LE UV uses the traditional UV lamp technology, which has been used for almost 40 years, so it is a proven and well-established system. The lamps, however, are not mercury doped as in conventional or full UV but iron doped, making the system more environmentally friendly. The system does not emit any infrared light and much less ozone. Compared to conventional UV systems, DryStar LE UV requires fewer light sources to dry the ink on the substrate, thereby reducing the required energy to run the system and making it more attractive price-wise.
LED uses light emitting diodes to initiate the curing process. The high performance diodes of the DryStar LED system use even less energy than the iron doped lamps of the DryStar LE UV system. The total life time of the light emitting diodes incorporated in the DryStar LED system is up to 25,000 hours of production time, - and they don’t require any warm up or cooling down times. The LED bars are divided into separate modules. Each of the modules on the sides are turned on or off according to the print image. These features lead to even greater energy savings and environmental friendliness with no infrared light or ozone emitted. As the LED’s are a fairly new technology in the printing industry, the investment is slightly higher than for LE UV.
Both systems are based on conventional UV application but use highly reactive inks, which contain more and different photoinitiators compared to a full or conventional UV system. These photoinitiators cause the immediate drying process and lead to the big advantage of a dry sheet once it comes off the press. It’s also these photoinitiators which make the highly reactive inks more expensive, therefore both applications are most economically used for short runs and a high share of 4/4 or 5/5 jobs.
The dry sheets do not require protection coatings as we often see in conventional printing. The coating unit can now be used for special effects or the investment can simply be saved. As the inks are dry or cured much faster than conventional inks, they basically stay on the sheet surface, so depending on the substrate the colors look brighter and the whole printed image appears sharper.
Check out our customer stories and learn how other print shops profit from the LE UV and LED UV technologies and expertise from Heidelberg:
LE UV and LED UV offer printers new possibilities for the process-optimized
manufacture of print products with an extended range of applications.
But how can these technologies help your print shop remain competitive in the future?
Which technology should you choose? And how should you implement it?
If your business needs to focus on productivity and customer care, our Application Support team offers a 360 degree service that will meet your requirements.
