Light force spot lights
Submitted: Wednesday, Mar 23, 2005 at 22:11
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Member - Ross H (QLD)
Hi all
hoping someone mave have an idea about plastic welding a cracked spot light.
Have tried several types of plastic as fillers ie: cable tyes,plastic brackets,
Everything seem to give way in about a month due to UV light I guess.
Would a coat of paint solve this problem,or should I just get a new reflecter housing.
thanks
ross
Reply By: shaggy - Thursday, Mar 24, 2005 at 12:17
Thursday, Mar 24, 2005 at 12:17
You need to know what the housing is made of. The housing might be made of ABS, PC, PMMA, PP or numerous other plastics. Most common is ABS filled with glass fibres. It should be moulded into the housing somewhere.
I suggest that you try using toluene or chloroform (trichloromethane). I am not sure if these are available to general public, but you may know some industry sources (people) who could get you some.
The toluene is often sold as hobby glue, as it disolves pmma (acrylic), and other thermoplastics very quickly, and then evaporates and in effect glues two pieces together. But the housing may be a thermoset polymer, in which case solvents will not work, and you need binder. Something like slow cure epoxy, but then you need to uv proof the epoxy with paint or laquer.
This way you should overcome any uv problems, as you have not bound the parts with a resin.
And certainly paints will help, as long as the substrate will accept it. You need outdoor paint or laquer as these have high amounts of uv stability. You may need to do same flame ionisation to the surface, to improve keying and surface energy. Or you could do some solvent etching of the surface too.
No simple answer without knowing what the cracked housing is.
cheers
shaggy
AnswerID:
103706