Salt Spray Test

The salt spray (salt fog) test, standardised as ISO 9227 or ASTM B117, exposes a finished housing to a continuous atomised salt mist for a fixed number of hours to accelerate the corrosion a fixture would suffer over years in coastal or marine air. For lighting hardware the result is read in hours survived before blistering, creep from scribes, or red rust — with several hundred hours typically expected of powder-coated die-cast aluminium destined for ports, ships and seaside roads. Corrosion resistance comes from the full stack: alloy choice (low-copper aluminium corrodes slower), surface pre-treatment, coating thickness, and stainless external fasteners, because a perfect coating with mild-steel bolts still streaks rust down the housing. For any project within sight of the sea, ask how the finish was validated rather than assuming an IP rating covers corrosion — it does not.