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LOTUS SWITCHES TO AUTOTEX FROM AUTOTYPE
Used on the heating and ventilation control unit of the car, the assembly comprises an EL lamp that provides the backlighting for a pure aluminium overlay, with chemically etched windows. With 20 years experience designing and manufacturing EL lamps, Pacel Electronics is widely recognised as a leading authority in this area, with customers such as the Royal Navy, Aston Martin and, of course, Lotus. The design team at Lotus approached Pacel Electronics with a requirement for an assembly that would enable the graphics on the car’s dashboard to appear black on aluminium during the day and blue at night. This was achieved by using grey filters in the EL lamp, representing a significant breakthrough in getting electroluminescence into automotive interiors. 'An EL lamp is only half a millimetre thick, like a sheet of paper, so the space and weight saving for Lotus has been enormous,' confirms Nick Bainton, Operations Director at Pacel Electronics. To produce this unique assembly an aluminium foil is bonded to the Autotex film before selected areas of the aluminium are chemically etched away. This is then backlit with the EL lamp manufactured by Pacel Electronics. The result is an overlay that mimics brushed aluminium. 'The textured surface of the Autotex polyester film is what gives the brushed aluminium finish. This serves two purposes: from an aesthetic point of view it matches the interior of the Lotus Elise, which is all aluminium, and secondly, the Autotex film offers outstanding scratch resistance. It is totally scuff proof,' says Nick Bainton. 'Previously, the only way you could produce an aluminium finish on a faceplate like this was to use a screen printed silver ink, but you can tell straight away that it is not aluminium - it looks cheap and nasty. By using the Autotex technique, it is virtually impossible to tell the difference from the real thing.' Pacel Electronics is not just limited to using Autotex for aluminium finished products. The flexibility of the Autotex material means that a range of finishes such as stainless steel, copper and brass are easily achieved. Pacel Electronics is able to show customers like Lotus a swatch, allowing them to chose exactly the right finish and texture. Furthermore, all of these Autotex finishes can be backlit. 'Prior to this breakthrough, if you wanted to produce an aluminium dial on a speedo for example, it couldn’t be backlit because it was a solid. By chemically etching windows, Autotex holds everything in place.' Autotype’s Autotex also benefits from being cold formable which means raised areas can be easily created. Switches, for example, can be made more tactile. Nick Bainton concludes: 'This is an area we will explore in the future, looking at projects such as the incorporation of a membrane keyboard into these types of faceplates.'
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