Plastics News K Show Daily - October 16, 2013 - (Page 8)

8 • PLASTICS NEWS, October 16, 2013 SHOW DAILY “smart lighting.” The biggest advance in lighting is LED. “We can steer the light,” Kroening said. The white light can be “tuned” along a full spectrum. LED has major implications for By Bill Bregar smart lighting. Kroening said in PLASTICS NEWS STAFF the future, car buyers will be able to choose a light package as an ERKRATH, GERMANY — Erkrath, option. They will even get to dialCity of Light! in custom lighting, creating a This modest suburb of Düssel- unique recipe according to perdorf certainly is not going to chal- sonal tastes. Already, high-end cars let the driver ‘I think in the future, you change the chassis stiffness from comfort will have a chance to proto a sports-car level. “I gram your own color. If you think in the future, you will have a chance to are changing from comfort to program your own colsport [in chassis stiffness], for or,” Kroening said. “If example, then you can also you are changing from comfort to sport, for change the color from white example, then you can to red.’ also change the color Gerald Kroening from white to red.” Kroening said colorMentor GmbH package options will begin with high-end lenge Paris. But an Erkrath com- cars like Germany’s BMW and pany is illuminating the way to a Mercedes, then move to midfuture as a major molder of spe- priced cars like the VW Passat. cialty light products for cars and And he said growing market pennew-age lighting for houses. etration for smart lighting will Mentor GmbH & Co. Präzi- help keep Mentor’s business sions-Bauteile KG specializes in growing, even in a weak European what is sometimes called light car market, he said. European car guides or light pipes — long sales sank to a 20-year low in strips made up of tiny prisms May. Auto industry executives that direct light in just the right forecast it will shrink in 2013 for brightness and color to exactly the sixth year in a row. the right place. The process has moved far beyond moving light Seeing the light to the dashboard speedometer He said coordinated, tunable and gas gauge. “You need intelligent light to- LED lighting systems will be the day,” said Gerald Kroening, Men- next big thing. He paints an intor’s technology director, in a triguing portrait of trends for inJuly interview at the Erkrath terior car lighting: “In the future, plant. Kroening has since left the you won’t get only a single light with no connection to other firm. The company stays on the cut- lights. They are in connection. If ting edge, always looking ahead to the next innovation. Mentor engineers, mold makers and molding technicians create what the company calls “light engines.” Kroening gave some examples: ● Light pipes that direct light to accent areas of auto interiors, such as door panels, or that follow contours. ● Illuminated pushbutton caps This LED tunable light contains an electronic sensor for membrane that measures the light and recalibrates it. keypads. ● General household lighting one light is going a little bit that can track the “color tempera- brighter, then another light must ture” of sunlight. follow. For example, if you are Automotive accounts for about driving with your car in a darker half of total sales. Other markets area [such as a tunnel] then the include electronic surface-mount- light will adapt to this.” ed devices and medical technoloChanges in lighting can calm gy. Residential lighting is the next you down. “There are some invesbig emerging market for so-called tigations regarding women and Innovation is on the way in cars, homes Mentor GmbH & Co. Präzisions-Bauteile KG photos Mentor creates bright ideas in lighting men. Say, if a company concenwoman is driving trated on manufacher car in a remote turing precision area ... it is better to components for the have a warm light in booming radio inthe car, so you don’t dustry. feel so dangerous in Mozar died in the situation,” 1965, and his rightKroening said. hand man, Ehrhard Lighting inside Weyer, took over has a big impact on leadership of the safety as well. For firm. The Weyer example, Kroening family continues to said that interior own Mentor. The lighting can help business is debtyour pupil adapt to free and owns all its the light, so you buildings, said marwon’t be blinded by This automotive light guide, made up of tiny prisms, directs light keting representaat an appropriate brightness and color to exactly the right place. headlights from ontive Tim Neumann. coming cars at night. “But if you bad parts. What are quality probIn the 1970s, the company dehave too much light in the car, lems that could occur. And then veloped panel systems and stanyou don’t see the pedestrian the complete educational pack- dard components for printed ciralong the