October 2013 was Multitron’s busiest-ever month by some considerable margin – order intake was 70% higher than budget. Perhaps this means we are doing something right? Perhaps this means that everyone has ordered in October and we shall receive no orders in November?!
Late yesterday afternoon (after MENTOR’s German factory had closed) Multitron received an urgent phone call from one of its major light guide customers. This company, a substantial OEM, purchases several different MENTOR light guides, many of them of custom design.
LATEST NEWS – M-TUBES HAS NOW BEEN SUPERCEDED BY M-FIBRE – MORE INFORMATION
I recently visited a manufacturer of pedestrian gates used in high security office buildings. They were primarily interested in MENTOR M-Tubes (flexible and rigid tubular lights that deliver homogenous light along their length from just two RGB LEDs fitted either end). These they wanted to use for red and green indicator lights 1M in length, as well as for mood lighting around the plinth of their units.
Plastics News has today published an article reviewing MENTOR’s special expertise in the design and manufacture of LED optics and light guides. I found it a very interesting read and learned some things I should have known about but didn’t. OK, OK, I live a sad life and really should try to get out more!
LATEST NEWS – M-TUBES HAS NOW BEEN SUPERCEDED BY M-FIBRE – MORE INFORMATION
Crane Merchandising Systems are one of (if not the) largest manufacturers of vending machines in the world. A couple of years ago they explained to me their design challenge to create an amber illuminated “halo” around a capacitive touch panel on a new coffee machine they had been commissioned to design and build by Autobar, Europe’s largest vending machine operator. Homogenous lighting was a pre-requisite.
Multitron has just received its first order from a new Fire Protection customer for 12,000 pcs of a custom Light Guide.
One of Multitron’s Pro-Audio customers has regularly purchased handle 3277.1803, a standard black-anodised handle with 180mm hole centres. They are introducing a new product that needs a matching handle but with 347mm hole centres, significantly larger than any of the variants in MENTOR’s standard range.
The nattily-named 1216.1013 MENTOR flexible light guide was missed off Farnell’s major expansion of MENTOR light guide listings this Spring. Rumour has it that this is because someone at Multitron (I honestly cannot say who but yes I do write the listings), mistyped the part number. Why MENTOR can’t give them names such as Mondeo or Fiesta or something I really do not know!
Multitron has announced the availability of a new range of MENTOR miniature light-guides with radiating surfaces of 2mm diameter and a grid dimension of 2.54mm. Compared with conventional 5.08mm grid light-guides, these new miniaturised versions allow twice the number of display elements within the same physical width. This offers design engineers a whole new range of possibilities, particularly when space is restricted.
Read our updated 2018 information here.
On 2 & 3 October, the “MENTOR from Multitron” stand at the Electronics Design Show 2013 in Coventry was thronging with the type of people we like speaking with most – Electronic Design Engineers! During two hectic days we were able to enjoy dialogue with many Engineers and brief them on how MENTOR’s standard and custom solutions can assist at the inception of a product.
