Does anyone use/know of UV LED for curing?

[anythingclose]

I am interested to know if anyone out there uses any UV LED lights instead of traditional UV bulbs for curing their resin. Wondering whether you're seeing good results, faster cure times, longer life etc.

[Brent Deines]

We have done a lot of testing and are not impressed with the results, mainly due to the lack of intensity. They are also quite expensive, especially for anything close to the 365nm range that most glass repair resins are formulated to work with, so other than the cool factor I don't see any benefit.

[Frank EU]

LED UV Light curing is just the latest hype. The idea of using LED Technology has been around in our industry for some years. I personally see hardly any added value so far, we are not going to replace our 30+ UV Curing Lights.

[screenman]

If you do can I have some of your old one's. I have used quite a few different lights over the years and find the Delta 40-14 work great.

[Frank EU]

I wrote that I was NOT going to replace the traditional lamps shortly. We have three types, including the 40-14 and 40-13. My Light of choice is the 40-14 or the old style GW (-double tube) UV Curing Lights with the green end caps. The ones that are similar to the 40-13, with the single lamp has never been my favourite, we have some three in use but those are replaced for the double tube type. Let's drink tea Graham, I'll be in the UK shortly.

[screenman]

Sorry my reply was tongue in cheek humour, I know you said you were not going to change.

[anythingclose]

The reason I was looking into LED UV is because I would like a rechargeable cordless system, but one that was powerful enough to cure the repair like the 12 volt or 115 volt options. I know LED lamps in general use less power than regular bulb type lamps, so I was hoping perhaps someone had come up with an LED lamp that used the SAME amount of power as a normal bulb lamp, with correspondingly more powerful light.

It seems like that hasn't happened yet, or at least not in a cost-effective enough way. With that being said, short of buying both a UV lamp AND a battery pack, what would be the best solution for me given that I am not certain where I will be doing my repairs yet?

[adam@gtglass]

It looks like the general consensus on the forum and I must agree to disagree on this issue...

[Dave M]

I have just purchased a LED curing light from another manufacturer. If anyone is interested in my opinions, send me an e-mail. I will say this....it does cure. You will need to purchase an injector from this manufacturer as the light attaches to the bridge.

[SuperGlassDave]

Here are a couple of interesting things that I found working with UV and LED.

The UV light will only cure in a straight line. The UV doesn't travel through the glass like fiber optic. Put resin under mylar and place your light so that only half of the mylar is covered with UV and you will find that the half of the resin that wasn't directly exposed will still be liquid. So, the light doesn't travel through the glass to cure. LED's project a cone of light. Any area of the repair that is not directly covered by the light will not cure properly. So, it doesn't seem that a circle of lights around an injector will properly cure.

About LED. The whole deal is that they don't draw much power, which greatly extends battery life. But, they don't put out power either. Measuring the UV strength on a UV Power Meter the Delta Light measures 15. An LED UV bulb wouldn't get up to 1. Even multiples of them still wouldn't get close to 15 on the power meter in one focused area. That's 365 nanometers either way. So, if there is little power being drawn, there will probably be even less power going out.

It would be nice to have a way to measure full cure in between glass. How to see if parts are not fully cured. Any knowledge of something like that?

Dave Casey - SuperGlass, Inc.