Technical Awareness

New Lamp Monitor for UV Curing      

UV curing has become a viable alternative to conventional drying of coatings and inks. The process polymerizes coatings and inks by exposing them to an ultraviolet (UV) light source, which can greatly expedite the coating process, making it nearly instantaneous. This efficiency simplifies manufacturing and increases total output.

The most important physical component of the UV curing process is the lamp. The

lamp is responsible for converting the liquid-like coating into a dry, solid protective layer. If the lamp's performance is not optimal, the UV curing process can fail. 

To help ensure that the UV curing process is as efficient as possible, UV Process Supply Inc. has developed the CON-TROL-CURE LM-9000 UV continuous lamp monitor. This highly modular, software-based, full-spectrum UV data acquisition and management system provides both real-time display and data storage of UV lamp output characteristics. Through the lamp monitor's exclusive optical probe and fiber optic sub-systems, it allows permanent sensor placement inside the curing zone, reflector housing or even directly on the lamp. Unlike conventional monitoring methods that only collect data when the user requests it, this system provides continuous monitoring to identify problems immediately, and prevent costly errors or product loss.

As a computer software- and hardware-based data acquisition system, the LM-9000 captures data through the installation of one or more high-temperature optical probes within the lamp reflector housing. The sensor is connected, by way of fiber optic cabling, to an optical bench installed on an internal PC card or in an external housing. The data collected is displayed and managed by custom Windows lamp monitoring software. 

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