UV LED Inks: The Future of Narrow-web Printing?

LED lamp advantages

There are many advantages to using LED lamps. These can be split into economical and environmental advantages.

Economic/productivity/expanded capability advantages:

• Press uptime—Less equipment faults, presses run longer and without lamp faults; higher certainty of cure with inks when using this process;
• Faster cure/higher productivity—Better UV curing allows for faster speeds and more combination printing;
• Energy efficient—UV LED lamps require about 50 percent less energy;
• Long lifetime and low maintenance—UV LED lamps last in the range of 20,000 to 50,000 hours of run time as compared to a mercury lamp running of about 2,000 hours total time;
• Solid state/instant on/off—There is no waiting for lamps to heat up or cool down saving valuable press time and substrate;
• Expands the capability of the press by running heat sensitive/thin films on a press without heat management. An LED lamp does not have infrared and thus does not create heat as mercury lamps do;
• UV LED lamps are very compact and flexible and can easily be adapted to any press platform;
• UV LED systems are smaller and don't require large blowers to move air and thus take up less space in the production area.

Environmental and safety advantages: