Conformal Coating & UV curing

UV curing of conformal coatings is becoming increasingly important for high volume users in fields such as automotive and consumer electronics.

This increase in the popularity of UV curable conformal coatings is due to its rapid cure speed, level of processing ease, environmental friendliness and thermal cycling resistance, which have never before been achieved with UV conformal coating materials.

The UV100 UV Curing Conveyor System

The super fast curing times of UV conformal coatings mean that productivity in your conformal coating process can be massively increased.

This means you won’t have wet boards lying around susceptible to contamination from dust and debris, your lead times can be reduced and your customers get their products quicker!

To take advantage of these benefits you need a UV curing system like the UV100 UV conveyor. The UV100 range of UV conveyors are available in modular format:

Example of a 300mm wide UV100 SMEMA conveyor with Microwave lamp technology

Click for the UV100 UV Curing Conveyor Systems Brochure

CLICK HERE for UV100 Curing process video

UV Curing Lamps: Microwave & Arc Lamp Technology

The two types of UV lamps available for curing UV curable conformal coatings are UV Arc Lamps and UV Microwave Lamps.

UV Arc Lamps

The UV Arc Lamps are much lower in capital cost compared to the UV Microwave Lamp systems. The life time of a UV bulb is approx 500-1000 hours, depending how the UV lamp system is used, and, after this time the output power will degrade to be about 60% of the initial value.

This drop in power can be critical if the speed of the UV conveyor is approaching the limit of the UV cure ability of the lamp and the UV conformal coating and may need to be monitored. If the UV system is run slow enough this may not be an issue (relative to heat cure a slow speed is still pretty fast!).

The cost of the replacement UV bulbs are typically low cost depending upon the lamp fill, and a similar price to the microwave bulbs. It must also be noted that UV Arc Lamps also run a little hotter than the UV Microwave Lamps.

Arc Lamp Technology

UV Microwave Lamps

The UV Microwave lamp bulb will last much longer than UV Arc lamp technology. Depending on the model, lifetime of the bulb can be quoted between 4000-8000 hours and one model guarantees 9000 hours. During this time there is very little power degradation. The UV lamp will not extinguish until the end of its life in this time period. The cost for the bulbs are similar.

Generally, as a rule of thumb if cost is very tight then SCH recommend the UV Arc lamps, especially if there is low volume use and high speed is not critical. If it is higher volume, higher speed then we generally recommend UV Microwave Lamp technology since it is generally more economic and no maintenance is involved in monitoring the UV out put.

Microwave Lamp Technology