I've spent an afternoon fruitlessly trying to plan out lighting for a fit out of some bedroom cupboards. Getting the LED strip lighting would not really be a problem - plenty of vendors out there - but the issue is that none of them work with simple press to break switches. Some suppliers do a variety of switches such as PIR, microwave, or even reed switch but I've found they are normally specific systems such as Sensio, and can end up costing a lot of money. My own experience of microwave sensor is not great - just randomly switch on and off. Ideally I'd like to use simple ones like the ones shown below.

 

There are two cupboards each with two doors so I want to use one lighting circuit per cupboard with two switches for each door. I recon I should be going for 2 pin 8mm, 12V LED strip. Most likely a Warm White. Warm white light bulbs sit somewhere between 2700 – 3200 kelvin. I will probably need a run of about 5 meters in each cupboard, split into three seperate runs.

 

As none of the systems I've seen seem to have the capacity to connect simple switches in. I saw somewhere that it was advised that adding switches should be done on the mains side of the transformer - so not switching the 12V DC but on the 230V AC - but the problem I'm hitting is that the switches I've seen are rated at 1A or 2A at most. I also read that LEDs can sink a very large initial current momentarily before settling, but I'm not sure how true this is.

 

Q. Has anyone attempted something like this? Is the above configuration (i.e. using two parallel push-to-break switches on the mains side the best way? If so, are higher rated PTB switches available anywhere? Alternatively, are there any switch units that will allow me to switch 230V in a parallel switch configuration, where there switch and switch cable is isolated from the main circuit so can use a much lower power rating?

Thanks in advance.

 

17 hours ago, Paene Finitur said:

but the problem I'm hitting is that the switches I've seen are rated at 1A or 2A at most

That may be on the DC side, but then there will be a bit of induction on the 230 VAC side.

Jury rig something up and test it. A capacitor, resistor and/or a diode across the lightweight AC switch may help (snubber).

Don’t worry about the inrush current, it’s hardly likely to make any difference whatsoever to a mechanical part like a switch. 
 

Use the Jeani switches. They’ve proven their quality for decades