Our Best-in-Class UV-LED Spot Light Sources for Your Biggest UV Curing Challenges
UV-LED spot curing and light-curable adhesives and coatings have made inroads into automotive, electronics, medical, and optics manufacturing in recent years. No wonder – experience teaches that UV-LED technology outclasses conventional mercury discharge lamps when it comes to cost-effective and consistent curing.
Manufacturers are keen to improve high-volume production lines’ cycle times, yet they still have to meet rigorous bond quality standards. This dual challenge is driving demand for high-performance spot light sources. While some still use conventional mercury discharge lamps, more and more manufacturers are transitioning their spot curing equipment to UV-LED technology.
Primelite’s fiber-coupled Advanced UV-LED Light Engines take UV curing and exposure to the next level. Our solutions outperform any 200 W to 500 W mercury discharge lamp and all competing UV-LED spot light sources in every way. They deliver industry-leading intensities of customizable broadband radiation (350 – 470 nm) with excellent short- and long-term stability. This opens windows of opportunity to improve current UV curing and create entirely new applications.
Integration of Our Fiber Coupled UV-LED Spot Light Sources into UV Curing Applications
All our Advanced UV-LED Light Engines for UV spot curing use high-transmission LED Light Guides to flexibly deliver the optical system’s output right to the target spot. With perfectly matching numerical apertures, this combination of our LED light sources and light guides makes for a very efficient overall setup.
Excellent transmission and exceptional flexibility are two of these LED Light Guides‘ hallmarks. They are also highly customizable, come in single- and multi-pole versions, and can be as long as 20 meters for some use cases.
A wide range of control interfaces makes it so easy to integrate our UV-LED Light Sources into your automotive, electronics, medical, or optics production infrastructure. All our spot light sources feature field-replaceable LED modules to keep maintenance time and cost down.
Solutions for Industry-Leading UV-LED Output
The requirements of your process and design envelope determine which fiber-coupled UV-LED spot light source fits your needs best. Your options start with the ALE/3 Despite its small footprint, this UV-LED exposure solution has plenty of power, delivering more than twice the output of popular 200 W spot curing systems equipped with mercury discharge lamps.
If your use case has a huge appetite for photons, check out our Advanced UV-LED Light Engine ALE/1. No other UV-LED spot light source on the market can match its performance. It offers everything you need to build your custom broadband output spectrum. With up to five high-power, individually feedback-controlled LED modules combined in a single optical path, the ALE/1 raises the industry bar for short- and long-term exposure stability.
Benefits of Broadband UV Curing
Great Compatibility
Primelite’s broadband UV-LED light sources deliver precisely the spectral composition that works best with your UV curing application. Choose from a range of available central wavelengths (CWL 365, 385, 405, and 436 nm) and define their output intensity separately. You can opt for the same output setting for every shot, a changing output profile during a shot, or subsequent shots with an individual spectral composition. With these capabilities, our UV-LED spot light sources can process almost every UV-sensitive material at impressive speeds and with phenomenal reliability.
A fully customizable output spectrum is particularly helpful if you are searching for a UV-LED solution to replace mercury discharge lamps in medical or pharma manufacturing equipment. Simply replicate the spectrum of your current spot light source and keep using your originally validated recipes.
Flawless Surfaces
While longer wavelengths reach much deeper into the UV adhesive, it often takes powerful radiation with shorter wavelengths (e.g., around CWL 365 nm) to end up with tack-free surfaces. The problem with using 365 nm exclusively is that the surface of photosensitive material cures so rapidly. This can prevent radiation from penetrating deep enough into the bonding layer for a full cure.
Primelite’s Advanced Light Engines perform superbly in all NUV spectral ranges, so multi-step exposure is well worth exploring. To produce a fully cured bonding layer and achieve a perfect surface, you could start exposing at higher wavebands, such as 405 nm, and finish the shot with high-intensity lower wavebands at around 365 nm.
Deep Cure
UV-LED systems usually have a single central wavelength with a narrow total output spectrum. Primelite’s fiber-coupled UV-LED exposure units are more versatile with their ability to deliver high-power performance in mono- and multispectral configurations.
Adding near UV (NUV) in the higher spectral ranges (CWL 405 or 436 nm) to your exposure unit’s output has its benefits when working with thick layers of photosensitive adhesives and coatings. Longer wavelengths penetrate much deeper into the material for consistent and complete curing in but a fraction of the time taken by other UV-LED systems.
