(from left: Henry Kozlowski, Karl Platzer, Fred van Lierop)
The UV Consulting Expert Group from the lamp and ballast side visited main UV OEM suppliers throughout Europe.
The objective of the UV Expert Team is to have the latest and greatest information about UV ballast systems and UV system validation bodies provided in Europe for the worldwide UV system market.
As a neutral Expert body for the UV industry, staying educated in the newest state of the art ballast drivers and lamp technologies is paramount. One example is in-water UV lamps’ performance measurement protocol, based on special UV lamp driver and water temperature sensors to optimize amalgam lamp performance.
The goal is to operate an amalgam lamp/ballast system at lamp’s maximum UV output at all required water temperatures. This has been a historical challenge, especially with off the shelf ballasts (lamp drivers). These pose a challenge to achieving maximum UV output at wide range of water temperatures and ensuring long lamp life.
We have learned that “Out of Arc” lamp technology is being adopted more frequently by the OEMs for high power systems (i.e., 400W up to over 1000W). In these cases, an operation with a special ballast system driving lamps at maximum UV output independent of the water temperature offers great economic advantage over standard systems.
Recently, a system called PPT was shown to achieve exceptional performance. In terms of UV system validation this could be a breakthrough as the UV output stays pretty much stable over the life time of the lamp life span.
The UV Expert team continues our technology tour to learn more about new features we can recommend to our customers.
