Hi,
Does anybody have a good and cheap source of aluminum led housing ?
I want to build myself nichia led bulbs, it can be mr16 or gu10 housing.
http://dx.com/p/1w-1-led-aluminum-bulb-accessories-shell-silver-81789 - it can be also fixed housing.
It’s really hard to find something under 4$
What about this
http://www.fasttech.com/products/2201/10000795/1263204-mr16-3w-3-led-3200k-250lm-warm-white-led-light-bul
They are $2.78 each, $2.43 in lots of 5 or more
This includes 3 led’s, TIR lenses, AND an aluminum housing-heatsink
here is a picture of it taken apart
The aluminum housing-heatsink
Focalprice had excellent MR16 case “SD011” unfortunately it is no longer available. My attempts to source it elsewhere failed despite some web shops have them “in stock” (they don’t)
http://www.dealincage.com/SD011-13W-MR16-1-LED-White-Light-DIY-Aluminum-Spot-Light-Shell-Kit-Silver
They still indicate “in stock” but what they send was nothing like sd011 and they managed to get my money with little help from paypal and so called “buyer protection” policy…
Best and cheapest solution is to improvise with CPU coolers.
There was a seller here who advertised DIY led bulbs, the thread got deleted like so often here 
The URL is. http://www.loveislight.com/
They sell a empty housing for 1.2$ plus shipping(5$ or so)
This is enough for max. 3W led at approx. 85°C junction temperature (in my case bridgelux sm4)
Instead of fiddling with chinese led housings I paired some stock AMD coolers (without fan) and existing halogen fixtures. Using 6pcs of bridgelux sm4 emitters driven at 4W (3000°K/90 CRI) heat sinks are stone cold and this setup more then successfully replaces 150W of halogen bulbs with just 27W of power.
If it is spam, or not in the commercial seller's area, then it gets marked as spam.
Pity, that was the best option because i need optics for just one led. Seems that i need to improvise with CPU coolers
I sent FastTech a request to add a host for the E27 bulbs in hopes that it will be cheap! Maybe others should send in requests for housing hosts and maybe they can make it happen……
Generally speaking ,like that heavy big aluminium housing down lights , big size , the aluminium housing+driver+SMD(led chips),the materials cost is also more , a good quality driver cost maybe more than USD3. so the whole bulb price also high accordingly . how about ledlightmax.com (or ) maxlightings.com , there are a lot of different bulbs there , hope it could be helpful for you.
Actually led down ceiling lights ,GU10/MR16, LED par lights ,AR111 ,high power led spotlight are all available choices .
I would like this to happen. I'd be more into modding household lights than flashlights.