Back to results
US 7,498,065 B2Granted
UV printing and curing of CDs, DVDs, Golf Balls And Other Products
AssigneeCon-Trol-Cure, Inc.
InventorStephen B. Siegel
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
A special method is provided for more uniformly and quickly curing products with a scratch-resistant UV curable coating or UV curable printing thereon, such as for CDs, DVDs, golf balls, golf tees, eye glass lenses, contact lenses, string instruments, decorative labels, peelable labels, peelable stamps, doors, countertops, etc. The method can also be operated with one or more special UV curing apparatus equipped with a controller, temperature sensors, and heat dissipators.
Claims24
A method for curing ultraviolet (UV) curable products, articles, inks, coatings, adhesives or other objects, comprising the steps of:
- driving at least one UV LED with intermittent pulses of electrical current in excess of a normal input current range to produce a high intensity UV light emitted from the at least one UV LED, wherein the at least one UV LED is mounted on a first side of a thermally conductive substrate;
- mounting a heat sink on a second side of the substrate;
- sensing an intensity of the high intensity UV light emitted from the at least one UV LED while sensing a temperature of the heat sink;
- optimizing the intensity of the high intensity UV light emitted from the at least one UV LED by automatically adjusting the electrical current in response to the intensity that is sensed and the temperature that is sensed to obtain and maintain a substantially constant high intensity UV light;
- positioning the UV curable products, articles, inks, coatings, adhesives, or other objects in curable proximity to the at least one UV LED;
- and
- substantially uniformly polymerizing, setting and curing the UV curable products, articles, inks, coatings, adhesives or other objects using the substantially constant high intensity UV light.
4 more elements
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.