A profile is a heatsink, an optic and a piece of trim doing three jobs at once. Most specifications get the trim right and the other two wrong — which is why so many installed coves have visible dots and fade within a year.
Profiles are specified by the architectural detail they disappear into. Start from the drawing — a shadow gap, a plaster return, a stair nosing, a wardrobe reveal — and the family follows almost immediately.
| Family | Codes | The detail it answers |
|---|---|---|
| Micro & Furniture | 30 | Shelving, wardrobes, handrails, narrow reveals |
| Skirting, Step & Floor | 29 | Skirting lines, stair nosings, recessed floor slots |
| Surface Mounted | 25 | Where nothing can be cut into — the section is the detail |
| PoP / Gypsum | 23 | Plaster-in sections that finish flush with the ceiling |
| Neoflex | 22 | Curves and radii — silicone, not extrusion |
| Asymmetric, Cove & Corner | 22 | Throwing light off a surface rather than at the room |
| Suspended & Pendant | 13 | A lit line held away from the slab |
| Curtain Washer & Wall Grazer | 7 | Grazing a texture, or a pelmet washing fabric |
| Micro Prismatic | 6 | Where the diffuser has to work harder than opal can |
| Recessed Mounted | 5 | Trimmed recessed channels in a cut ceiling or joinery |
Economical Profiles (19 codes) and Score-6 (6) cut across those groups rather than answering a different detail — they are the same geometries at a different price and finish level.
The cutout is the irreversible decision. As with a recessed downlight, the hole is cut before the fitting arrives. Confirm the cutout dimension against the code before the ceiling or the joinery is made, not after.
A visible line of dots is not a fault in the strip. It is the distance between the LEDs and the diffuser being too small for the spacing of the LEDs. Light needs room to overlap before it reaches the surface you can see.
A rule of thumb that gets you close: minimum depth in millimetres ≈ 1000 ÷ LEDs per metre. A 60 LED/m strip wants roughly 17mm of internal depth to blend; a 120 LED/m strip needs about 8mm; a 240 LED/m strip will look continuous in almost anything.
| Strip density | Rough depth to blend | Practical reading |
|---|---|---|
| 60 LED/m | ~17mm | Needs a deep section, or the dots will show |
| 120 LED/m | ~8mm | Comfortable in most standard profiles |
| 240 LED/m | ~4mm | Continuous even in micro sections |
This is why the two decisions cannot be made separately. Choosing a slim section and then specifying a 60 LED/m strip to save money produces exactly the result the profile was bought to avoid. If the detail forces a shallow section, the density has to go up.
The other half of the same decision is strip width. Every profile has an internal channel width, and the strip has to fit it — with the PCB flat against the base, not bowed or wedged. Enlighten Pro states the strip width each section takes; a Neoflex F3020 at 30 × 20mm, for instance, is specified for a 15mm strip.
Every diffuser trades output for evenness. That trade is the point — but it should be made knowingly, because the loss is real and it is not recovered anywhere else.
The mistake worth naming: choosing clear because a lumen table looked better, in a location where the profile is at eye level. The specification wins on paper and the room has a line of visible dots in it.
Lumen figures carry their conditions. A strip's output is quoted bare, at a stated colour temperature and drive current. Put it behind opal in an aluminium channel and the delivered figure is lower. Compare like with like, or compare after the diffuser.
An LED strip run bare degrades. The profile is the heatsink: it takes heat off the PCB and moves it into the air across its whole surface. That is why the extrusion exists, and it is the reason a taped-up strip behind a pelmet fades within a year while the same strip in a channel does not.
The consequence for specification is straightforward. Above roughly 15–20W per metre, section mass stops being optional. A high-output strip in a shallow decorative channel has nowhere to send its heat, and the result is lumen depreciation — the run gets visibly dimmer over months, unevenly, worst where the section is most enclosed.
Everything above assumes an aluminium extrusion, which is straight. When the detail is a curve, extrusion is the wrong tool — and bending it is not the answer.
Neoflex is a flexible silicone profile: the strip sits inside a moulded silicone body that bends in plane. Twenty-two codes, in sections from around 4 × 10mm to 36 × 20mm, each specified for a particular strip width.
| Choose Neoflex when | Stay with aluminium when |
|---|---|
| The run follows a radius, an arch or a curved reveal | The run is straight, and the section is in view |
| The detail is continuous around a corner with no break | The strip is high output and needs the heatsink |
| A joint at every change of direction would be visible | A crisp machined edge is part of the detail |
Silicone is not a heatsink. This is the trade, and it is the one to hold on to. A flexible section cannot move heat the way an aluminium one does, so it belongs with lower-output strips. Specifying a high-wattage strip into a curved silicone run is the most common way to get a curve that works beautifully on day one and fades on the inside of the bend.
Neoflex bends in one plane. A section that has to twist as well as curve is a different conversation — send the geometry.
Six answers, and the run is specified. Miss the first or the last and something has to be re-made.
Colour temperature and CRI follow the room, not the profile: 3000K, 4000K, 5000K and 6000K are standard and stocked, anything from 2700K to 6500K is available to order, and Ra 90+ is worth specifying wherever the light lands on material a client chose for its colour.
Send the detail and the length — we come back with the section, the diffuser and the cutout.