Grote Industries unveiled its new LED technology Wednesday, March 18, at the Mid-America Trucking Show in Louisville, Ky. LightForm uses LEDs in ultra-thin plastic strips that can be placed inside and outside the truck, affixed by the same adhesive used in conspicuity tape.
“LightForm is a game-changer that will dramatically alter the way the industry uses lighting, while challenging all of our imaginations in the process,” said Dominic Grote, vice president of sales and marketing, noting that it was also the 20th anniversary of the company’s introduction of the first commercially viable LED marker lamp.
Grote explained that LightForm is a highly-advanced solid-state lighting device embedded in film less than 1 millimeter thick. LightForm is available in an assortment of colors and decorative finishes, and can be wrapped around surfaces of varying shapes. The product can be cut to fit, even in the middle of a circuit, and the remaining lights stay lit. Strips and bars can be bent, twisted and rolled.
Grote also noted that the company plans to engineer never-before-seen light patterns and configurations. “We can achieve the same FMVSS 108 photometric requirements for a P2-rated marker lamp, with just 2 percent of the material used in a traditional LED lamp, all while eliminating the installation cost and time associated with drilling holes, affixing mounting brackets and utilizing traditional fasteners,” he said.
Grote said the product will be launched by yearend and that its cost will be competitive with comparable LED marker lights and systems. As it evolves, there will be “tremendous benefit-to-cost savings.”
