Light drawn as a line, set flush in the ceiling plane, with nothing hanging below it. We build the channel, bend it, wire it and stretch the membrane around it with one crew and one drawing set.
Recessed linear lighting is a continuous aluminum channel built into the ceiling plane, loaded with 24V LED, and closed by a tensioned membrane that lands tight on both sides of the slot. The result is a lit line in a flat ceiling. There is no trim ring, no housing edge, no fixture body, and no row of cans marching down a corridor. On the reflected ceiling plan the line is drawn where the design wants it, not where a fixture module happens to land.
That is the difference from buying a linear fixture. A fixture is a manufactured length that you place, join and hope aligns with the drywall or grid around it. Our channel is cut, mitered and bent in our own Dania Beach shop to match your drawing, and the ceiling surface is then built around the channel instead of being cut to receive it. Runs turn corners, cross rooms, split around structure and return, all in one continuous plane with no reveal gaps and no shadow line where two products meet. Three channel sizes cover the range: AP-305 Mini for a slim accent line, AP-306 Midi where a wider slot suits the room, and AP-307 Maxi where the largest of the three is called for. Section drawings and DWG files for all three are published, and we confirm the profile against your ceiling section at drawing stage.
The channel follows your geometry. Straight runs, 90s, obtuse and acute corners, curves and closed loops all come out of the same profile family, cut and bent on our CNC. You are not laying out a grid of modules and living with where the joints fall.
Membrane is welded to size after the channels are up and field dimensions are taken, then tensioned into the profile on each side of the slot. There is no drywall cut to patch and no mud line beside the light. The membrane is tensioned into the profile, so the detail is not a taped joint waiting to crack.
The membrane de-tensions and re-tensions. Drivers sit remote in an accessible spot. A failed strip, a CCT change or a control retrofit is a service call, not demolition. The same ceiling goes back up the same day.
The spaces where we install this system most.
Kitchens, hallways and living rooms zoned with clean light lines.
Circulation and desk zones defined by continuous runs.
Directional lines that pull the eye to product.
Corridors and circulation in hotels, condo towers and offices, where a continuous line replaces a row of downlights and gives the corridor direction.
A light line is built from the structure down, in seven stages. Nothing about it is a fixture that gets hung at the end.
1. The line goes on the deck before any aluminum is cut. We transfer the light lines from your RCP up to the structure and build continuous backing for them: plywood ribbon, unistrut or hat channel fastened to joist or slab. The channel has to bear on something solid for its entire length. Shop standard for that backing is level within 1/8 in over 10 ft, tighter than we hold for a blank ceiling, because a lit line telegraphs deviation that a flat plane hides.
2. The run is dry-laid and cut in the shop. AP-305 Mini is the slim accent channel. AP-306 Midi is the wider body. AP-307 Maxi is the largest of the three. Dimensioned drawings for all three are on the technical downloads page, and we confirm slot width and profile depth against your ceiling section before fabrication. All three are extruded 6063 aluminum in white powder coat or mill finish, supplied in 6.5 ft stock. We lay the full run out on the shop floor, mark every miter and splice against the field dimensions, and cut on the saw before anything goes overhead.
3. Joints and miters are made in the shop, not on a ladder. Every butt splice gets an internal alignment sleeve so two sticks cannot step relative to each other. A 1/32 in step is invisible in a dark reveal and obvious in a lit one. Miters are cut at half the included angle, 45 and 45 for a 90, then plated and pinned from behind so the corner cannot open under membrane tension. Shop standard is no splice within 12 in of a miter or a termination. On curved runs AP-305 goes on the same CNC bender we use for our luminous form profiles, so an arc arrives as one piece instead of a faceted chain of straight sections.
4. The channel is fastened and the whole run is strung and sighted. Shop standard is 12 in on center on straights, tightened to 8 in on center through curves and within 4 in of every joint, miter and end. We then run a line down the finished face of the entire assembly and shim before anything is wired. Correcting a lit line after the membrane is on means taking the ceiling down.
5. LED and low-voltage wiring. 24V constant voltage tape is bedded onto the channel’s mounting shelf with full contact to the aluminum, because the extrusion is the heat sink and AP-307’s fins only work if the tape is actually touching them. CCT is selected from 2700K, 3000K, 3500K, 4000K, 5000K or 6500K, or tunable white 2700-6500K, or RGBW. We specify strips rated CRI 90+ by their manufacturer. All feeds are pulled back to remote drivers in an accessible location. Everything above the membrane, from driver to diode, is low voltage.
