Selecting a UV LED Light For Your UV Curing or Inspection Needs
Choose the Wavelength
When selecting a wavelength, we first need to know which wavelength the material to be cured is most sensitive to. If this is unknown, contact the material manufacturer or experiment to find the best one. And, if you’re not sure about how wavelengths and curing relate, check out our guide! The most common curing wavelengths are 285nm, 300nm, 310nm, 365nm, 385nm, 395nm, and 405nm, though, the first 3 are rarely used, as they fall into the UVB range, which has weaker illuminance (around 100 mW / cm²).
When using UV lamps, multiple wavelengths are mixed and emitted at once. This means it’s likely that the specific wavelength that contributes to the curing of the material isn’t known. If this is your situation, please consult us, as UV LED wavelengths can be mixed to meet your specifications. We have demo machines available for lending, and we can also do an irradiation test to find the optimal wavelength for your material.
2. Select a UV Irradiation Method
Area Irradiation
Area irradiation (aka surface irradiation) often refers to the method of irradiating batches of stationary samples. The sample(s) is(are) placed in a large area and irradiated from above. Though, the lights direction is not restricted to downward - lights can be positioned on different sides, or even multiple sides in the case of flood-lighting. The size of the irradiator is determined by the area and how many samples there are.
In the graph, our UVWX, UVX, and UVA irradiator products are ranked in descending order of illuminance. UVWX has high illuminance even from a distance by densely mounting LEDs and installing a special lens on top of them to prevent the light from scattering. To increase the uniformity, use an illuminator that is larger in size than the sample to be illuminated and designed to prevent deterioration of ambient illuminance.
A few of our UV LED Models, along with illuminance ratings at different work distances.
UVWX - Ultra High Illuminance
UVX - High-to-Low Illuminance
UVE - High-to-Low Illuminance
UVA - Medium-to-Low Illuminance
General-Purpose Area Irradiation
A subset of "area irradiation”, our general-purpose area irradiators are lightweight, powerful, and potentially handheld. This sort of UV LED equipment is meant to be flexible and portable, allowing it to meet a vast number of needs in multiple fields and situations.
A few application examples:
Auto repair often employs UV-curable gaskets and putties that must be applied to and cured on the vehicle’s components..
In concrete repair, UV-curable fiber-resin sheets are used to reinforce the concrete surfaces, even outdoors.
UV curing films, silicone coatings, urethane and paints are often applied to components housing or even bulky surfaces, requiring a handy and flexible curing solution
With an average weight of 1.4kg and great power efficiency, these UV illuminators are extremely portable. With the AC adapter plugged in, even to a battery-powered source (eg 24V, 300W) , you’re ready to go, even outdoors. Alternatively, they can be made stationary if attached to a dedicated stand. We offer models with wavelengths of 365, 375, 385, 395, and 405nm, and can be built to mix multiple wavelengths, all for a very reasonable price. Check out a few of our general-purpose irradiators "Here”, or contact us for more information.
Line Irradiation
Line illuminators are quite simply UV LEDs built into a line-shaped array. They are generally in conjunction with a conveyor - one or more samples are placed on a conveyor and passed under the line illuminator.
To calculate the required integrated illuminance, one needs to calculate the conveyor speed, as well as the illuminance and thickness of the line irradiator. Our model has the UVWX, UVX, and UVE models in descending order of illuminance. The higher the illuminance of the LEDs, the faster the curing process, allowing for a fast speed conveyor and shorter production times in your production lines.
Spot Irradiation
This type of irradiator offers a very small and focused area of irradiation. They are suitable for irradiating a small part of a sample, or targeting a single isolated area of a large sample by hand. The UVT300C and UVT600C are designed to be lightweight and compact for this purpose.
3. Decide How to Cool
Cooling is exceptionally important to maximizing the lifespan of an LED. There are three general types of cooling employed: natural cooling, forced air cooling, and water cooling.
Natural cooling is essentially the absence of any active cooling method; heat is expected to simply disperse. With no active cooling is taking place, natural cooling is only feasible for illuminators with low illuminance, as low illuminance devices tend to generate less heat.
Forced air (ie fan cooling) uses some device, such as a fan, to circulate air around the irradiator in order to remove excess heat. Because warm air is exhausted in the process, air circulation in the room is important when using forced air cooling.
Water cooling cools the irradiator by circulating cold water from a chiller. More powerful than forced air cooling, water cooling is used for high-illumination UV LED applications, such as surface and line irradiation in production environments. We generally recommend water cooling in high-illuminance, high-powered systems whenever possible - it has a higher cooling efficicency than the other methods and allows you to generally use smaller-volume irradiators.
4. UV LED Life
When the UV LED reaches the end of its useful life, the illuminance will drop but not turn off completely like a lamp would. LED manufacturers consider LED’s life to be over when its illuminance is 30% less than it was initially.
Length of life depends greatly on the cooling conditions. For example, consider two LEDs - one with the usual junction temperature of 100 degrees and another with a junction temperature of 60 degrees. The 100 degree LED will live approximately 20,000 hours, while the 60 degree LED will live 40,000 hours.
This is a huge difference! Proper cooling can double your curing system’s lifetime.
To delay this illuminance drop-off and prolong your system’s life, we recommend starting with a system that does its job while running at only 70-80% of it’s illuminance capability. This leaves room to increase the illuminance as its LEDs begins to deteriorate, allowing you to counteract the decrease in illuminance.
When end-of-life inevitably comes, the LED replacement becomes necessary. We craft solutions where only the LED board needs to be replaced, making it easy for customers to replace in-house. But, just in case you need it, OCIR TECH do offer replacement services as well.
5. Other Features
Sensors and systems to detect temperature abnormalities and electrical disconnections (eg, a broken wire) with high-powered devices are crucial for safe and effective use. That’s why we offer systems that implement both!
Automated UV Curing systems. Additionally, being able to control both partial and hair interval lighting externally way. We use a RS232C to make integration possible. So now we are offering some of our curing systems fully automated! Ask for your custom application.
6. Our achievements
Over the years, our partners have made well over 500 customizable designs for our customers, with LED layouts and illuminance data for each them. We make our proposals based on these designs, so you can use them with confidence. And if you need a custom and unique, Micro Square employs highly accurate simulation software to design data, allowing us to understand and address your UV LED curing and inspection needs in advance.