ELE Times December 2016 Electronics News in India | Online Electronics Mag | Page 20

Cover Story

electronics manufacturing regions, where both export and local
markets are booming, demand for specialised services and
products, particularly for LEDs, automotive and electronics, such
as those provided by Electrolube India, are soaring.
Electrolube products gaining the most interest from the LED
market in India include Thermal Management solutions for LEDs
where the operating temperature can drastically effect the colour
and lifetime of the LED. The lifetime of the LED is directly
proportional to the operating temperature; the use of Thermal
Pastes facilitates a ‘thermal path’ coming out from each LED bulb
which then leads the heat away to the heat sink in order to
improve the quality and lifespan of the LED. The non-silicone
paste, HTC, Heat Transfer Compound, has proved a perfect
solution for most indoor application enquiries, while outdoor and
high-bay lighting enquiries placed HTSP, Heat Transfer Paste,
under the spotlight because of its extremely high thermal
conductivity.
Waterproof solutions for outdoor applications such as streetlights
and marine applications are also gaining a lot of interest and the
company is experiencing surging demand for optically clear
Conformal Coatings such as AFA, Aromatic Free Acrylic Coating,
and Encapsulation Resins.
The LED industry in India increasingly views Electrolube as a go-to
resource for effective chemical solutions provided with high
speed delivery. Architectural lighting companies are particularly
interested in Electrolube’s new polyurethane resins, the optically
clear UR5634 and optically hazy UR5635, both designed with
potting in mind. Flame-retardant resins (such as optically black
polyurethane UR5604) have also garnered a lot of attention from
manufacturers of LED drivers; this resin is also ideally suited for
use in solar inverters.
The growing LED market in India is particularly receptive to the
innovative and highly effective solutions that Electrolube
provides. As an example of how Electrolube solves problems, the
company were recently approached by LED lighting systems
specialist, Rockforest Technologies India Pvt Ltd, who were
contracted to supply LED strip lighting units for luminaires
destined for a shopping complex in Bangalore, India. Rockforest’s
LED lighting strips were required to provide a ‘neutral white’
(4,000K) colour and the LEDs in the luminaires needed to 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 their
UR5634, a semi-rigid, optically clear polyurethane resin that is
widely used for encapsulating LED lighting systems. With
impressive 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 caused a colour shift from
the LED array from the specified 4,000K (neutral white) to ‘cool
white’ (6,500K). Rockforest needed to solve this problem quickly
as the 4,000K colour was a non-negotiable specification;
moreover, their customer requested that a new reference sample,
which met the 4,000K colour specification, be made available for
re-testing in just 24 hours. Electrolube India needed to act rapidly
to help Rockforest meet this very tight deadline and collaborated
with Electrolube's expert technical support team in the UK for
advice. Responding immediately to the 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 colour
temperature - in this case, one operating in the 2,500K to the
3,000K range. By potting these with the UR5634 resin to the
specified 5.5mm depth, it potentially could bring the light back to
the desired colour. The second option was that Rockforest
assesses the amount and type of resin they were using for this
project to see if a thinner layer of resin over the top of the LED
array would reduce the colour shift effect.
Ultimately, Electrolube India persuaded Rockforest to switch to
UR5635, the company’s semi-rigid polyurethane resin, formulated
with a ‘hazy/cloudy’ appearance that is ideal for dispersing light.
The diffused light produced by this resin meant that an additional
diffuser medium was no longer necessary, allowing the customer
to achieve the required aesthetic appearance and, through trials
with various resin potting depths, the correct colour temperature.
During these trials, the rapid gel time of UR5635 caused a
complication but Electrolube India solved this problem by
suggesting a staged potting procedure.
In this instance, Electrolube's UR5635 was the seamless LED
protection solution for the customer. Due to its cloudy
appearance and unique capability to diffuse light, UR5635 has
been well received by LED manufacturers in India as an effective
and reliable LED resin for both decorative and protective
applications, whilst simultaneously reducing additional costs. It
exhibits exceptional water and weather resistance, as well as high
resistance to acids and alkalis making it suitable for a wide range
of environments and an extremely durable potting compound.
UR5635 is also resistant to UV light, making it especially useful as
an outdoor LED encapsulant or for use in other applications
where it may be exposed to direct sunlight.
Ensuring the most efficient thermal management solution is
employed will provide consistent quality, appearance and lifetime
of LED arrays and in turn, opens up the opportunity for further
applications for this ever evolving industry.
With such rapid advances in India’s LED applications, it is
imperative that materials technology is addressed to meet the
ever demanding requirements for heat dissipation. Electrolube
understand the importance of continually developing formulated
chemical products to meet the rapid and demanding
requirements of this popular technology and have developed
specific technologies to improve the ability to process thermal
management compounds, easily and effectively.

ELE Times | 20 | December, 2016