A cure recipe proven in a bench chamber is written in seconds. A conveyor runs in feet per minute. Scaling up means translating one into the other without losing what made the bench result work — the wavelength, the distance, and the dose.

Q: How do you move a UV cure process from a bench chamber to a conveyor system?

A: Keep the light source the same, convert exposure time into belt speed, then re-verify on moving parts

The safest scale-up changes as little as possible at once. Use a conveyor head built on the same lamp technology and wavelength as the bench source, hold the same working distance, and calculate the belt speed that gives each part the same time under the same intensity. Only then look at what motion itself changes — uniformity, handling, and shielding — and confirm cure on production parts.

Step 1: Pair the Bench Source With a Matching Conveyor Head

On Incure equipment, the bench and conveyor families share hardware. The CDM™ L64 and L88 heads share their array design with the standalone L-Series™ flood lamps; the M51 and M62 heads share their beams with the standalone M-Series™ units; and the F100, F200, F400, and F500 arc heads are the same lamp classes used in F-Series™ flood lamps, which the B500 chamber is built to enclose. Choosing the conveyor head from the same family keeps spectrum and intensity behavior consistent, so the scale-up is about time and motion rather than a change in chemistry response. LED wavelength is factory-configured, so order the same wavelength the bench process was qualified on.

Step 2: Convert Bench Seconds Into Belt Speed

On a bench, dose is intensity multiplied by exposure time. On a conveyor, a part’s time under the lamp is the head’s illuminated length along the belt divided by belt speed. The published CDM™ figures follow this relationship closely:

• L64: 6-inch illuminated length. At 6 ft/min (1.2 in/s) a part spends 6 ÷ 1.2 = 5 seconds under the head; 1,900 mW/cm² × 5 s = 9,500 mJ/cm², which matches the L64’s published range (4,750 mJ/cm² at 12 ft/min, doubled at 6 ft/min).
• M51: 5-inch illuminated length. At 6 ft/min, 5 ÷ 1.2 ≈ 4.17 seconds × 6,150 mW/cm² ≈ 25,600 mJ/cm², in line with the published 25,630 mJ/cm².

Consider a hypothetical bench recipe of 1,900 mW/cm² for 5 seconds at 2 inches under an L-Series flood lamp. The CDM™ L64 at 6 ft/min reproduces that dose on paper. A recipe needing 10 seconds would call for half the speed — 3 ft/min.

Email Us with your bench recipe — lamp, wavelength, distance, and time — and Incure can translate it into a starting conveyor configuration and belt speed.

Step 3: Account for What Motion Changes

A static exposure in a chamber and a moving exposure on a belt are not identical, even at the same calculated dose:

• Intensity is not constant during the pass. The part sees the head’s full profile as it travels through, rather than a steady value.
• Uniformity behaves differently. Arc heads list 0.82 dynamic against 0.75 static at 2.0 inches — motion evens out the pattern along the travel axis, but not across the width.
• Formulations with a minimum-irradiance threshold may respond to peak intensity rather than total dose, so a calculated dose match is not proof on its own.

Step 4: Rethink Handling and Fixtures

In a chamber, a part rests on a shelf at a set height. On a conveyor it must stay located while moving, ride inside the head’s maximum part width — 4 inches on the L64, 8 inches on the L88 — and stay within the curing height range of 0.5–2.0 inches for LED heads. Bench parts that were hand-placed often need carriers once they ride a belt.

Step 5: Replace the Chamber’s Enclosure Logic

A bench chamber contains UV by design: B-Series™ chambers use an auto-shutter door interlock, and C-Series™ chambers cut lamp power when the drawer opens. A conveyor has open infeed and outfeed ends, so containment has to come from shielding, operator positioning, and eye protection rated for the source. LED heads on the CDM™ add PLC, RS-232, and foot-switch control, so lamp operation can be tied to part presence.

Step 6: Re-Verify Before Releasing Production

Measure irradiance at the bond height on the conveyor, run production parts at the calculated speed, and test them with the adhesive supplier’s cure method — including the tallest, widest, and most shadowed parts. Keep the bench chamber for samples and rework; an Incure B/C-Series™ cure chamber remains useful alongside the line. Conveyor configurations are detailed in the Incure CDM™ UV conveyor guide, and the case for conveyors at higher volumes is in the curing conveyor industrial guide.

Contact Our Team to plan a bench-to-conveyor scale-up for your process.

Visit www.incurelab.com for more information.