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Shining a light on luminaire design and manufacture

Buyers looking to source a comprehensive service for the design, manufacture and supply of LED-based luminaires are advised to explore MARL’s experience and capabilities.

Marl is known for its depth of in-house capabilities encompassing design, manufacturing equipment, plus a qualified and experienced team. The company’s SMT Centre can process 80,000 components per hour—allowing fast turnaround—and is available to clients for a range of design and manufacturing services including build-to-print, complete PCB design, prototyping, design verification and volume manufacture. As an LED specialist, the SMT facility and expertise are particularly suited to supporting professional luminaire manufacturers. Lines are equipped to handle board lengths of up to 1480 mm, commonly required for replacing conventional lighting products

In-house precision engineering facilities include precision CNC machining centres and routers enabling the manufacture of bespoke fittings, heatsinks, lenses and diffusers. For prototyping and other specialist parts, 3D printing is available: great for rapid prototyping or design verification. Tool room facilities include manual turning and milling equipment.

Marl’s design and development team has a broad range of experience and expertise in optoelectronic, hardware, software and mechanical design with specialist knowledge in LED technology integration. Services extend from concept development to end certification, allowing even the most complex LED indication and illumination projects to be guided with confidence. Services include:

Feasibility studies: examining the cost and timescale of customers’ project and advising on the most appropriate approach in areas such as manufacturing methods.

Technical documentation: testing products to relevant industry standards and helping to demonstrate product quality, safety, lifespan, technical specifications and warranty.

Research & development: using the latest LED industry insights to help clients enhance existing products and find new routes to market. A darkroom with a gonio-spectrophotometer to produce IES files and detailed reports of luminous flux and lighting characteristics assists the team with accurate measurements

Whilst Marl has automated SMT lines for sub-mm accuracy and rapid placement of surface mounted components, all Marl-manufactured products are ultimately hand assembled including placement of the resulting boards and components into housings, wiring, hand soldering of intricate components, potting, inspection and testing.

This approach allows real-time quality control as technicians have precise attention to detail and can visually inspect each component, identify defects and make any necessary adjustments. It also allows better customisation and flexibility than automated assembly, being able to rapidly prototype and move between a wide variety of projects or adapt as requirements change, without long and costly setup of automated machinery. A dedicated quality team ensures all inspection processes are comprehensive, well documented and meet regulatory requirements.

www.marl.co.uk