UV-LED technology provides a number of great advantages, such as energy savings, long lifetime, low heat, no ozone and no mercury. With LED technology, we rely on thousands of small LEDs to sufficiently cure a coating. What if there is a deviation along the width of the lamp? If a segment goes out, if some of the optics get damaged or dirty, how does this impact the curing, and the final coating properties?
This study aims to determine what level of deviation causes problems with insufficient cure. To prevent problems with insufficient cure, EFSEN has developed a proprietary technology called ICAD® to continuously monitor the output of a UV lamp during production. Not only does this show us the complete picture of the UV output along the width of the lamp, it is also able to use the extracted information to adjust the power level of any segments that do not conform to the specification (Figures 1 and 2). This will provide assurance, in real time, that all segments perform according to the specifications, and also lets users know directly when there is damage, dirt or other issues preventing a segment from performing to standard.