Based in Kaufbeuren in Germany, Kunststofftechnik Bernt (KTB) has developed a new day-night design for decorative panels in car interiors that can produce coloured light using laser technology passing through chrome-plated plastics. The system manufacturer ACSYS Lasertechnik is supporting KTB in technology development with the delivery of two laser systems.

Chrome-plated decorative panels with 3D lettering in two different matt finishes that also glow in different colors at night have only been available in series production from a German OEM for a few weeks. The changing day-night design – the haptics above the 3D lettering by day, the illuminated color selected by the driver at night – is an eyecatching feature, at a time when customisable interior ambience is currently a trend among OEMs.

Dr Carsten Brockmann, KTB’s Managing Director, is enthusiastic about the new design: “This greatly increases the value of the interior design. This day-night design also allows further customisation of the car’s interior. The panel’s surface and contour lighting gives us a new design element that appeals to the senses.”

Using a multi-component injection moulding process, KTB manufactures components of polycarbonate (PC) and acrylonitrile butadiene styrene (ABS) and finishes them in its in-house electroplating system. The polycarbonate is located on the back side of the component and cannot be electroplated. This means that the component remains without chrome at these points. However, a metallic plate is applied to the ABS areas. Then an area of the front undergoes laser processing, making it translucent. After laser processing, the panels receive a final outer plating and undergo a visual inspection.

KTB has years of experience and extensive competencies in plastics manufacture, mouldmaking for injection-moulding and electroplating for interior and exterior applications and various surface finishes. KTB chose the ACSYS solution for its laser structuring. Brockmann recalls the beginning of the co-operation between the KTB developers and the specialists from the ACSYS technical centre.

“We had commissioned various suppliers to structure a prototype component,” he say. “Only ACSYS came close to what we were looking for. We were enthusiastic about the precision of the laser system from the very beginning.”

The solution was then created by means of painstaking tests in the ACSYS laboratory.

“We work proactively as an idea generator with great development, application, and service competence, and tackle every customer order with fresh eyes,” says Gerhard Kimmel, Managing Director of ACSYS. “The customer can feel this team knowledge when he comes to us with a task.”

ACSYS’s Barracuda system is used to process KTB’s components. With a spacious, easily accessible working area, the Barracuda is an all-rounder. For the KTB laser application, the system, made of high-strength steel, stands on a vibration-free machine base of temperature-stable granite. The laser process has several steps, in each of which a sub-area of the panel is structured with a fine diamond pattern (200 by 200 micrometres). The elongated panel area is also subdivided into sections.

“We have been testing the system for a year, and it is stable and very precise,” says Brockmann. “There are no edges between the processing sections, such as might be expected to arise due to traverse tolerances, for instance.”

The laser system is also equipped with a two-camera Live Adjust System (LAS) solution. The first camera provides an overview of the processing area, while the second camera is directed straight through the laser beam path, capturing the processing area and allowing a partial, high-resolution view of the section to be processed.

“In the last two years, we have developed the processing technology together and are very happy with the quality of the parts,” says Brockmann. “We recently bought a second laser system of the same type to secure our planned annual volume of 200,000 units.”

Series production started at the end of the second half of 2017.

“Ever since we started delivering our decorative panels for luxury cars to a German OEM, we have constantly received positive feedback,” says Brockmann. “We are very happy with the laser system.”

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