Olympus Print reports superior lamp longevity with GEW

Traditional mercury arc lamps are the workhorses of the UV label printing industry. While GEW has many UV system installations still running after more than 20 years, by the nature of the technology and the materials used, the working life of a UV lamp is finite. However, by choosing the correct product and only genuine manufacturer’s spare parts life expectancy can be significantly higher than commonly assumed, according to the manufacturer.

Olympus managing director Adrian Brown said: ‘We achieved the extra-long life cycles of these UV lamps by using authentic GEW parts and by running the system at the correct power level rather trying to work at full power.’ Olympus’ Prism management information system allows management to keep track of shift activities, when the press is running or idle, when in standby and when down for other reasons. ‘We have virtually 100 percent UV efficiency and ever since installation no downtime because of lamp failure and that’s running three shifts five days a week,’ confirmed Brown.

Due to the high energy efficiency of the E2C lamps’ tuned reflectors, the Rhino electronic power supply and the fact that Olympus runs its complex multi-process jobs at around half full press speed, the lamps are able to be operated at roughly 40 percent of full power and are proven to last in excess of 5,000 hours, often up to 7,000 hours. This compares to 80 to 90 percent power settings for the previous UV lamps, which in turn generated more frequent lamp burnouts and resulted in much shorter life-cycles.

Olympus use only genuine spares as they fulfil the highest quality standards and ensure the longevity of the system. GEW emphasized that look-alike parts do not reach the same quality level as genuine GEW parts, saying they can often have a negative impact on the life-cycles users can expect and, in extreme cases, can even damage the UV system, adding additional cost in replacing parts.

Brown concluded: ‘The last thing you want with spares is surprises. GEW lamps and spares bring us reliability, longevity and peace of mind.’