The 8 watt T5 is probably THE WORST type of fluorescent you could build something like that with sadly, I had 12 of them under my kitchen units, they never got starter changes because 80% of the time the circuits never even used the starter to fire up!
Most would instant start, or start like they were on the old SRS circuits!, even in the middle of winter when the kitchen was coldest, the ones that would blink would only do it a couple of times.
It’s a cool idea, but I reckon you would get better results using something like a 5 foot?
