The lighting housing is more than an exterior shell. It can establish the mechanical relationships between LEDs and optics, move heat away from electronic components, protect internal hardware, and attach the finished assembly to industrial equipment.
Mechanical Structure
One Housing, Several Functions
A lighting housing can include LED-board mounting surfaces, optical retainers, gasket grooves, cable channels, threaded holes, connector openings, mounting brackets, fins, and protective covers.
Heat Spreading
Using the Housing as Part of the Thermal Path
Aluminum structures can receive heat from LED circuit boards and spread it through a larger mass and external surface area.
Contact surfaces, wall thickness, fins, interface material, mounting pressure, and surrounding airflow influence the complete thermal path.
Thermal Management →Aluminum Materials
Material Forms for Lighting Hardware
Aluminum is available as billet, plate, sheet, extrusion, casting, and other forms that can be selected around the manufacturing process.
Industrial resources for aluminum manufacturers cover a broad range of aluminum material forms.
6061 Aluminum
Machined Aluminum Components
6061 aluminum is one alloy category encountered in industrial fabricated and machined products.
Alloy selection should still follow the actual machining, structural, thermal, finishing, and environmental requirements.
Extruded Housings
Linear Aluminum Lighting Profiles
Extrusions can efficiently create long housings with repeated cross-sectional features for LED boards, diffusers, heat-sink fins, and mounting.
Aluminum Extrusions →Surface Treatment
Anodized Aluminum Lighting Hardware
Anodized aluminum is used across industrial products where anodizing is appropriate for surface protection, appearance, identification, or wear considerations.
Lighting Surface Finishes →Selection