Rotuba Extruders www.rotuba.com / HQ: Linden, N.J. / Adam Bell, president: "You have to be able to tool and make designs at a rapid pace to keep up with the changing technology for LED fixtures." Northeast to blend additives on extrusion equipment, rotuba's system utilizes six additives in different combinations. On the Fly rotuba extruders can quickly change the formulation of the plastics used in its extrusions directly on the production line. by russ gager For a rapidly changing market such as LED lighting fixtures, being able to extrude a variety of products with subtly different plastic formulations without necessitating lengthy changeovers can be a crucial competitive advantage - one that Rotuba Extruders has developed and mastered. LED lighting fixtures are proving as popular as flat-screen TVs were when they became affordable and significantly thinned out the number of boxy television sets worldwide. For LED lighting fixtures, the 96 manufacturing-today.com MARCH/APRIL 2016 attraction is not only their brightness, but also their economy. They operate with little heat and use much less electricity than the fluorescent fixtures they are replacing. An advantage of the LED - its brightness - can also be its downfall if its output is not filtered satisfactorily. The color of the LED light also can be fine-tuned by the device itself and by the lenses behind which it is placed. For some of the lighting fixture original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) that Rotuba Extruders supplies, the challenge is to diffuse enough of the LED array's brightness through the lens without becoming overpowering or revealing the LEDs behind the lens. Other OEMs don't mind if the LEDs can be seen behind the lens and want their brightness. The color of the LED has to be taken into consideration by the color and texture of the lens. Some OEMs need different formulations of the plastic in the same type of lens for different customers. Before developing this capability, being able to turn a formulation into a different one on a dime during extrusion - which is a continuous process - was the holy grail for Rotuba. "We needed to custom-make individual formulations," President Adam Bell explains. "You couldn't just use the same formula for everyhttp://www.manufacturing-today.com