Aluminum Die-Cast Housings for LED Lighting and Industrial Applications

High-pressure die casting in aluminum alloys. Heat sinks, lamp bodies, outdoor enclosures, brackets and covers — made to drawing, finished and inspected, from prototype to series.

Aluminum Die Casting at Hydroforce

Hydroforce Engineering manufactures aluminum die-cast housings for the lighting, infrastructure and electromechanical sectors, alongside its custom hydraulic cylinder work. This is established capability, not a recent addition: years of production stand behind our heat sinks, lamp bodies, outdoor enclosures and equipment covers, delivered as finished, drawing-ready parts.

Customers in Scandinavia and the Baltics, in airport infrastructure, in industrial automation and in outdoor lighting consolidate this work with us for a simple reason: fewer suppliers and shorter chains. Sourcing a heat sink from one country, a CNC bracket from another and a powder-coated cover from a third is expensive in time and in coordination. With an established tooling network and our own inspection capacity, we deliver the cast housing complete — cast, machined, finished and inspected to the customer drawing.

Why Aluminum Die Casting for Lighting Housings

Modern LED lighting depends on the housing as much as on the diodes. Power densities in current LED matrices generate heat that must be conducted away from the junction within seconds, or the light output and the lifetime of the fixture both collapse. Aluminum alloys solve this problem at low cost: thermal conductivity around 90 to 160 W/m·K, density less than three times that of water, and a casting process that allows fins, mounting bosses, cable glands and gasket grooves to be formed in a single shot.

The same properties make aluminum die casting the standard choice for airport runway and taxiway luminaires, for architectural and street lighting fixtures, for industrial control enclosures and for the outdoor housings of communication and signaling equipment. Where the part has to combine geometric complexity, thermal performance, corrosion resistance and weight savings, high-pressure die casting is almost always the answer.

Capability

We deliver aluminum die-cast components to customer drawings across the typical industrial range:

Short runs are normal practice. We produce from a single prototype upward, and the same alloy certification, dimensional report and coating record accompanies every piece, regardless of batch size.

Production Examples

The parts below are representative of our work: they show the geometry, wall complexity and finishes we routinely deliver in aluminum die casting.

LED Heat-Sink Housing

A finned housing for a high-power LED module, cast in AlSi10Mg with integrated cooling fins, mounting flange and cable port formed in one shot. Surface left in as-cast finish; the fin geometry is optimized for natural convection in outdoor installations.

Paired Optical Lamp Housings

Twin bore housings for a runway or roadway lamp module, machined to receive optical inserts and a sealing gasket. Cast in AlSi12 for fluidity and pressure tightness, with O-ring grooves machined after casting. The two halves shown are an upper machined body and a corresponding lower casting, demonstrating the same geometry in raw cast and finished state.

Outdoor Equipment Enclosure

A powder-coated outdoor enclosure for instrumentation and lighting controls. Cable glands, mounting flanges and access cutouts are cast directly into the body; the finish is a textured grey polyester powder coating rated for outdoor service.

Emergency Call Box Housing

A two-part die-cast housing for an industrial emergency telephone, finished in safety yellow powder coating with screen-printed pictogram. The casting integrates mounting lugs, door hinges and weather-sealing surfaces in one piece, reducing assembly time on the customer’s side.

Large Equipment Housing

A complex die-cast housing produced for industrial control equipment. The part carries multiple mounting bosses, cable feedthroughs and seating surfaces for connectors and gaskets. After casting, the part goes through trim, deburr, shot blast and a CNC pass to bring mating surfaces and threaded holes into tolerance.

Production Process

Every order moves through the same steps:

1. Drawing review and DFM. Before tool fabrication, the drawing is reviewed for castability, draft angles, parting line, gate and overflow positions, and post-machining stock.
2. Tooling. Steel mold inserts are produced and trialed on production presses.
3. High-pressure die casting. Molten aluminum is injected into the closed die at pressures of 600 to 1,200 bar; cycle times typically run from 30 to 90 seconds depending on weight.
4. Trimming and deburring. Sprue, runner and overflow are removed; flash is cleaned mechanically.
5. Shot blasting. Uniform surface texture is established for downstream coating.
6. CNC post-machining. Mating surfaces, bores, threaded holes and sealing grooves are cut to drawing tolerance.
7. Surface treatment. Anodizing, powder coating, e-coating or chromating per the customer specification.
8. Inspection and packaging. First-article CMM report, dimensional inspection across the run, coating thickness verification, and protective packaging for transit.

Quality Control

Every order ships with a documentation file matching the part:

• EN 1706 material certificate for the alloy used
• First-article CMM dimensional report
• In-process dimensional sampling against the drawing
• Coating thickness records (DFT for powder, micrometer for anodizing)
• Visual inspection for porosity, surface finish and finishing defects
• Leak or pressure test where the part specification requires it

Tooling drawings, gate and overflow layouts and process parameters are retained, so a repeat order ships against the same baseline as the first article.

Ordering

Send your drawing or 3D model to office@hydroforce.ee. We respond with a tooling and per-piece quotation, a recommended alloy and a suggested finishing path. Pilot runs and prototype castings are welcome — the same documentation package follows the part from the first piece.