Try the lighting forum.

>Must you have glass shelves to allow the light to reach the whole cabinet?

Yes.

Not exactly what you were looking for, but lots of good info and links in this thread.

http://ths.gardenweb.com/forums/load/kitchbath/msg080924303478.html

We used LED strips inside the cabinets with wood shelving. The strips are just inside the feame of each cabinet. Would I do it again? No. We have inset cabinet doors and I do not like the fact light is visible around the door. It was something that probably would not show if the doors were full overlay. I can take a pic if you want.

Like momof3sons, I have inset cabinets and the light can be seen around the door, in our case just at the top as the glass is only at the top of the door. This bothered me at first but I'm use to it now. Since the glass is only at the top, our shelves are wood. One thing that I had not thought of before our cabinets were installed was the rest of the inside of the cabinet. On the cabs with glass, the full interior is the same as the exterior (i.e. cherry).

I also have strips but used glass shelves. I have partial overlay and like the lights. I originally was going with hockey pucks but change d to tape lights. Can send picture when on computer.

I have found glass shelves to be very practical- although we have all glass uppers so most of our everyday dishes rest on the wooden floor of the cabinets. I only pull items off the glass shelves maybe every two or three days. I have found them to be quite stable and after a week I got over my squeamishness thinking they would break with any bump or knock.

We have a round puck light that sits in the top of the cab and bathes everything in the cab in light - it is such a nice change from my old uppers with all the dark corners where things were constantly getting lost.

I have the lights on daily with my under cab lights and pendants - I almost never use my overhead lighting which makes me happy. HTH!

Here is a night time picture of ours - note the cabinets are really much lighter than this - I also have the wood shelves if I ever want to switch.

The lights are tape light and are placed towards the front on the sides - if I walk up to the cab, I can see the individual lights.

We are doing LED lights around the face frame of the cabinet... I didn't want glass shelves. Pucks in the top were a 2nd choice.

I have wood shelves with LED tape lighting just inside the front of the inner frame of a 36"w x 42"h kitchen cabinet. The lighting goes up one side, across the top, and down the other side. My cabinets are full overlay. The lights at the top are visible only when standing 2 ft. or less in front of the counter. The cabinet displays bone china, some in stacks. No way was I going to put that amount of weight on glass shelves. I'm thrilled with the results and would do it again. My diningroom has the same cabinets but with glass shelves where crystal is displayed. In this situation, LED tape lights were only run across the top.

I used halogen puck lights in my glass doored cabinets. Since I planned to use the cabinet for collectibles, I used glass shelves. The previous cabinet had glass doors, wood shelves and no interior lighting. The glass shelves and in cabinet lights makes a huge difference.

Here is a close up of the puck lights
{{!gwi}}

And here is how the cabinet looks lit at night (please excuse the reflections in the photo)

{{!gwi}}

Thank you all so much for your responses, especially the pictures. They have been very helpful, including snoonyb's suggestion to try the lighting forum.