UV Curing calculator
UV Coating Cure Cost Calculator
The 'cost' of UV coating cure is more than just energy — it includes lamp wear allocated per cured part, labor share, and equipment overhead. This calculator stacks all four into a defensible cure cost per part that holds up on a customer quote and in a process improvement business case. Use it instead of treating cure as a free byproduct of having the equipment.
What this calculator does
- Combine UV cure energy, lamp wear-cost, labor, and overhead to get a true coating cure cost per part — for quoting and process improvement.
- Use it when quoting a coating contract, building a process improvement business case, or rolling cure into per-part standard cost.
- Reports the all-in UV cure cost per coated part: lamp wear, energy, labor, and overhead allocated to cured units only.
Formula used
- Lamp wear cost per shift = lamp wear per part × parts per shift
- Total cure cost per shift = lamp wear + energy + labor / overhead
- Cure cost per part = total cure cost per shift ÷ parts per shift
Inputs explained
- Parts cured per shift: Good cured parts only — exclude scrap so per-part cost is honest.
- Lamp wear cost per part: Total swap cost ÷ rated lamp life ÷ parts per hour at production speed.
- Energy cost per shift: From UV LED Energy Cost or Mercury UV Lamp Energy Cost — the shift cost number.
- Labor + overhead per shift: Operator labor allocated to cure station plus shop overhead share for the cure cell.
How to use the result
- Use it for customer quotes on coating contracts, for justifying coating-cell capex (a payback case needs an honest current cost), and for monthly standard-cost rollups on coating SKUs.
- Excludes coating material — that's a separate $/m² calc. Doesn't allocate cure-cell depreciation; if your cost system includes it, add to the labor/overhead bucket. Lamp wear is a steady-state allocation; the actual cash hit happens once per swap.
Common questions
- How do I calculate lamp wear cost per part? Take the True Swap Cost from UV Lamp Replacement Cost. Divide by rated useful hours from the lamp data sheet. Divide again by parts cured per hour at production speed. Example: $3,000 swap ÷ 2,000 hr ÷ 300 parts/hr = $0.005 per part. Small per part, real money over a year.
- Should I use the energy number for the whole shift or just production hours? Whole shift if the lamp idles on (mercury). Just production hours if the lamp dims when no part is present (LED). The Mercury UV Lamp Energy Cost and UV LED Energy Cost calcs already model this — use their shift cost output directly.
- Why include labor and overhead in cure cost? Because a coating cell ties up an operator and floor space whether the cure is mercury or LED. Without that bucket, an LED retrofit looks free; with it, the labor and overhead saved (e.g. one operator can run two cells if cycle drops) shows up in the payback. Don't quietly leave it out.
- What's the headline cure cost on a typical line? Mercury cure-on-conveyor: $0.10–$0.40 per part on production speeds 200–1,000 parts/hr. LED cure: typically 30–50% lower on the same line. The energy + lamp wear share usually dominates over labor on high-volume coating; labor dominates on low-volume / spot cure.
Last reviewed 2026-05-12.