MENTOR (world-experts in the management of LED-emitted light, highly invested with 600 employees and a near-100 year electronic component legacy) offers standard light guide / light pipe designs in over 450 variants plus infinite opportunities for dimensional variation with little or no tooling cost.
Despite such a large and globally popular standard range, half of MENTOR’s business comes from the design and manufacture of totally custom LED lighting /LED optics system solutions for major automotives and OEMs.
All of MENTOR’s LED light guide solutions share the core function of precision-managing the light emitted from today’s powerful LEDs, be this delivering zero light bleed solutions for adjacent light-emitting elements to totally homogenous and directionally controlled lighting for area, strip and tubular lighting applications.
Advanced Simulation and In-house Manufacture
MENTOR achieve such high levels of optical excellence by precision-design using advanced ray trace simulations and in-house manufacture using highly specialist proprietary techniques that have been developed over many years. MENTOR light guides are sophisticated hi-tech optics, not simply moulded pieces of plastic and their optical performance conclusively demonstrates this.
Our "Custom Solutions" pages discuss MENTOR’s leading-edge competence in designing, testing and manufacturing many types of optics that precisely manage LED light, including their innovative miniature light guides.
MENTOR standard light guide systems are designed and manufactured to the same exacting standards; the core offer consists mainly of what Design Engineers most commonly need and want - cost-effective solutions to transfer light from the LED PCB to the front panel, without loss of luminance.
Zero Light Leakage
The basic function of these types of light-guide is to emulate a hose pipe with 100% of water going in one end and 100% coming out the other with no leakage through the tubing! Like a hose pipe there often needs to be a nozzle to control the angle of spray.
MENTOR light guides offer the Electronics Design Engineer many advantages over conventional LED displays:-
- Manufacturing costs of specifying MENTOR multiple array light guides complemented by standard SMD LEDs are a far lower than conventional THT LED arrays. (MENTOR manufactures both, so ought to know!)
- Cost-effective SMD manufacturing can be used, with the light guides push-fitted onto the PCB as a final process.
- No separate PCB is needed.
- No fiddly alignment of LEDs to panel holes is required.
- ESD protection.
- Space saving.
- The highest quality optical performance possible with no light bleed. (Side-by-side comparison with alternative solutions really does drive this message home! Sometimes you need to "see it to believe it"). Our video might help with this.
Cost-effective Non-standard Lengths
It is worth noting that MENTOR can often supply non-standard lengths by using a low-cost tool insert rather than needing an expensive re-tool. If you require a special length please contact Multitron, we can often find a low-cost workaround even for smaller quantity requirements.
Because they are precision optics, light guides should never be cut to a different length but it is sometimes (not always!) possible to latterally cut (say) a 10-way bargraph to make two five-ways. Again, please contact Multitron for advice before attempting.
Did you know?
Proper light guides (aka light pipes) are precision optics and cannot simply be ordered from the local injection moulders!
Did you know?
You can view a short but exciting video of functioning MENTOR light guides and other opto components by clicking the image below.
Did you know?
MENTOR PCB-mounted light guides are attached to the Board via press-in lugs with compression fins.
Did you know?
MENTOR flexible light guides can be a design solution themselves at the inception of a project but are also often a “life-saver” during a mid-cycle face-lift. See our blog.
Did you know?
There are over 450 variations in MENTOR’s standard light guide range, the majority of which are immediately available from stock with small MOQs. Dimensional modifications can normally be supplied with little or no tooling cost.