ELE Times PDF 1 Nov 2016 | Page 14

Adhesives Electrolube Solves LED Potting Problem In India Electrolube’s Indian subsidiary solves an LED lighting unit potting problem, following consultations with the company’s UK based technical division. The resin encapsulation was causing an unacceptable colour shift in the light from an LED strip luminaire, and the UK technical team had little more than 24 hours to come up with a solution. T he Indian LED lighting systems specialist, Rockforest Technologies India Pvt Ltd, was recently contracted to supply LED strip lighting units for luminaires destined for a shopping complex in Bangalore, India. The specification stipulated that Rockforest’s LED lighting strips should provide a ‘neutral white’ (4,000K) colour and that the LEDs in the luminaires be potted in order to protect them from adverse environmental conditions. Electrolube India conducted some initial trials, potting the strip luminaires to a specified depth of 5.5mm using Electrolube’s UR5634, a semi-rigid, optically clear polyurethane resin that is widely used for encapsulating LED lighting systems. With excellent protective and decorative properties, the UR5634 resin is also highly UV resistant, making it especially useful as an encapsulant for applications exposed to direct sunlight. In this particular application the resin ELE Times | 14 | November, 2016 caused a colour shift from the LED array, from the specified 4,000K (neutral white) to ‘cool white’ (6,500K). Rockforest was under considerable pressure to solve this problem as the 4,000K colour was a nonnegotiable specification; moreover, their customer requested that a new reference sample, which met the 4,000K colour specification, be made available for retesting in just 24 hours. Electrolube India’s General Manager Padmanabha Shaktivelu, needed to act quickly in under 24 hours to help Rockforest meet this very tight deadline, so he approached Electrolube's technical support team in the UK for advice. Responding immediately to Padmanabha’s request, the UK team suggested two different approaches that Rockforest might consider in order to solve the problem. The first of these was a recommendation that they use an LED that provided a colour temperature below the specified