JP2001062414A - Ultraviolet irradiation device - Google Patents

Abstract

PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To efficiently irradiate a material to be irradiated with ultraviolet ray by providing an ultraviolet irradiation lamp in a rotary structure, securing the ultraviolet irradiation range to be correspondent to the width of the transporting material to be irradiated to make the ultraviolet ray range constantly coincide with the width dimension of the material to be irradiate. SOLUTION: A transparent substrate 2 is placed on a transporting starting position of a transporting belt 3 to be cleaned, the width dimension is detected by a detecting means 13 and the rotation of a driving motor 10 is controlled by a motor control part 14 based on the detected result. A rotary shaft 8 is driven with each gear 11, 12 by the driving motor 10, each ultraviolet irradiation lamp 7 is rotated by the same angle in the same direction and the ultraviolet irradiation range of each ultraviolet irradiation lamp 7 and the width dimension of the transparent substrate 2 are made to coincide with each other. After that, the transparent substrate 2 is transported by the transporting belt 3 and is irradiated with the ultraviolet ray from each ultraviolet ray irradiation lamp 7. As a result, the transparent substrate 2 is efficiently irradiated with the ultraviolet ray.

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to an ultraviolet irradiation device,
In particular, the present invention relates to an ultraviolet irradiation device used in a liquid crystal display panel manufacturing process.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art Conventionally, a transparent substrate such as a glass substrate of a liquid crystal display panel can be cleaned with water or an aqueous detergent and then with water adsorbed on the surface of the transparent substrate or the above-mentioned detergent. Ultraviolet washing has been performed to remove organic contaminants such as oils and fats that were not present by ultraviolet irradiation.
As means for performing such ultraviolet cleaning, an ultraviolet irradiation device as an ultraviolet irradiation device has been employed.

[0003] As shown in FIG.
Has a transport belt 3 as transport means for sequentially transporting a plurality of transparent substrates 2 as objects to be illuminated one by one.

At a position above the conveyor belt 3, a plurality of ultraviolet irradiation lamps 4, which are long in the direction perpendicular to the conveyance direction of the conveyor belt 3, are fixed at predetermined intervals in the conveyance direction. Has been established.

[0005] To one side of each ultraviolet irradiation lamp 4, an electrode 5 for supplying electric power for ultraviolet irradiation is electrically connected.

In order to carry out cleaning by such an ultraviolet cleaning apparatus 1, a plurality of transparent substrates 2 are sequentially conveyed by the conveyor belt 3 and each of the transparent substrates 2 is irradiated by the plurality of ultraviolet irradiation lamps 4. By irradiating the transparent substrate 2 with water, the water and the organic material adsorbed on the surface of each transparent substrate 2 are carbonized and removed.

Accordingly, it is possible to reliably remove moisture adsorbed on the surface of the substrate 2 by washing with water, organic materials which cannot be washed even with a detergent, or the like. It could be done efficiently.

[0008]

However, in the conventional ultraviolet cleaning device 1, the ultraviolet irradiation lamp 4 is fixed in a state perpendicular to the conveying direction of the conveyor belt 3.

For this reason, there is no problem when cleaning a large transparent substrate 2 having a width substantially the same as the longitudinal dimension of the ultraviolet irradiation lamp 4 as shown in FIG. 4, but as shown in FIG. When cleaning the small transparent substrate 2 whose width is much smaller than the size of the ultraviolet irradiation lamp 4, most of the ultraviolet light emitted by the ultraviolet irradiation lamp 4
Therefore, there is a problem that ultraviolet irradiation efficiency is deteriorated and power is wasted. On the other hand, in order to increase the ultraviolet irradiation efficiency of the ultraviolet irradiation lamp 4, it is necessary to separately provide devices according to the size of the transparent substrate 2, so that the manufacturing cost has been increased.

The present invention has been made in view of the above problems, and has as its object to provide an ultraviolet irradiation apparatus capable of obtaining an ultraviolet irradiation range corresponding to the width of an object to be irradiated.

[0011]

In order to achieve the above-mentioned object, a feature of the ultraviolet irradiation apparatus according to the first aspect of the present invention is that an ultraviolet irradiation lamp can obtain an ultraviolet irradiation range corresponding to a width dimension of an object to be irradiated. This is characterized in that a turning mechanism for turning the shutter is provided.

[0012] By adopting such a configuration, the range of ultraviolet irradiation by the ultraviolet irradiation lamp and the width dimension of the object can be matched, so that the object can be efficiently irradiated with ultraviolet rays. it can.

The feature of the ultraviolet irradiation device according to claim 2 is that
The present invention is characterized in that a reflecting plate is attached to the ultraviolet irradiation lamp to reflect the ultraviolet light emitted by the ultraviolet irradiation lamp toward the object to be irradiated.

