TUV-421 Lamps: Webinar Recap

In a recent webinar, Q-Lab's Vice President of Marketing Andy Francis introduced one of our most recent innovations, the TUV-421 lamps. During his presentation, Francis gave an in-depth overview of the new UV fluorescent lamps, which represent a true breakthrough for Q-Lab's QUV accelerated weathering test chambers. 

An Introduction to TUV-421 Lamps

Since 1956, Q-Lab has been an industry leader in weathering testing. Our QUV accelerated weathering test chamber is the simplest, most reliable, and easiest-to-use weathering tester available, making it the most widely used weathering test chamber around the world. The launch of TUV-421 lamps addresses a longstanding limitation of QUV accelerated weathering testers: reproducing color change effects, which is a strength of xenon arc testers.

The TUV-421 lamps deliver a broader spectrum than traditional UVA-340 lamps. They closely mimic natural sunlight, while continuing to provide the same excellent spectral match for shortwave UV light. This makes them ideal for simulating color fade in materials sensitive to longer UV wavelengths. Best of all, they’re compatible with existing Q-Lab QUV testers, requiring only the new lamps and a free software upgrade.

Painted Panels Exposure Case Study

Francis shared two case studies performed by Q-Lab using the new lamps. The first case study involved a 2,000 hour test on painted Al panels in five different colors (blue, orange, pink, purple, red). The panels were exposed to three separate light sources:

• Q-SUN xenon arc test with Type I Daylight filters
• QUV UV fluorescent test with TUV-421 lamps
• QUV UV fluorescent test with UVA-340 lamps

Each test was set to the same irradiance value of 60 (W/m²) 300-400nm, except UVA-340, which was set to a roughly equivalent value of 0.55 W/m²/nm @340 nm. Black Panel Temperature was set to 60 °C for all tests.

Testing indicated that the TUV-421 lamps matched well the color change results from xenon arc testing, while UVA-340 lamps generally showed less fading. The orange panels shown below are a good example of this.

Photo Paper Exposure Case Study

The second case study presented during the session involved testing the color-loss of printing inks (black, blue, pink, yellow). The same light sources were used as for the coatings study, but with a much shorter duration of 96 hours and a lower Black Panel Temperature of 45 °C.

In this case study, the photo paper color fade had a strong correlation between the Xenon arc and TUV-421 light sources (left), whereas the UVA-340 exposures looked much like unexposed reference specimens after testing.

Conclusion

Q-Lab's innovative TUV-421 lamps provide users with a cost-effective lamp options that delivers an extended light spectrum (long-wavelength UV light & short-wavelength visible light). This helps to reproducing color change effects in materials that are spectrally-sensitive to these wavelengths of light.

Interested in learning more about TUV-421 lamps? Our team of experts are here to help. Click the button below to contact our team today!

Contact Us

Want to see more accelerated weathering and corrosion content? Access our full list of previously recorded webinars at Q-Lab.com/Webinars.