Shining a light on UV system reflectors

Our sales and technical teams regularly discuss the importance of UV lamp cleaning, maintenance and changes with our customers, as well as advising them to keep track of how long lamps have been in use and ensuring they monitor lamp performance as reasonable lifetime is reached. We are now on a mission to educate our customers about UV reflectors, as this crucial element of the system is so often overlooked or neglected.

Reflectors sit behind or next to the UV lamp and are responsible for anything from 40 to 70% of the UV light that hits the substrate – that is a lot! If they are dirty or deformed you will undoubtedly see a drop in the performance of your UV system. Different types of reflector not only reflect the maximum amount of UV light possible onto the substrate, but may also allow IR light and heat to escape, keeping the lamp and the substrate considerably cooler. We can also provide reflectors and quartz plates with cooling holes in place for the same reason.

We recommend our customers check and carefully clean their system reflectors every time they change the UV lamps, and they should expect to have to replace reflectors every 3 or 4 lamp changes. If a reflector appears deformed or distorted, and cleaning it makes no difference, we would advise it is replaced as soon as possible no matter how old it is.

Alpha-Cure can supply a wide range of reflectors including aluminium, aluminium dichroic, aluminium extruded, stainless steel, stainless steel dichroic, glass / bora silica and glass / bora silica dichroic, as well as quartz plates and quartz filters.

If you think you may need new reflectors then get in touch with Alpha-Cure today – we can provide advice on reflector maintenance and quote for replacements if needed. It’s a simple fix that will make a huge difference!