Robotic UV Curing: A Cost-Effective Way to Cure Large 3-DPIastic Parts

摘要

Plastic part manufacturers are paying more attention to UV curing as a means to produce their parts. The interest is driven by several advantages of UV: 1. UV cure is fast. Coatings can be cured in a tiny fraction of the time needed for traditional cure systems. 2. Little heat is required. UV curing relies on light energy and not heat to drive polymerization. This mechanism is ideally suited to temperature sensitive substrates. 3. The UV process minimizes the emission of hazardous VOCs. Many popular plastic UV coatings are very high solids formulations with little or not solvent. 4. UV formulations may exhibit superior properties. Many UV formulations are noted for high gloss, superior scratch and mar resistance -properties often sought in plastic part manufacturing. While UV curing is new relatively new to the plastics market, it is the established way to cure coating materials. In graphic arts for example, many UV varnishes, inks and adhesives are cured with UV. DVDs are produced with UV bonding adhesives and often decorated with UV cured inks. Wooden flooring, optical fibers, and printed circuit board resists all use UV.