6. The membrane closes the assembly. The membrane is welded with a perimeter bead in our shop, sized off dimensions taken after the channels are up, not off the architectural plan. It is warmed, tensioned into the wall track, and landed in the channel’s grip on each side of the slot. The membrane is captured on each side of the slot, so the light line has a hard finished edge left and right with no fastener visible. Where the design calls for the line itself to glow rather than throw, we run the translucent membrane across the slot mouth and that membrane becomes the diffuser at 42.0% diffused transmission. Nothing else is added to the assembly.
7. Aim, dim and hand over. We set the driver output, walk the dimming curve from 100% down to the specified floor, and check the run end to end at the lowest level, which is where any mismatch between strip batches or drivers shows first. The client gets the profile drawings, the driver and control schedule, and the location of every access point.
These are the numbers we work to in the shop and in the field. They come from our own installs, not from a laboratory. Treat them as our shop standard and confirm the specific run with us at drawing stage.
Cavity depth above the ceiling. Minimum clear drop from structure to finished membrane, measured at the channel line: 2-1/2 in for AP-305, 3 in for AP-306, 4 in for AP-307, so there is free air above the channel for heat to leave the aluminum. These are our shop minimums and we confirm them against the profile section at drawing stage. Add 6 in of clear space wherever a driver, junction or power injection point sits. If the slab is already at your finish height, the honest answer is a shallow bulkhead or a surface-mounted line, and we will say so before you draw it.
Setback, which is what actually controls whether you see dots. The distance from the face of the LED tape to the diffusing surface is the single variable that decides if a run reads as one line or as a string of beads. Shop standard minimum setback is 5/8 in with 120 LED/m tape, and 1 in is where we are comfortable. The working rule is setback of at least 1.5 times the LED pitch, with 1.0 times as the absolute floor.
LED pitch by application. 60 LED/m has roughly 5/8 in between diodes and belongs in deep coves, not in a shallow linear slot. 120 LED/m at roughly 1/3 in pitch is our default for AP-305 and AP-306. Where the slot is shallower than 1/2 in, or the line is within reach of a person, we move to a dot-free COB tape and stop arguing with the geometry.
Run length and voltage drop. 24V tape is fed 16 ft from a single end. Feeding both ends takes a continuous run to 32 ft. Past that we run a low-voltage bus above the ceiling and inject power every 16 ft. A 60 ft corridor is not four fixtures, it is one continuous channel with four injection points, and it reads as one line. Chaining past 16 ft to save a home run is where the far end of a run goes visibly dim and slightly warm.
One driver per visual line. If a single uninterrupted line is split across two drivers, the two halves track differently at the bottom of the dimming curve and a step appears in the middle around 10%. Zone at the corners, not mid-run. Keep the driver within 30 ft of the first feed point, in a closet, above a cabinet or behind an access panel we can actually open. 18 x 18 in is the smallest hatch we will accept, ventilated.
Dimming floor. Do not specify below 5% on 0-10V unless the driver is a deep-dim logarithmic type. DALI-2 gives you the addressability and the smooth low end. DMX is for color and tunable white where the line is being pushed as an effect. Casambi-type wireless where the job has no control wiring budget.
Corners and miters. A mitered 90 is clean and repeatable. The thing to watch is the dark gap at the corner where two tape ends meet. Shop standard is to keep that gap under 1/2 in or the corner reads as a break in the line rather than a turn. Below roughly a 12 in inside radius on AP-305 we stop bending and start segmenting, because the extrusion distorts and the tape does not want to follow.
Terminations. A line should die into the wall track or stop a deliberate 6 in or more short of it. A 1 in gap between the end of the light and the wall reads as a construction error to everyone who walks in.
Coordination clearances. We ask for 4 in clear between the channel and any diffuser, speaker or sensor so the membrane has a clean landing on both, and 8 in where the line has to cross structure. Sprinkler spacing and clearances are set by the fire protection drawings and the AHJ, not by us. Send us the sprinkler layout and we will work the light lines around it.
The seam bonus most specifiers miss. Light lines double as membrane panel breaks. Panels terminate into the channel, so the light lines let us land the panel joints on the light rather than leaving a weld line in the open field. Maximum seamless panel width depends on the material selected, and we confirm it against your ceiling dimensions before we set the layout. Coordinating the lighting layout with the panel layout is free performance. Ask us for it early and we will draw both together.
