Custom Lighting & Architectural Lighting Solutions
Improve performance of lighting fixtures & reflectors with FluidForming hydroforming.
From custom lighting fixtures to interior lighting design to reflector performance, FluidForming is shining a new light on a bright industry. Our new metal forming technology inspires product designers and interior designers to dream big.
We’ll help you get your newest lighting products on the market faster, at an affordable price point, and with the highest levels of quality and finish. Our all-new approach to hydroforming has the potential to brighten the future.
What is FluidForming? It’s a pioneering approach to traditional hydroforming that enables rapid prototyping and same-day production of custom or limited-run lighting and reflector designs. The implications of FluidForming are wide-ranging and profound. Ideas that were once deemed too costly (or impossible) to produce can be formed, iterated, and perfected in a matter of days.
FluidForming is a process and technology embodied by our one-of-a-kind universal sheet metal and tube forming machine, the FormBalancer. The FormBalancer, which can accommodate a range of product sizes, is a force-contained structure permitting extremely high forming pressures of up to 4,000 bar (60,000 psi).
These extreme pressures (up to 4x the pressure used by legacy hydroforming equipment) make it possible to form components that were previously thought too complex to be formed from metal. Not only that, but our process features a greater strength-to-weight ratio than virtually any other metal forming process.
Benefits of FluidForming hydroforming for the architectural lighting & lighting design industries.
All-in-one metal forming technology
FluidForming’s innovative approach offers a number of potential benefits for the custom lighting, lighting design, and custom architectural lighting sectors. It’s one-of-kind FormBalancer presses can serve as a precision sheet metal hydroforming machine as well as a tube forming machine.
Unbeatable lighting design flexibility
Our technology offers unparalleled flexibility for designers, inventors, and engineers. We have the capability to form custom light fixtures, reflectors, light guide plates, light control diffusers, enclosures and more from a variety of prefinished and coated metals and alloys. Components produced using the FluidForming technology are lightweight, stable, and durable. Thanks to high forming pressures, advanced geometries and complex shapes can be readily achieved.
Rapid lighting prototyping
Dramatically truncate the time between ideation and full-scale production with FluidForming. Not only does our process save our clients many hundreds of thousands of dollars over the course of a product launch, but our clients are able to bring innovative products to the market well ahead of their competitors. Furthermore, low tooling costs and our nested, modular die structure help minimize waste and maximize efficiency.
Improved reflectors
Thanks to our blemish-free process, pre-finished materials can be formed with ease. And, because our metal forming technology can accommodate complex designs and geometries, lighting designers get more out of their reflectors. Now that’s a bright idea!
High-quality lighting fixtures
Furthermore, unlike bladder-based systems, our bladder-free technology ensures the highest levels of surface quality and detail possible. With a 99.996 first pass yield success rate, FluidForming offers the quality, accuracy, and repeatability that professional lighting experts and interior designers expect. Because pressurized water comes in contact with just one side of the metal surface, FluidForming is perfect for pre-finished materials or high-tech alloys, and pre-coated and pre-polished metals. Because there are no tooling marks to mar the surface, minimal (if any), coating degradation occurs.
Illuminating the future
FluidForming makes it possible to incorporate one or more secondary optics, which can consist of lenses, reflectors, total internal reflection (TIR), and reflection and refraction optics. It can also form virtually flawless diffusers that collect light, magnify its intensity, direct it to a target surface, and then blur it to enhance beam and color uniformity. Parabolic, pebbled, and pitted shape reflectors can all be accommodated. Our technology makes it possible to capture as much light as possible and redirect it which improves performance and lowers energy costs.