Thin walled light cover. What sort of opaque plastic to use?

[RichardNZ]

Hi there,

I need some information on what plastics would be best for a product I am developing.
The part will be a small LED light cover that will be injection molded. It will be an exterior product so needs to be UV resistant, hard wearing and produced in both a black and a white version.
A key element is that it needs to block as much light as possible (i.e. not glow) but the walls of the part are only 1 mm thick.

Do you have any recommendations on what plastic will be best for this use?

Thanks

 

[IRstuff]

Kynar is a pretty popular material for vinyl siding and aluminum roofs.

TTFN
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[Demon3]

ASA e.g. Luran S from BASF / Styrolution is a good choice. It is one of the most UV stable plastics and used outdoors for high quality siding, car parts etc.. It comes in white and there is even a grade with very high TiO2 content to make it super opaque (I believe over 10% TiO2). It also comes in black. Make sure to specify the UV stable version. Many years ago I worked for BASF on that range of products, hence I'm pretty confident that it will work. There are other ASA suppliers though like LG so check that too.

Chris DeArmitt PhD
President - Phantom Plastics LLC

Consulting, ideas and training on plastic materials

http://www.phantomplastics.com