How do you mount an LED panel?

In three ways, and your ceiling decides which. In a suspended grid ceiling you simply lay the panel into the grid. If there is no suspended ceiling, you screw a surface frame to the ceiling and clip the panel into it. Suspending it on wires is possible too.

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Laying it into a grid ceiling

This is what the panel is made for. A grid ceiling consists of visible T-profiles 15 or 24 mm wide with cells of 600 by 600 or 1200 by 300 millimetres. You lift a ceiling tile out of the grid and lay the panel into the empty cell.

That is why our Nova measures 595 by 595 mm and the Europa 1195 by 295. Those five millimetres are exactly what you need to let the panel drop into the cell without jamming.

No tools are involved. The only thing to arrange is the power: the driver sits above the ceiling and has to be connected to a light point up there. Measure your grid before ordering, because 625 by 625 also exists and this panel will not sit snugly in that.

Surface mounting with a frame

In a home there is usually no suspended ceiling, and then laying it in is not an option. A surface mounting frame solves that: you screw the frame to the ceiling or the wall and clip the panel into it.

We have two, the frame for 60 by 60 and the frame for 120 by 30. Both with a clip system, so no loose screws along the edge, and the fixings are included.

Mind the depth. The panel itself is thin, the Nova only 18 mm, but with the frame the whole thing comes further below the ceiling. In a room with a low ceiling you notice that.

Suspending on wires

The third route is to hang the panel below the ceiling on steel wires. You do that above a worktop, a reception desk or a meeting table, where you want the light closer to the working plane.

We do not carry a suspension kit, so you get that elsewhere. What does matter: the closer you bring the panel to the eye, the more glare weighs. If you hang a panel low over a desk, choose a low UGR. The Nova sits below 16. What that figure means is in What does UGR mean on an LED panel?

What to arrange in all three cases

Circuit off. Switch off at the consumer unit and check with a voltage tester, even if you are only laying a panel in. The connection above the ceiling is simply on 230 volts.

Somewhere for the driver. In a grid ceiling that is no issue, because there is plenty of room. With surface mounting the driver sits behind the frame, so enough air has to stay around it. Heat is the biggest enemy of that electronics, as described in When does an LED lamp need replacing?

Setting the colour temperature. Our panels have a CCT switch with settings from 3000K to 6000K. That switch is on the panel itself, so you set it correctly before the thing disappears into the ceiling. After that it is hard to reach.

Choosing the dimming version. Each model comes in a dimmable and a non-dimmable version. You make that choice when ordering, not afterwards.

Recessing into a plasterboard ceiling

People ask this often and the answer is awkward. A panel is not a recessed spot: you cannot cut a round hole for it. To sink it flush into a plasterboard ceiling you need a rectangular opening with a supporting structure around it, and for that you need a recessing frame that we do not carry.

In a home, surface mounting with a frame is therefore almost always the practical choice. For spots rather than a panel it is a different story: see How do you fit recessed spotlights in a plasterboard ceiling?

The panels and the frames are at LED panels.