The Best Accent and Under Cabinet Lighting For Your Home.... and how to repair them

In this video I discuss, in depth, how to repair and solder SK6812 under cabinet light strips. These can be the best under cabinet lights when paired with a WLED controller because you can incorporate patterns, colors, and even timers to brighten/dim automatically. Great for parties and every day life.

However, like all lighting products - they sometimes go out and need repair.  

Here are links to the items found in this video (and for the under cabinet lighting):

Weller Industrial Soldering Gun: https://amzn.to/4579Oic 
Solder: https://amzn.to/4mhHZuI

For the Cabinet Lighting: SK6812 light strips (suggest natural white and IP65 to protect from Kitchen life): https://amzn.to/3Uw2XtP
To Power the lights, a Meanwell 12V power supply (for full time running always run a Meanwell): https://amzn.to/4miE9l8
Wiring from control box / PSU to lights: https://amzn.to/4lHKNBn
Easy setup WLED controller: https://amzn.to/4lRavn8 Box used to house WLED controller and Power supply (in attic): https://amzn.to/4mf6Dft

Budget friendly phone gimbal for auto-tracking the overal/main video: https://amzn.to/44OvcKh (note - the app was not used to create this video, simply connect the AI module and it will automatically track!)

The lights themselves are installed into aluminum tracks that mimic the shape of the cabinet front.  For each cabinet section there is wiring that runs to the first and last pixel of each section that includes power, negative, and data.  Each wire set is run back to the control box.  This setup is used with 1 single output from the WLED controller.  For those who are used to shows and controllers something like a 4 o 8 port WLED controller may be easier to wire.  The reason each run includes wiring on both sides is to also allow for power balancing. 

Small holes were drilled at the front corner of each cabinet section to allow the wire to run behind the face of the cabinet, held in place with small screws with big heads (lath screws).  Wiring runs up through the cabinet directly into the attic.

Our WLED controller has timers set in the morning and night to change the color/brightness of the lights.  This is effectively 'nightlight' and day mode.  We have a similar setup behind our custom fireplace mantle that also WLED and mimics the kitchen cabinets.

The SK6812's are preferred over others due to the added white pixel.  With the interior home lighting you really want to control the white color to match your interior lights and sometimes controlling white with RGB can be difficult as there is generally a color hue.  The white pixel fixes this problem.

Check out this video for the detailed instructions on how to repair.  At the end of the video I quickly repair the 2nd section to show how long it actually takes to solder these when you are comfortable with the process.