What actually causes hotspots and banding, in the order we see them: tape mounted too close to the diffusing surface; a gap in the tape at a splice or a miter; two different reel batches inside one continuous visual run, which shows as a color step you cannot unsee; unequal membrane tension either side of the slot; and a driver running at the very top of its output with no headroom, which brightens the first few feet after the feed. Shop standard is one reel batch per continuous visual run, ordered with 10% overage so a later service call still matches.
Draw the line, not fixtures. Give us the centerline geometry, the slot width you want, the CCT and the control protocol, and note the driver location and access panel. There is no fixture count and no fixture schedule. If a consultant asks for photometric files, tell us early. The one measured optical value we hold is 42.0% diffused transmission through the membrane, per a Poznan University of Technology test report, method per CIE 130-1998. We do not hold LM-79, IES files or lumen output for the finished assembly, and we will say so in writing rather than send a number we cannot stand behind. What you are drawing is a line and a slot width, with no module dimension to coordinate. We issue shop drawings back with the channel layout, every splice and miter, the feed and injection points, and the driver schedule, and those become the coordination set the electrician and the GC work from.
No, and we will not pretend otherwise. We are a fabricator and installer, not a lamp manufacturer with a photometry lab. We do not publish IES, LM-79, LM-80 or TM-21 data for these assemblies. What we can give you is the manufacturer data for the specific LED tape we are specifying on your job, plus the independent light-transmission test report for the membrane. If your lighting designer needs a calculated result, they model the tape and we coordinate the geometry with them. For a large commercial project, where the number really matters, we build a physical mockup in the actual room and you can look at it.
Continuous, and the joints do not show if the run is built correctly. Extrusion comes in 6.5 ft lengths, so a 40 ft line is seven sticks. Every butt splice gets an internal alignment sleeve so the two pieces cannot step, splices are kept 12 in clear of miters and terminations, and the LED tape joints are staggered so a tape butt never lands on top of an extrusion butt. The failure mode is a 1/32 in step at a splice, which nobody would notice in an unlit reveal and everybody notices in a lit one.
A 90 is two 45 cuts, plated and pinned from behind so membrane tension cannot open the joint. Any other included angle is cut at half the angle. Curves are bent on our CNC so an arc arrives as one piece rather than a chain of flats. The detail that matters is the tape gap at the corner. We hold it under 1/2 in, because past that the corner stops reading as a turn in the line and starts reading as two separate lines that nearly meet.
Drivers are remote and must sit somewhere a person can reach: a closet, above a cabinet run, or behind an access panel of at least 18 x 18 in, ventilated. Keep it within 30 ft of the first feed point. If a driver or a strip fails after handover, we de-tension the membrane, replace, and re-tension the same ceiling. There is no drywall repair, no repaint and no matching of texture. LED and electrical carry a 3 year warranty, the membrane 10 years.
The membrane was tested to ASTM E84 per finish on white specimens: gloss flame spread 5 and smoke developed 300, matte 10 and 300, satin 15 and 250. The laboratory assigned no classification to these results. The specimens were not mounted per ASTM E2573, and the test covers the membrane only, not a plenum assembly. On this data the system is not permitted in return-air plenums. We hold no NFPA 701, NFPA 286, UL 2043, Florida Product Approval or Miami-Dade NOA for this assembly. If your AHJ needs any of those, tell us early and we will tell you straight whether we can meet it rather than find out at inspection.
What we hold today and issue on request:
Reserved and not yet published. Listed so nobody assumes it exists:
What we do not have, said plainly and by name so it does not surface at submittal: we hold no LM-79, LM-80 or TM-21 data and publish no IES files for this assembly. We hold no NFPA 701, no NFPA 286 or 265, no ASTM E2573 mounted-assembly test, no UL 2043 plenum rating, and no Florida Product Approval or Miami-Dade NOA for this assembly. The ASTM E84 report covers the membrane per finish on white specimens and the laboratory assigned no classification to those results. Tell us at drawing stage which of these your specification section calls for and we will tell you straight whether we can meet it.
A panel manufacturer sells you a tile or a module and you lay your ceiling out around its dimensions, while we cut, miter and CNC-bend the channel to the line you actually drew, then build the ceiling surface around it, on walls as readily as ceilings, with one crew and one drawing set out of our own Dania Beach shop.
Our profile cross-sections, dimensions and the full color chart live in the technical library. CAD files are sent on request, usually within one business day.
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Sketch the lines you want on your plan, or just send photos. We return a layout, a budget and a lead time the same day.
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