 5 meter stretch (I would recommend 1 wire for each wall) else the colour / light will be lower at the end furthest from the power source. If you want to control these by remote or use RGB/RGB-WW you will need a controller. Each controller is really only recommended per 5 meter stretch - you may get away with 6. You can either get 2 controllers or get 1 controller and a repeater/booster. I got 4 controllers, each wired to a different wall so that I can either control each wall independently or all of them together - check your controller type for this function.

Lastly you need enough power in your transformer/s to power the ribbon. For this you calculate the amount of power per meter of the ribbon you select, multiply it by the power per meter and you get your power requirement. I would then add a little more as a buffer. I would recommend high quality transformers designed for lighting to avoid the power up issue that I had.

Hope that helps.

Jon

 

[flyingsparks]

I have a customer who wants something the same as this, great effect I will take this and show them. Thank you!

 

[andymet87]

Hi looking to do exactly what you've done wit a warm white led ribbon... the wife is wondering what it looks like during the day when the lights are off.
Any chance you could upload a couple of pics of the coving (same angle as your previous pics and one up close)?
Many thanks - looks great btw

 

[jonwestuk]

Hi looking to do exactly what you've done wit a warm white led ribbon... the wife is wondering what it looks like during the day when the lights are off.
Any chance you could upload a couple of pics of the coving (same angle as your previous pics and one up close)?
Many thanks - looks great btw

About to disappear on holiday so I doubt I will have time before then. Attached are the only photos I already have. The last of the bunch shows a room with normal coving and the living room with the leds. They don't look much different in my view.

People that visit don't even notice it is there until I turn it on and neither I or my wife are really aware of it. My wife is fairly picky about these things and had the same questions before I installed it. She is really happy with it both in the day and at night.

 

[andymet87]

Thanks! looks great - we're going for it

 

[Echo the husky]

Do let us know how you get on!

 

[Dansd89]

Jonwestuk nice project. Looking at doing this. Where did you put the transformer/driver? And what thickness Batton did you use? Many thanks

 

[jonwestuk]

Jonwestuk nice project. Looking at doing this. Where did you put the transformer/driver? And what thickness Batton did you use? Many thanks

I build a small cut out in the ceiling adjacent to the coving and an RSJ to put the transformers on....the RSJ is a nice extra for heat dissipation . The recess is magnetically held in place and easily removable.

In terms of the batton, I cannot remember. It wouldnt have been anything very expensive. I could have been 2x4 (38 x 63) but check that by holding a small bit to the ceiling and pushing the coving into it. You need about 20mm gap to the ceiling. Remember that coving is angled in the corner of the wall, I think this worked nicely - but double check

 

[Dansd89]

It looks good. Did you leave your battons away from the corners a bit to allow for the mitre? You also mentioned about 3mm ply but I don't quite understand where you placed it? Many thanks for help.

 

[jonwestuk]

It looks good. Did you leave your battons away from the corners a bit to allow for the mitre? You also mentioned about 3mm ply but I don't quite understand where you placed it? Many thanks for help.

The battons went into the corner of the ceiling, but I did not run the battons across the whole width of the room, roughly 2/3. That meant I had gaps between the battons. I then used 3mm ply along the full width above the coving and attached to the batton. The ply made everything look neat and tidy. The other advantage of this was that I was able to run cables behind the coving and have it appear in the corners of the room or at straight points. The cable gave additional power to the LED's where the length was too long, and allowed for things like speaker cable etc. Hope that helps.