Power Output Compared
| Output power [mW]1 | Light guide | 350 - 390 nm | 390 - 420 nm | 420 - 450 nm | Broadband 350 - 450 nm |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
ALE/1.2 (CWL 365 / 405 nm)2 | Ø6.5 | 10,000 | 10,000 | — | 20,000 |
| Ø8.0 | 10,000 | 10,000 | — | 20,000 | |
ALE/1.3 (CWL 365 / 405 / 436 nm)2 | Ø6.5 | 10,000 | 10,000 | 10,000 | 30,000 |
| Ø8.0 | 10,000 | 10,000 | 10,000 | 30,000 | |
ALE/3.1 (CWL 365 nm)2 | Ø5.0 | 7,000 | — | — | — |
| Ø6.5 | 11,000 | — | — | — | |
| Ø8.0 | 13,000 | — | — | — | |
ALE/3.2 (CWL 365 / 405 nm)2 | Ø5.0 | 4,000 | 3,500 | — | 8,000 |
| Ø6.5 | 6,500 | 6,000 | — | 13,000 | |
| Ø8.0 | 7,500 | 7,000 | — | 15,000 | |
200 W Mercury discharge lamp (typical values) | Ø5.03 | 1,500 | 1,000 | 1,200 | 5,000 |
| Ø5.0 | 2,000 | 1,500 | 1,700 | 5,500 | |
| Ø6.5 | 3,000 | 2,300 | 2,400 | 8,000 | |
| Ø8.0 | 3,000 | 2,300 | 2,400 | 8,000 |
| Output power [mW]1 | Light guide | 350 - 390 nm | 390 - 420 nm |
|---|---|---|---|
ALE/1.2 (CWL 365 / 405 nm)2 | Ø6.5 | 10,000 | 10,000 |
| Ø8.0 | 10,000 | 10,000 | |
ALE/1.3 (CWL 365 / 405 / 436 nm)2 | Ø6.5 | 10,000 | 10,000 |
| Ø8.0 | 10,000 | 10,000 | |
ALE/3.1 (CWL 365 nm)2 | Ø5.0 | 7,000 | — |
| Ø6.5 | 11,000 | — | |
| Ø8.0 | 13,000 | — | |
ALE/3.2 (CWL 365 / 405 nm)2 | Ø5.0 | 4,000 | 3,500 |
| Ø6.5 | 6,500 | 6,000 | |
| Ø8.0 | 7,500 | 7,000 | |
200 W Mercury discharge lamp (typical values) | Ø5.03 | 1,500 | 1,000 |
| Ø5.0 | 2,000 | 1,500 | |
| Ø6.5 | 3,000 | 2,300 | |
| Ø8.0 | 3,000 | 2,300 |
| Output power [mW]1 | Light guide | 420 - 450 nm | Broadband 350 - 450 nm |
|---|---|---|---|
ALE/1.2 (CWL 365 / 405 nm)2 | Ø6.5 | — | 20,000 |
| Ø8.0 | — | 20,000 | |
ALE/1.3 (CWL 365 / 405 / 436 nm)2 | Ø6.5 | 10,000 | 30,000 |
| Ø8.0 | 10,000 | 30,000 | |
ALE/3.1 (CWL 365 nm)2 | Ø5.0 | — | — |
| Ø6.5 | — | — | |
| Ø8.0 | — | — | |
ALE/3.2 (CWL 365 / 405 nm)2 | Ø5.0 | — | 8,000 |
| Ø6.5 | — | 13,000 | |
| Ø8.0 | — | 15,000 | |
200 W Mercury discharge lamp (typical values) | Ø5.03 | 1,200 | 5,000 |
| Ø5.0 | 1,700 | 5,500 | |
| Ø6.5 | 2,400 | 8,000 | |
| Ø8.0 | 2,400 | 8,000 |
1Power output measured at end of light guide; deviation of ±10% possible
2CWL of emitters: 367.5±2.5 nm, 402.5±2.5 nm, and 435.0±2.5 nm
3Fiber light guide
Primelite Advanced UV-LED Light Engines in Action:
Why Primelite's UV-LED Light Sources for Spot Curing:
- UV-LED spot light source for easy integration
- Stable, precise, consistent, high-intensity radiation output
- Customizable spectral composition (365 / 385 / 405 / 436 nm)
- No need for optical filters
- No mercury! Safe and future-proof light source
- LED process stability and lower TCO
Advanced Light Engine ONE
ALE/1 UV-LED spot light sources raise the industry’s bar for tailored broadband exposure spectra and superb stability.
Advanced Light Engine THREE
Need an affordable replacement for legacy mercury discharge lamps with a small footprint? Here it is.
LED Light Guides
Learn more about how our high-transmission LED Light Guides can improve your industrial UV bonding solution.
LED Performance Optics
Designed to homogenize, collimate, and focus our LED Light Guides’ output, these optical add-ons improve efficiency at low cost.