Print Solutions
Kyocera Corporation has developed a new air cooled UV-LED curing light that it says is not only the world’s most powerful, but also the world’s smallest. The new Kyocera G5A Series is ideal for use in industrial ultraviolet (UV) ink printing applications, including billboard printing, as well as UV cured coating and adhesive processes.
Kyocera’s proprietary technology results in the world’s highest UV intensity (24W/cm2) among air cooled curing lights for UV printing. This product sets a new industry standard by offering the highest performance in a package that is also both the world’s lightest and smallest, at about half the size of a conventional air cooled UV curing light offering high UV intensity (16W/cm2).
UV printing is a printing method that uses ultraviolet light to cure ink immediately as it is printed, thus allowing for printing on a wide variety of non-paper media, including plastic sheets. In addition to its convenience, this printing method is more environmentally friendly, using energy efficient LED lights. The G5A Series incorporates Kyocera’s proprietary ceramic substrate with excellent heat conductivity in a heat radiating modular design, which allows LED elements to be mounted at an exceptionally high density. Since it employs an integrated air cooling system which eliminates the need for supplemental liquid cooling equipment, it can help reduce total equipment costs while saving space. Furthermore, its scalable structure allows users to adjust irradiation width, enabling full design optimization to suit a wide range of applications and printing media.
New applications keep emerging for UV printing based on long lasting, energy efficient LEDs as a curing source. According to Yole Developpement, a global research company based in France, the UV curing market is expected to expand to approximately $300 million by 2019. Demand for high speed UV printing is rising especially among wide format inkjet billboard printing applications, coating applications and adhesive applications. Design requirements increasingly specify an air cooled UV light with high output for higher productivity.
