ᐅ Lighting Tips for Installing Ikea Besta Wall Cabinets

Hello everyone,

I have two Ikea Besta wall display cabinets (60x64x20cm (24x25x8 inches)) mounted side by side on the wall. So, together they are 120cm (47 inches) wide.
Each cabinet has one glass shelf inside and glass doors in front.

Now I would like to add lighting to the cabinets. For example, the Omlopp spotlights could be suitable. You could install one spotlight in each cabinet, attached to the upper panel inside the cabinet.
However, my cabinets are mounted on the wall using a wall rail system.
Looking at the installation instructions for the spotlights, I am a bit confused.
You drill a hole through the back panel, then mount the spotlight. But the wall rail is located exactly behind that spot (??). Even if the wall rail wasn’t there, I could feed the cable through the hole into the cavity between the back panel and the wall where the cabinets hang. But how do I get the cable out to connect it to the transformer? The cabinet is fully flush against the wall all around. Or is the cable supposed to be squeezed seriously between the wall and the cabinet frame?

I feel like I’m missing something here. Alternatively, I could consider lighting with Philips HUE, but here the exact same cable routing problem arises. It doesn’t really matter whether I use Ikea lighting or another manufacturer’s — the issue remains the same.

Hello,

I don’t have Besta or Omlopp myself, but I see two possible options:
1. The rail has a slot in the middle – maybe you could thread the cable through it (and then possibly guide it out sideways from the rail)?
2. Use a hole saw and install the spotlight – the cable can then be routed upwards.

Regards,
IKEA-Freund

But I can’t get a proper hole in this Besta cardboard construction with a hole saw. Everything just tears out. And if I mill from bottom to top, the top will probably break off messily and over a large area. Then wiping it with a damp cloth will likely be impossible from now on.

The top layer of Besta is, as far as I know, a hardboard panel. You can quite easily cut it with a hole saw. You could start by cutting an appropriately sized hole from the inside of the top panel and then cut the outer side from above (hole saws have a centering bit in the middle, after all).

In theory, you could also cut just one hole from the inside and install the spotlight there (which would leave only a small hole on top for the cable). However, depending on the heat generated by the spotlight, this could literally be a fire hazard – the spotlight should come with detailed information about this.

Best regards,
IKEA-Freund

Ok, thanks a lot for the answers!
I will then abandon the idea of lighting my Besta furniture. It doesn’t seem to make much sense, and the information provided by IKEA is unfortunately very limited.

Hello, you could also mill a small groove into the carcass edge.