ColorSpan DisplayMaker Legacy UVR/UVX - UV Bulb Expectations (UVR-UVX-9840)

Introduction

Many customers have questions about the bulbs for the UV-curing lamps on the UV series of printers. This document

deﬁ nes the factors that contribute to bulb wear and what to expect from your UV system.

Terminology

The UV lamp system consists of these parts:

Lamp Housings

The two ventilated boxes on the left and right sides of the carriage. Each lamp housing is conceptually equivalent

to a light ﬁ xture in your home or ofﬁ ce: it is a reasonably permanent hardware item. The lamp housing is directly

connected to the electrical current and contains the necessary components to light up a UV bulb (see below). The

housing also has a self-contained cooling apparatus.

Lamp Cassette

A carrier for the bulb. The cassette is a circuit board and reﬂ ector assembly and has the direct electrical connections

for the UV bulb. The cassette is a consumable item, but a reseller or authorized service provider can remove a used

bulb and install a new one into the same cassette several times before the cassette must be replaced, or the complete

cassette and bulb assembly can be replaced as a unit. Replacement of the cassette and bulb assembly can be per-

formed by any operator and does not require a service visit.

UV Bulb

The actual “light bulb” that emits visible and UV light energy. Just like a light bulb in any ﬁ xture in your home or

ofﬁ ce, the UV bulb is a consumable item and will eventually need to be replaced. Bulb life is a major topic of the

remainder of this document.

The photographs below show each of these items (FB910 has slightly different appearance but should be recogniz-

ably similar).

Lamp Housing on Carriage

Cassette Removed from

Housing

Bulb Removed from Cassette

Bulb Life

Bulb life is deﬁ ned as the period in which the bulb will emit enough ultraviolet (UV) light energy to cure the ink within

the available exposure time.

For the ﬁ rst 200-300 hours of on-time, the energy emitted by the bulbs is constant. After that the energy emission

begins to decline. Between 300-500 hours of use, the decline is sufﬁ cient so that most bulbs no longer emit enough

energy to cure output in the fastest printmodes with the lamp at its lowest power setting. If you are not printing in the

faster modes, the number of hours before this occurs may be higher; but see the “Additional Notes on Bulb Life” sec-

tion (below) for important details. Whenever this point is reached, there are two options to extend the life of the bulb: