UV Drying Power Is In The Reflector

What would a funhouse be without mirrors?
Would you try to shave in a mirror you just spray painted black? These things just don’t make any sense and well sound plain wrong.

Well these things are the equivalent of using a UV lamp without a quality reflector. Actually a reflector can be more important than having a new lamp. Try to imagine your favorite sports car without wheels. The reflector provides a means to harness the curable energy and re-direct it into the place you need it the most to do what’s most important. Dry your UV curable material. The figure below illustrates how a lamp provides light in multiple directions and how the UV reflector takes this light (that otherwise would be aimed away from the area needing cured) and bounces it to where its needed to optimize curing hardness and speed at which something is dried or cured. Oddly enough over time as a reflectors reflectivity diminishes it actually starts to become a sponge as opposed to a reflector of light. Yes it actually starts absorbing the light. That means things get slower (except for the rate at which you change your lamps) or your customers finished products are becoming more certain of being rejected. Sometimes if you’re lucky you catch this before you ship them the product. Don’t let lack of knowledge dictate your equipments poor performance. PM can either mean Preventative Maintenance (scheduled down time) or Post Mortem (down time at the most inconvenient time). The illustration below shows a typical parabolic reflector and how light is reflected into a specific area known as the focal point.