A UV curing conveyor’s capacity is not a brochure number. It is a short calculation built from belt speed, part pitch, and the hours a line actually runs, and doing it before purchase shows whether the cure station or something else sets your output ceiling.
Q: How many parts per shift can a UV curing conveyor process?
A: Parts per hour equals belt speed (inches per minute) divided by part pitch (the center-to-center spacing of parts along the belt), multiplied by 60, then multiplied by the number of parts across the belt width. Multiply by productive hours per shift for the shift total. The cure dose required by the adhesive then caps how fast the belt can run.
Step 1: Fix the Belt-Speed Ceiling From Dose
Throughput math must start from cure, because the belt can only run as fast as the adhesive allows. On Incure’s CDM™ conveyor the belt adjusts from 1.5 to 12.0 ft/min, but the usable top speed is whichever speed still delivers the required dose with the chosen lamp head.
Published figures show how much this varies. At 12 ft/min the M51 focused-beam head still delivers 12,813 mJ/cm² UVA, while the single-assembly F100x2AC arc head delivers 1,050 mJ/cm² UVA at only 6 ft/min. If a process needs 2,000 mJ/cm², the M51 can run at the platform’s full 12 ft/min, but the F100x2AC cannot reach that dose even at 6 ft/min. The dual-head F100x2A, at 2,100 mJ/cm² UVA at 6 ft/min, just clears it.
Step 2: Convert Speed to Parts per Hour
Once the speed is fixed, the conversion is mechanical. As a hypothetical, consider parts loaded on a 4-inch pitch, one part across the belt:
- At 6 ft/min (72 in/min): 72 ÷ 4 = 18 parts per minute, or 1,080 per hour.
- At 12 ft/min (144 in/min): 36 parts per minute, or 2,160 per hour.
- At 3 ft/min (36 in/min): 9 parts per minute, or 540 per hour.
Part pitch is set by part length plus the gap your loading method needs, not by part length alone. A robot that places parts on a fixed index, or a fixture plate that holds several parts, will each give a different effective pitch.
Step 3: Use the Belt Width
The CDM™ uses a 9-inch belt, and each lamp head has its own maximum part width: 1 inch on the M51, 2 inches on the M62, 4 inches on the L64, 5 inches on the F400/F500 heads, and 8 inches on the L88, F100, and F200 heads. Small parts can run more than one across if every lane falls inside the head’s usable width.
Continuing the hypothetical: parts 1.5 inches wide on an L88 head (8-inch usable width) could run in multiple lanes across the belt. Three lanes at 4-inch pitch and 6 ft/min triples the earlier figure to 3,240 parts per hour. The same parts under an M51 cannot run side by side at all, because its cured zone is 1 inch wide.
Step 4: Apply Real Shift Hours
A conveyor that runs 1,080 parts per hour does not produce 1,080 × 8 in an eight-hour shift. Subtract time for:
- Start-up and any lamp warm-up before the first part.
- Product changeovers and recipe changes.
- Radiometer checks and other scheduled verification.
- Breaks where the loading station stops, even if the belt keeps moving.
Mercury-arc heads need a warm-up and cool-down cycle, which the product documentation notes can dictate pacing on start-stop schedules. UV LED heads have no warm-up delay, so lines with frequent stops recover output faster on LED.
Email Us with your part size, pitch, and target daily volume, and Incure can estimate which CDM™ configuration meets it.
Step 5: Compare Against the Rest of the Line
The cure station is rarely the only constraint. If an upstream dispenser places 600 parts per hour, a conveyor capable of 2,160 per hour adds nothing to output; it only shortens dwell. In that situation the extra speed can be spent differently: run the belt slower for more cure margin, or choose a lower-intensity head that still meets the required dose at the line’s real pace. The comparison of UV LED spot stations and UV conveyors by production volume covers the volume range where a conveyor becomes worthwhile at all.
Maintenance Downtime Over a Year
Lamp life feeds directly into annual throughput. Incure rates its LED conveyor heads past 20,000 hours with up to 20% intensity decay, and its mercury-arc heads past 1,000 hours with up to 45% decay. As a hypothetical, a line running 16 productive hours a day would reach 1,000 hours in roughly 63 days, so an arc-equipped line should expect several bulb changes a year, each with its own downtime and requalification check. An LED head at the same duty cycle would take about 1,250 days to reach 20,000 hours.
Decay also matters before replacement: a head losing intensity delivers less dose at the same speed, so either the belt slows over time or the line runs with a margin set at the start.
Putting the Numbers Together
A quick worksheet for any proposed configuration:
- Required dose from the adhesive data sheet.
- Maximum belt speed that delivers it with this head, including decay margin.
- Part pitch and number of lanes across the usable width.
- Parts per hour at that speed.
- Productive hours per shift after start-up, changeover, and checks.
- Compare with the slowest upstream or downstream station.
For the process side of conveyor curing, see the industrial guide to curing conveyors, and for the published dose tables of each head, see the CDM™ lamp-head guide.
Contact Our Team to check a throughput estimate against a specific CDM™ configuration.
Visit www.incurelab.com for more information.