With support from SABIC, manufacturer Switch Lighting designed its SWITCH® infinia™ LED A-lamp bulb with a polycarbonate globe made from SABIC’s LEXAN™ LUX resin.
As governmental regulations move the lighting industry away from less efficient incandescent technology toward more efficient LED technologies, manufacturers like Switch face the challenge of bringing costs down to enable mass adoption in the residential and commercial markets. The use of the LEXAN LUX resin globe in this award-winning Energy Star® certified LED lamp enables the replication of the light distribution and quality that consumers have come to expect from traditional incandescent technology at an affordable price. This innovation by Switch is opening up the LED lamp market to greater opportunity for mass adoption.
“Helping our customers develop first-to-market products that creatively meet challenges in their industry is a key part of our business,” says Venugopal Koka, Director of Electrical and Lighting Marketing for SABIC’s Innovative Plastics business. “Using SABIC’s LEXAN resins, Switch was able to develop an LED lamp that has better light quality attributes than older less efficient incandescent lamps at a price that is attractive to the homeowner.”
Meeting the demands of a challenging market
In order to reach a price point for mass adoption, Switch sought material solutions that offered excellent diffusion capabilities for optimal light quality and greatest efficiency. SABIC’s LEXAN resin with MAX Diffusion technology, which is used in the globe of the SWITCH infinia, optimizes diffusion by eliminating hotspot and dark areas at the top of the globe. In addition, by identifying a solution that can be injection-blow molded, SABIC helped Switch to make bulb with omnidirectional evenly dispersed light, which mimics the light distribution of incandescent bulbs.
“Switch is committed to designing best-in-class LED lighting solutions, so it was important that we work with a supplier like SABIC that offers innovative material technologies and expertise that help us meet market needs both for performance and price. Through a collaborative development process SABIC provided an enhanced solution with its LEXAN resin that delivered the exact properties we needed for diffusion, impact resistance, flame retardancy and heat management. When SABIC provided this solution for injection blow-mold production, we were able to create another best-in-class LED bulb line,” said Ronan LeToquin, Vice President of Technology, Switch Lighting. “SWITCH infinia earned the 2013 Lighting for Tomorrow Award for Best LED Bulb, which is a testament to the success of our collaboration.”
Cost effective solutions
The key challenge to mass-market adoption is the higher purchase price for LED bulbs compared with incumbent technologies like incandescent and CFL. SABIC’s innovative material solutions are a significant contributor to cost reduction in the SWITCH infinia product line. LEXAN resin optimizes performance and is far more cost-effective and durable than glass for LED bulb globes. SABIC experts also provided in-depth experience in part consolidation, integration, and part optimization helping Switch design a simplified lamp using the LEXAN resin materials. As a result, the Energy Star® certified SWITCH infinia is priced competitively for the general use market.
SABIC will showcase the SWITCH infinia lamp and other innovative solutions for the LED lighting industry at booth 1032 during Strategies in Light, from February 25-27, 2014, in Santa Clara, California.