Electrolube India was given less than 24 hours to solve a potting problem for luminaires designed for a Bangalore shopping complex. Rockforest Technologies India Pvt Ltd, India’s LED lighting systems Specialist Company had actually bagged the contract of supplying LED strip lighting units for the mall in Bangalore but the resin encapsulation was causing an undesired color shift in the light where as the requirement was of specific ‘neutral white light’ and anything else was just unacceptable.
Electrolube India initially worked with strips to a specific depth of 5.5mm using Electrolube’s UR5634, known for its semi-rigid, optically clear polyurethane resin quality. It has high encapsulating quality and is highly UV resistant, making it a preferred choice widely especially for applications exposed to direct sunlight.
But unfortunately, in this case the resin was causing a shift of color from the specified 4,000K (neutral white) to ‘cool white’ (6,500K). It was a non-negotiable specification and a sample piece had to be made available to the customer within just 24 hours.
Upon urgent consultation with Electrolube’s technical support team in the UK, GM of Electrolube India, Mr. Padmanabha Shaktivelu was suggested two possible solutions to the problem. The first one being, that they use an LED providing a lower color temperature than the specified one i.e in this case, one operating in the 2,500K to the 3,000K range against the specified 4,000k. Potting these with the UR5634 resin of 5.5mm depth could possibly bring back the light to the desired color. The second option was to assess the type of resin Rockforest was using and if using a thinner layer of resin on top of the array could reduce the color shift.
Finally, the decision to use a different resin, UR5635 instead of UR5634 was taken that would give a hazy/cloudy appearance to the light and a perfect fit for dispersing light and acquiring the desired color temperature. This resin also eliminated th need of a different medium to diffuse light. Hence, specified color temperature and desired aesthetic appearance was achieved.
