At Labelexpo Americas, taking place in Rosemont, Illinois, 13 to 15 September, GEW will show its comprehensive range of UV curing systems comprising mercury arc systems, LED systems and hybrid systems together with the associated fully hybrid RHINO ArcLED electronic power supply. The complete line-up will be on display on booth 3500 in hall C at the Rosemont Convention Center.

Fully air-cooled LED UV

GEW are now launching the new, fully aircooled LED UV curing system lamphead LA1. In the development phase special consideration was given to the enhanced airflow design to ensure effective heat dissipation at high power levels. The LA1 is built around the same proven cassette-based design as the E2C and LW1 lampheads and is fully compatible with existing ArcLED systems without the need for external chillers, pipes or coolant or indeed any other modification.

Within an ArcLED system printers are able to operate full hybrid UV curing, working with both mercury arc and LED lamp technology on the same press. Mercury arc cassettes and LED cassettes both use the same lamphead casing, the same power supply and the same air cooling ducts. The operator simply swaps the required cassette and the RHINO ArcLED power supply automatically recognises which type of cassette is installed in the machine, switches from low voltage DC power for the LEDs to high voltage AC for the arc lamps and changes the display on the RHINO touch screen control accordingly.

The LA1 is an LED UV curing solution that is able to perform without the heavy infrastructure and maintenance required by water-cooled LEDs while enjoying the benefits of the efficiency, reliability and extended life cycles of LEDs.

GEW’s ArcLED UV curing system is the only truly futureproof technology for upgradeability of arc lamp to LED UV systems. Printing presses that operate with ArcLED technology can be upgraded from arc lamps to LED to fully exploit the advantages of both technologies with the same power supply, controls and cooling system. This will give the user maximum freedom and flexibility and will avoid getting locked in to one type of curing technology.

Multi-point UV monitor

At Labelexpo, North American label printers and converters will for the first time see GEW’s new multi-point inline UV monitor.

The UV monitor consists of calibrated sensors positioned along the length of the lamp to continuously measure the UV intensity in a UV curing system. This is vital to avoid the risks and consequences of undercured product reaching the customer. The UV monitor is a highly reliable and cost effective solution for production monitoring of UV intensity and dose at multiple positions across the web to eliminate the possibility of inadequate UV dose.

Multipoint in-line UV dose control ensures comprehensive monitoring of the UV output during the curing process. It continuously reads and records the actual intensity across the full width of the lamp and calculates the UV energy dose on the substrate with great precision. A dose monitor is set to alert the operator before the wrong dose could have an impact on production. Low UV output, which would not adequately cure, is thus avoided, as is insufficient output from a degraded lamp. As a result, unnecessary downtime is eliminated and production waste is significantly reduced.