DMF Lighting recessed lighting · Kansas City.

What we carry and install from DMF Lighting

DMF Lighting describes itself as a maker of LED downlights with its own engineering and test lab, based in Carson, California. Its site sorts the range by aperture, series, mounting and installation requirement, and the families below are named the way it names them. We specify, install and commission to order.

• M Series. A 4″ downlight family that DMF Lighting splits into M Series Residential, M Series Commercial and M Series Multiples, with an M Series 4″ IC Rated Family page. Housings are listed for new construction, remodel, retrofit, shallow plenum, concrete, wood or millwork and flangeless mud-in; trims include round, square, hyperbolic, pinhole, wall wash and flangeless. The housing is a rough-in decision, which is why the fixture schedule sits in the same coordination as our new construction low-voltage pre-wire.
• X Series. DMF Lighting X Series is a 3″ downlight, listed as formerly designated 2″ with the same hardware. The page names new construction, remodel, wood or millwork and flangeless mud-in housings, seven trim styles, and finishes in white, black, bronze, brass, copper, graphite and clear diffuse. It is the family to look at where a ceiling wants a smaller opening.
• C Series and H Series. DMF Lighting C Series is listed as a 4″ and 6″ downlight and H Series as a 3″ and 4″ downlight, each with a cylinder version. DMF Lighting also lists H Series Retrofit and M Series Retrofit offerings, plus a retrofit conversion kit from 8″ to 4″, for ceilings that are already built.
• Cylinders and surface mounts. DMF Lighting lists a 4″ Cylinder, an X Series 3″ Cylinder, decorative pendant versions with shades, coastal marine-grade versions of the M Series and X Series cylinders, and S Series surface mount. They are for ceilings that should not be cut, a porch or covered outdoor ceiling, or a room where the fixture is meant to be seen.
• True 1 and 0.5 Concealed Linear. DMF Lighting True 1 is a 1″ downlight family and 0.5 Concealed Linear is a 0.5″ linear system that mounts on the surface or sits recessed in millwork. Both were listed as pre-release on the day we read the site, so we follow them and do not specify them until DMF Lighting lists them as released.
• The luxury-line site. DMF Lighting’s own menu links to a separate luxury-lighting site for homeowners that lists Artafex 1, Artafex 2 and Artafex 4 recessed fixtures, Artafex Linear, cylinders and surface mounts. We read it as a second catalogue from the same maker and specify from the sheet for the exact model, for the estates in our luxury home automation scope.
• Dimming interfaces. On the X Series and M Series 4″ IC Rated pages DMF Lighting lists 0-10V and TRIAC/ELV dimming to 1% and DALI-2 to 0.1%; True 1 and 0.5 Concealed Linear list a combination 0-10V and TRIAC/ELV option. Which interface a room uses is set by the control, and that is the subject of our smart lighting work.

How we put DMF Lighting into a house

A fixture count is not a lighting design. What a room feels like two years later comes from where each fixture sits, what it is aimed at, and whether the dimmer behind it can take it down gently.

• The ceiling plan comes first. We draw aperture, trim, beam and color temperature room by room against the furniture plan, then issue the fixture schedule and the load schedule the electrician and the builder work from, before the ceiling is closed.
• Dimming is chosen with the control. The driver interface goes on the schedule beside the keypad and the dimmer or module that will run the circuit. On a Lutron HomeWorks job we check each fixture against the published dimmer-compatibility information before ordering, rather than relying on a general statement.
• Cabling and control integration. Keypad and sensor pathways are pulled at the same rough-in as the housings go in, and scenes are programmed after the fixtures are powered.
• Aiming and levels after the furniture arrives. The M Series 4″ IC Rated page lists beam spreads as field-changeable, so we set aim and low-end levels with the owner in the room, once the furniture is in and the walls are painted, and save the result as scenes.
• Documentation is the deliverable. The fixture schedule by room, the driver and dimming interface for each circuit, the scene list and the control programming land in your portal. A lighting system nobody can read after the integrator leaves is one you will pay to rediscover.

Where DMF Lighting sits beside the other lines we carry

DMF Lighting is the fixture, and something else decides how the fixture is controlled. On a whole-house job that can be Lutron HomeWorks, which runs the dimmers, keypads and scenes the downlights hang from. When a room needs a full range of color rather than a white downlight with warm dim or tunable white, Ketra is Lutron’s LED line for that. And where the same room needs its daylight handled, the Screen Innovations shade page and our motorized shades work can sit on the same scenes.