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86 SMT Magazine • September 2015 discouraged to help meet solvent-emissions tar- gets. The list of prohibited substances for use in automotive applications continues to grow. The manufacturing processes need to be lean and provide one piece flow at the maximum pos- sible, defect-free, manufacturing velocity. As an ISO14000 company itself, Electrolube is dedicated to producing products that can help automotive manufacturers achieve all these re- quirements. Whether it is the demonstrably higher performance solvent-free conformal coat- ings, encapsulation resins for more demanding applications, high-performance lubricants and greases for enhancing switches, bearings and other moving parts or advanced thermal man- agement for keeping assemblies cool to extend their lifetimes, Electrolube has a great portfolio of products to help enhance the reliability and productivity of automotive electronics. Las Marias: as a conformal coatings provider, what are the main challenges that you encounter from your customers in the automotive electronics space? Kinner: We see our customers needing to achieve ever higher operating temperatures as the electronics continue to become more pow- erful resulting in higher temperatures; also, his- torically electronics have been considered in- cabin or under-hood, with greater requirements for under-hood applications. We are seeing a blurring within these boundaries and a drive towards using one material in both applications to simplify manufacturing processes. From a performance point of view, ther- mal shock, the rapid transition from extremely cold towards maximum operating tempera- tures, originally intended as a destructive test methodology, has become an important accep- tance criteria for customers, with the number of cycles increasing from 1,000 towards 2,000. This poses real challenges for some solvent-free chemistries, especially UV curable materials, so popular because of their manufacturing attrac- tiveness from a lean and one piece flow point of view. Balancing the requirements of environmen- tal acceptability, manufacturing acceptability and end-product reliability continues to be the main challenge facing coating formulators. Electrolube will be proud to introduce a new range of conformal coatings at Productronica 2015 to help users address all of these issues si- multaneously. Las Marias: are there different types of confor- mal coatings suited to automotive electronics? Please highlight some of the best practices that help automotive electronics makers select the correct conformal coating solution for their ap- plications. Kinner: There are many types of conformal coating that may be suitable for automotive electronics from acrylics, urethanes and sili- cones that have been used historically, through to modern UV curable hybrids and even 'ultra- thin' coatings. The correct choice will always be dictated by a combination of performance CHOOsING tHe rIGHt CONFOrmAL COAtING continues phil Kinner, head of conformal coatings at electrolube. FeAture interview