Tire pressure sensor regulations spell boon for engineering plastics

This according to Chris Schroder, Innovation Program Manager, Stanyl Product Lines, at Singapore-headquartered engineering plastics supplier’s DSM Engineering Plastics Shanghai office, who was speaking at the 4th International Conference for South & Southeast Asia: Injection Moulding, Tooling and Design, organized by Chatsworth Associates and held in Singapore September 20–21.

DSM’s laser direct structuring (LDS) technology coupled with its platable Stanyl for Tii LDS polyamide (PA) resin grades will play a key role in manufacturing the sensors, measuring just 2.5 x 3.7 x 1 mm in their final form. The PA resin is used to mold the main part of the sensors, whose surface is then activated by LDS in order to form the circuit patterns through plating. The final step is laser cutting into individual sensors

In the electronics segment, increased adoption of cloud computing will bring about a revolution in downsizing in electronic devices according to Schroder. Memory and storage requirements will be lower, meaning connectors can be smaller. “The LDS process will enable connector downsizing,” says Schroder. “[Traditional] insert molding of connectors using metal pins will reach its limitations on account of the metal pin size,” he says.