Current light guide systems require a lens, which is usually in the form of a light guide, a light panel or a light pipe, and a carrier member which is coupled to the lens and includes attachment features that allow a user to fasten the light guide system to surrounding commodities. Currently, the lens or light guide cannot be dual injected with an opaque plastic used to form the carrier substrate as the resin materials for the light guide and the carrier will wet-out during the dual injection process. The use of a dual injection process for creating a unitary light guide system having a lens and a carrier has also been complicated by the fact that the resins used to make the lens and the carrier must have similar material properties for the dual injection process. The similar material properties required for use in a dual injection process substantially diminishes the property for light reflection on the inner surfaces of the transmissive clear light pipe lens. Thus, the amount of “bounce” within the clear light guide or lens is diminished, such that the amount of light emitted from the light guide at the extreme ends of the light guide is substantially diminished. Further, the normal attenuation formula for the clear resin used to form the lens component of the light guide system is significantly increased resulting in the loss of light transmission through the lens. This increased attenuation formula is generally due to absorption of light through the opaque resin used to form the carrier component of the light guide system that is co-injected or co-extruded with the lens component. Thus, a method of forming a light guide system is desired, wherein the lens or light guide component and the carrier component are co-formed in such a manner that the resins used to make each component are able to bond to one another, but not wet-out during formation.
USPTO Backgrounds
USPTO Backgrounds