road, so you have to get age, with the manufacturing tools cuit boards. Through several the right amount. Not too much. that we have built, are going to acquisitions, Mentor got into the Poland or to Tunisia” Not too less,” he said. optical lighting sector. On the molding front, Mentor’s focused approach allows the Into the future Mold, molding skill company to mold optical waveMentor has special expertise to guides that can be as long as 800 The next horizon — smart design, then mold the light-con- millimeters (32 inches), with lighting for homes — promises to ductive products. Companywide, molded-in microstructures of the a big new market, Kroening said. Mentor runs 50 Arburg All- prisms along most of the length. Sunlight changes hues throughrounder injection molding maThe molds are positioned verti- out the day, white with varying chines, ranging in clamping force cally in the clamping unit, and on levels of yellows and blues. And from 25-150 metric tons. The fleet the very long waveguides, extend light changes with the seasons. of Arburgs is about evenly split down into the machine base. Homeowners will be able to tune between the headquarters in Broich said there is only one in- their LED lights. Erkrath and Mentor’s subsidiary jection point. How does the comMentor first showed the new in Pforzheim, Germany, Albert pany mold the large precise parts general lighting concept, to conWeidmann Licht-Elektronic GmbH. on small-tonnage molds? That’s trol the color temperature, at the Mentor makes its own molds in Mentor’s secret recipe, he said. Light + Building 2012 trade show Pforzheim, and does mold repair Making the waveguide molds in Frankfurt, Germany. and maintenance in Erkrath. requires a high skill level. But The technology can perform Production manager Christian first comes the computer-aided design adjustments of the reflecBroich said every single shot is design by the monitored by a statistical light-simulation process control system. “One department. Ushundred percent of the produc- ing Catia softtion is controlled,” he said on the ware, the engimolding floor in Erkrath. neers can Mentor molds a number of develop prismresins, including polymethyl laden guides and methacrylate. analyze how For more than 30 years, Mentor light waves move has run an assembly plant in through the part. Tunisia. The company opened an- It gets pretty other assembly plant in Poland in complex — espe2011. cially as autoMentor has a small subsidiary makers increasin Shanghai, used for sourcing ingly tweak electrical components and stock- lighting to differing parts for its automotive cus- entiate their car tomers with plants in China. The interiors. company has a liaison office in Mentor’s rapid IceLight LED ambient lighting from Busch-Jaeger ElekFrance. prototyping can tro GmbH of Lüdenscheid, Germany Despite the far-flung assembly help customers operations, all finished parts visualize the end product. How- tor body. An additional diffuser come back to Erkrath. Kroening ever, Kroening said customers softly scatters the light. A cooling said that allows the company to have faith in the company’s hu- element and circuit board are maintain close contact with cus- man know-how. other key parts of the light systomers. “We want one facility, “We’re so good with our simu- tem. and one language between our lation software that our cusAn electronic sensor inside customers and us. This is our fa- tomers are confident and do not the light measures the color and cility here in Erkrath, there are need a prototype,” he said. can recalibrate it, according to the corresponding persons, so The simulation department em- Kroening. we have one face, and if there is a ployed three people this summer, “So we have the same color problem or a question, here are and Mentor was looking to hire a point from beginning up to the end the right persons. It’s better, it’s fourth. Kroening said it’s not easy of the lamp ... and the same color easier and it’s faster,” he said. to find skilled mold designers — it doesn’t matter if you have The same centralized approach who also are experts in the sci- winter or summer, we are steering goes for assembly equipment and ence of lighting. everything in the right way.” fixtures. It’s all made and tested OK, say you had a bad day at in Erkrath, as are assembly pro- A quick look back work. Set your lighting to a melcedures. low shade. Have a date coming “If everything is OK, then we Mentor has a long history that over? Set it to a warm color, like a make an education video,” Kroen- began in 1920, when Paul Mozar candle. ing said. “We show, for example, started a small mechanical and Looks like the old dimmer what are good parts, what are electrical engineering shop. The switch is history. 

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