By employing such a configuration, the ultraviolet irradiation efficiency of the ultraviolet irradiation lamp can be further improved.

[0015]

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS Hereinafter, an embodiment of an ultraviolet irradiation apparatus according to the present invention will be described with reference to FIGS. 1 to 3. FIG.

As shown in FIG. 1, the ultraviolet cleaning apparatus 6 according to the present embodiment has a transport belt 3 as transport means for transporting a transparent substrate 2 as an object to be irradiated one by one.
Note that the transporting means is not limited to the transporting belt 3 and may be, for example, a plurality of transporting rollers arranged at intervals in the transporting direction.

At a position above the conveyor belt 3, an ultraviolet irradiation lamp 7 elongated in a direction perpendicular to the conveyance direction of the conveyor belt 3 is provided at predetermined intervals in the conveyance direction. It is arranged individually. At one end of the ultraviolet irradiation lamp 7, a turning shaft 8 for rotatably supporting the ultraviolet irradiation lamp is formed.
The irradiating lamp 7 can rotate on a plane parallel to the conveyor belt 3 with the fulcrum as a fulcrum.

A rotating mechanism 9 for rotating the ultraviolet irradiation lamp 7 so as to obtain an ultraviolet irradiation range corresponding to the width of the transparent substrate 2 is connected to the rotating shaft 8.

The rotation mechanism 9 has a drive motor 10 such as a stepping motor.

A transmission gear 1 for transmitting the driving force of the drive motor 10 to the rotating shaft 8 is coaxial with the rotating shaft 8.
1 is fixed. A pinion gear of the drive motor 10 meshes with an outer periphery of the transfer gear 11 closest to the drive motor 10 among the transfer gears 11 of the ultraviolet irradiation lamps 7. They are connected via an idle gear 12. The number of teeth and the diameter of each transmission gear 11 and each idle gear 12 are formed such that each rotation shaft 8 can rotate in the same direction at the same angle by the rotation of the drive motor 10. Accordingly, each ultraviolet irradiation lamp 7 can rotate in the same direction at the same angle.

At the transport start position 3a of the transport belt 3, a detecting means 13 such as a sensor for detecting the size of the transparent substrate transported by the transport belt 3 is provided.

The ultraviolet cleaning device 6 according to the present embodiment includes a motor control unit for controlling the rotation amount of the drive motor 10 in accordance with the size of the transparent substrate 2 in the width direction detected by the detection unit 13. 14. The motor control unit 14 determines that the transparent substrate 2 is
In the case of a large-sized substrate 2 having substantially the same width as the length in the longitudinal direction, the ultraviolet irradiation lamp 7 is made to be orthogonal to the transport direction, that is, The rotation amount of the drive motor 10 is controlled so that 7 has an angle of 90 °. On the other hand, when the transparent substrate 2 is small, the driving motor 10 rotates the ultraviolet irradiation lamp 7 until the length of the component in the width direction of the ultraviolet irradiation lamp 7 becomes slightly larger than the width dimension of the transparent substrate 2. The amount of rotation is controlled.

Therefore, even when the transparent substrate 2 is small, the ultraviolet irradiation range of the ultraviolet irradiation lamp 7 and the width dimension of the transparent substrate 2 can be matched, so that the ultraviolet radiation emitted from the ultraviolet irradiation lamp 7 can be efficiently used. The surface of the transparent substrate 2 can be irradiated well.

Further, when each of the ultraviolet irradiation lamps 7 is inclined at the same angle, the distance between the ultraviolet irradiation lamps 7 in the direction perpendicular to the longitudinal direction is shortened. Can be irradiated.

As shown in FIG. 2, a reflector 15 is mounted on the ultraviolet irradiation lamp 7 so as to reflect the ultraviolet light radiated in various directions by the ultraviolet lamp 7 onto the transparent substrate 2 to condense it. This reflector 15
Rotates integrally with the ultraviolet irradiation lamp 7. Therefore, the ultraviolet irradiation efficiency can be further improved.

Next, the operation of the ultraviolet cleaning device 6 according to the present embodiment will be described.

In this embodiment, the home position of the ultraviolet irradiation lamp 7 is set to a position orthogonal to the transport direction, that is, a position having an angle of 90 ° with respect to the transport direction.

First, in the initial state, the ultraviolet irradiation lamp 7 is located at the home position.

