Home > Convert Ltd > Convert’s grommet solves Wipac’s lamp wiring challenge for British sports car

Convert’s grommet solves Wipac’s lamp wiring challenge for British sports car

Convert Ltd News and PR from Convert Ltd - Published 20 October 2017 Convert’s stand-a-lone waterproof grommet solves Wipac’s lamp wiring challenge for British luxury sports car
In early 2015 Wipac - a world class design and manufacturing company specialising in high technology exterior LED lighting for the prestige automotive market – started work on a new lighting project for a British luxury sports car manufacturer.

The brief required Wipac to design a waterproof yet compact high performance LED lighting system with an external profile of between 3-5mm for the sealed connector which would house the wiring.

Vince Bailey, Wipac Head of Purchasing, said: “It’s standard industry practice that all lamp units for high performance LED lighting systems are waterproof. Internal space constraints are also becoming a critical issue as demand increases for us to produce more complex lamps, with a high number of different internal elements, but not to increase the overall size of the finished lamp.”

Clearly, in order to provide a water-tight finished unit, the traditional methods of mounting 35mm electrical connectors onto the lamp housings would not be feasible due to their physical size. To find a solution, Wipac turned to Convert - their long standing electrical engineering company and one of the UKÂ’s leading manufacturer of cable looms and harnesses.

“We’ve worked with Convert for seven years,” said Vince. “They provide cable harnesses for all our head and rear lights. We knew we could trust Dave and the team to come up with an innovative design solution.”

To overcome this challenge, ConvertÂ’s team of engineers - which included Quality and Engineering Manager, Josh Boakes, who recently won a coveted Electronics Weekly Bright Sparks award - conceived a design with a grommet that would be integral to the cable harness for the lamp enclosure. A second vehicle grommet was also required to protect the vehicles internal compartments from the potential water ingress.

However, a number of hurdles had to be overcome when sourcing the grommet.

Firstly, whilst itÂ’s not unusual to use grommets for traditional filament bulb lamp enclosures, commercially available parts for these styles of lamps didnÂ’t provide the required level of moisture projection.

Secondly, the high temperature cable required in LED lighting made this design even more demanding.

Dave Lord, Convert’s Managing Director, said: “We started trials to find an automotive grade material that would be malleable enough to make final lamp assembly feasible and that would bond to the cable insulation to provide the waterproof seal. However, we found the materials that bonded to the cable were too stiff to allow final assembly. Similarly, softer materials wouldn’t create the required bond due to the special properties of the high temperature cable outer insulation jacket.”

“It soon became obvious that a new solution was needed to overcome this problem,” said Dave. “It was then we had our Eureka moment and developed the concept of the stand-a-lone grommet.”

Full case study can be read here:http://www.convertltd.co.uk/news/wipac-case-study
“We’ve worked with Convert for seven years,they provide cable harnesses for all our head and rear lights.

Other announcements from Convert Ltd