“Hammer-proof” tail lamps ease costs and nerves in transport industry thanks to wonder material polycarbonate

• Targeted hammer blows fail to shatter Ermax lamps
• Polycarbonate offers tangible cost benefits
• Lamps can be customised to match brand identity

Wiehl/Kolding, 07.08.2018 --- What do Ermax trailer tail lamps have in common with DVDs, spectacles, medical devices and high-tech sports equipment? Their outstanding technical properties are attributable to a high-performance engineering thermoplastic. Polycarbonate is the stuff that transforms the new LED tail lamps into Eternal Lights that offer incredible cost savings. There’s never been a better time to exchange old for new.

The colourful transparent shards of tail lamps are to be found everywhere, swept to the margins, across Europe’s highway network. They bear witness to the extreme mechanical stresses to which the lamps are exposed. Potholes, vibration, extreme temperatures and shunts when parking take their toll on lamp housings. Regularly broken as a result, they re-appear as microplastics at the edges of roads and in sewers. It’s no wonder, therefore, that lamp housings – usually made of inexpensive ABS or PMMA acrylic – have to be renewed practically every year during the trailer’s lifetime. Cut-price lamps in particular, however, can quickly erode budgets. Over a period of five years, the cost of repairs and downtimes can easily amount to well in excess of 200 euros. On top of that, transport companies can also incur substantial fines for operating vehicles with defective lamps or light sources.

The secret of the new Ermax LED tail lamps lies in a design that is so rugged it withstands targeted hammer blows. The LED light sources are protected inside a housing made of polycarbonate, which is by far the best-performing thermoplastic on the market. Measured against the acrylics that are conventionally used in the automotive industry, and ABS, polycarbonate offers 17 times greater impact resistance alongside an optical quality that exceeds the brilliance of glass. Its key benefit, however, is its ability more readily to withstand both the permanent mechanical stresses that arise on structurally damaged roads and the impacts associated with shunts when parking. As every highway maintenance team knows all too well, the customary standard plastics shatter very easily in response to knocks and bumps.

“If they compare costs, transport operators should get the message,” says Torben Pagh, managing director of Transport-Teknik A/S, which manufactures the Ermax lamps. “The new tail lamps reflect BPW Group’s strategy of generating tangible cost benefits over the trailer’s lifetime. The gains achievable across all components – from the running gear and body engineering to the lighting and telematics – can give vehicle operators a massive competitive advantage.”

The new “hammer-proof” Ermax lamps are available in a wide variety of formats for both the original equipment sector and the aftermarket, and manufacturers have various options for design coordination with an existing brand identity.

Visitors to the BPW Group stand (Hall 26, Stand C31) at the IAA Commercial Vehicles from 20 to 27 September in Hanover can assure themselves of the tail lights impact resistance or already watch a video with the hammer-proof test: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EIpjixf4Um4