The news of LATI Industria Termoplastici S.p.A.

The combined skills of LATI and Protool Plastics Group were instrumental in enabling the successful use of polymer heat sinks in Whitecroft Lighting’s innovative new Mirage 3 range of luminaires.

LATI is the leading European producer of thermally conductive polymer compounds and utilises advanced analytical software to simulate the thermal performance of heat sinks. The Protool Plastics Group is a leading UK injection moulding company with particular expertise in the production and tooling requirements of polymer heat sinks.

Whitecroft Lighting is one of the UK’s largest manufacturers of commercial lighting, providing tailored lighting solutions for commercial, industrial, healthcare, education and residential applications. LATI’s thermally conductive compound LATICONTHER 62 GR/50 is already used by some of Europe’s leading lighting manufacturers in production of heat sinks.

This material is a compound of Nylon 6 polymer together with graphite flakes, producing a thermal conductivity of over 10 W/mK. When Whitecoft Lighting decided to develop the Mirage 3 range of luminaires, the design flexibility and production freedoms conferred by using polymer heat sinks based on LATICONTHER seemed like the natural fit. With the intention to offer a range of different light output levels, it was important to be able to confirm that the product would be capable of dissipating the heat generated, and still be designed to enable efficient manufacturing.
This is where the combining of LATI and Protool’s joint knowledge base was pivotal in producing designs that were fit for manufacture and meeting the requirements for heat dissipation where light levels of up to 4000 Lumens were to be generated. The Mirage 3 range, utilising 3 different sizes of heat sinks, was successfully launched in January 2020.