After solving the electronic problems, my illuminator needed an enclosure.

A powder coated aluminum box, with a counterweight to keep it from being nose heavy when the LEDs are extended. The counterweight is a solid slab of aluminum.

The box was simple to powdercoat, it is .050" 5052 aluminum with powder on one side only. In about 7 minutes, the box had come up to the powder flow out temperature which is about 330F for this powder. The counterweight was a little more work. It is .875" solid aluminum, and it is coated on all sides. I am using an old electric kitchen oven for my powdercoating work, so the volume is sort of limited. I masked the sides of the block and coated the bottom surface. After placing it in the oven, it took 45 minutes to come up to the flow out temperature of the powder. Ten minutes later, I removed it from the oven and let it cool. It took another 30 minutes to cool enough that I could touch it to remove the masking. I threaded long screws into the tapped holes on the bottom surface to let the block sit on the screw heads rather than the already coated, bottom surface.  I set the block on a sheet of aluminum to handle, and coated it. As the block was still at about 130F, it only took about 30 minutes to come up to the flow out temperature.

The counterweight was the largest piece that I have powdercoated to date. Generally, I send large pieces out.

Powdercoating is a really good way to finish metal parts. It is a lot tougher finish than rattle can spray paint. It flows well and fills imperfections in the metal finish pretty well. Cleaning up the powder coat gun is a lot easier than cleaning up a traditional spray gun. Inexpensive powdercoat guns can be bought from a number of places on the web. The oven is probably the biggest hassle on it. We replaced our old kitchen oven a few years ago, and I kept the old one for powdercoating. Don't even consider using an oven used for  food preparation oven for powdercoating! Your spouse will kill you if the powder does not.