UV Curing calculator

UV Lamp Replacement Cost Calculator

The sticker price on a UV lamp is rarely the real cost of a swap. Production downtime during the swap, the technician hours, and the scrap risk of the half-shift before someone notices output has dropped all stack on top. This calculator lets a process engineer or buyer combine those four pieces into a defensible cost-per-swap and an annualized lamp budget — useful for OEM-vs-aftermarket decisions and for arguing against squeezing extra hours out of a tired lamp.

What this calculator does

  • Roll lamp price, downtime, technician labor, and the scrap risk of running too long into a true cost-per-swap and annualized lamp cost.
  • Use it when comparing OEM vs aftermarket lamps, when quoting cure-intensive jobs, or when justifying a tighter PM cadence to operations.
  • Returns the all-in cost of a UV lamp swap (material, downtime, scrap risk) and the cost per lamp when multiple lamps swap at once.

Formula used

  • Lamp material cost = lamps × unit price
  • True swap cost = lamp material cost + downtime cost + scrap allowance
  • Cost per lamp = true swap cost ÷ lamps in swap

Inputs explained

  • Number of lamps in this swap: Most lines change all lamps in a bank together to keep dose uniformity flat.
  • Lamp unit price: OEM mercury arcs usually $300–$1,200; doped metal-halide higher; LED modules priced as a complete array.
  • Downtime cost during swap: Lost-margin contribution × hours of swap downtime; include warm-up time on mercury.
  • Scrap / rework risk allowance: Expected scrap if the lamp is run too long before swap — pulls the total honest.

How to use the result

  • Use it for OEM vs aftermarket lamp decisions, PM cadence justification, and quoting cure-intensive programs where lamp swaps are a real share of cost.
  • Doesn't model lamp-life difference between OEM and aftermarket — cheaper lamps that age 30% faster usually cost more per dose-hour. Use UV Lamp Life and UV Dose Margin together to compare on a $/dose-hour basis, not just $/swap.

Common questions

  • Aftermarket lamps are half the price — should I switch? Only if their dose decay curve is comparable. Aftermarket mercury lamps often hit acceptable initial output but lose intensity faster, so $/swap is misleading. Compare on lamp $ ÷ rated useful hours (or better, $ ÷ dose-hours above the chemistry threshold). A 50% cheaper lamp that lasts 60% as long is more expensive in real terms.
  • How do I price downtime cost? Use the line's lost-margin contribution per hour, not blended labor rate. If the line normally produces $4,500/hr of contribution margin and the swap takes 90 minutes including warm-up, downtime cost is ~$6,750. That's the number that drives PM cadence and parallel-line redundancy decisions.
  • Why include scrap risk? Real swaps slip past the planned date because no one wants to take the line down. The scrap allowance is the cost of those last few hours running near the dose floor where defect rate climbs. Setting it to $0 understates true lamp economics.
  • Should I add cooldown and warm-up to downtime? Yes — mercury lamps need 5–15 minutes warm-up plus cooldown before someone can touch the housing. That's 30–60 min on top of the swap itself, often more than the swap. Don't quietly leave it out.

Last reviewed 2026-05-12.