Next, the transfer start position 3 of the transfer belt 3
The transparent substrate 2 to be cleaned is placed on a. At this time, the detecting means 13 is driven to detect the width dimension of the transparent substrate 2. Then, the motor control unit 14 controls the amount of rotation of the drive motor 10 according to the size of the transparent substrate 2 detected by the detection means 13. That is, the motor control unit 14 does not rotate the drive motor 10 when the transparent substrate 2 is a large transparent substrate 2 having a width slightly smaller than the length of the ultraviolet irradiation lamp 7 in the longitudinal direction. Then, the ultraviolet irradiation lamp 7 is positioned at the home position. On the other hand, the motor control unit 14
FIG. 3 shows a case where the transparent substrate 2 is a small transparent substrate 2.
The rotation amount of the drive motor 10 is controlled to rotate the ultraviolet irradiation lamp 7 to an angle at which the length of the component in the width direction of the ultraviolet irradiation lamp 7 is slightly larger than the width dimension of the transparent substrate 2 as shown in FIG. I do.

The drive motor 10 is driven to rotate under the control of the motor control unit 14, and the driving force is applied to the rotation shaft 8 of each ultraviolet irradiation lamp 7 via the transmission gear 11 and the idle gear 12. Is transmitted. Then, as each rotating shaft 8 rotates at the same angle in the same direction, each ultraviolet irradiation lamp 7 rotates at the same angle in the same direction.

As a result, the UV irradiation range of each UV irradiation lamp 7 coincides with the width dimension of the transparent substrate 2.

In this state, power is supplied to each of the ultraviolet irradiation lamps 7 while the transparent substrate 2 is being conveyed by the conveyer belt 3 to irradiate ultraviolet rays. At this time, since the ultraviolet irradiation range of the ultraviolet irradiation lamp 7 and the width dimension of the transparent substrate 2 match, the ultraviolet irradiation lamp 7 can efficiently irradiate the transparent substrate 2 with ultraviolet light.

The distance between the ultraviolet irradiation lamps 7 in the direction perpendicular to the longitudinal direction is 90 degrees with respect to the transport direction.
° shrink than when. Therefore, the transparent substrate 2 can be irradiated with ultraviolet rays having a high energy density. In addition, as the inclination of the ultraviolet irradiation lamp 7 is smaller with respect to the transport direction, the distance between the ultraviolet irradiation lamps 7 in the direction orthogonal to the longitudinal direction becomes smaller, and the energy density of the ultraviolet light becomes larger. Since the required energy density can be obtained without turning on all the ultraviolet irradiation lamps 7, for example, if every other ultraviolet irradiation lamp 7 is turned on and the other ultraviolet irradiation lamps 7 are turned off, Power consumption can be reduced.

Further, by tilting the ultraviolet irradiation lamp 7 from a position orthogonal to the conveying direction, the effective irradiation distance of the ultraviolet light, which is the length of the component of the ultraviolet irradiation lamp 7 in the conveying direction, is longer than before. For this reason, if attention is paid to cleaning the transparent substrate 2 having a width corresponding to this angle while the ultraviolet irradiation lamps 7 are inclined at a certain angle with respect to the transport direction, the number of the ultraviolet irradiation lamps 7 is the same as the conventional one. The number of the ultraviolet irradiation lamps 4 required for cleaning the transparent substrate 2 having the width can be reduced, and the manufacturing cost can be reduced. For example, conventionally, 550
mm ultraviolet ray irradiation lamp 4 is fixed at an angle of 90 ° with respect to the transport direction, and the transparent substrate 2 of various dimensions is fixed.
Was washed, but in this case, the effective irradiation distance of ultraviolet rays was 5
mm, and the number of ultraviolet irradiation lamps 4 necessary for manufacturing one ultraviolet cleaning apparatus 1 was ten.
On the other hand, when the angle of the ultraviolet irradiation lamp 7 is set to 30 ° and the transparent substrate 2 having the width dimension corresponding to this angle is washed, the effective irradiation distance of the ultraviolet light is 10 mm, and
It is possible to reduce the number of ultraviolet irradiation lamps 7 necessary for manufacturing the ultraviolet cleaning device 6 to five. Further, when the angle of the ultraviolet irradiation lamp 7 is set to 15 ° and the transparent substrate 2 having the width dimension corresponding to this angle is washed, the effective irradiation distance of the ultraviolet light is 19 mm, and the required number of the ultraviolet irradiation lamps 7 is reduced to 1 in the conventional art. / 3 can be reduced to three.

Further, since the ultraviolet rays irradiated in multiple directions by the ultraviolet irradiation lamp 7 can be reflected by the reflection plate 15 toward the transparent substrate 2, the ultraviolet irradiation efficiency of the ultraviolet irradiation lamp 7 can be further improved. .

Thus, the water and organic contaminants adsorbed on the surface of the transparent substrate 2 are evaporated or carbonized and removed from the surface.

Therefore, according to the present embodiment, since the ultraviolet irradiation lamp 7 can be rotated so that an ultraviolet irradiation range corresponding to the width of the transparent substrate 2 can be obtained, the transparent substrate 2 having various dimensions can be rotated. On the other hand, it is possible to appropriately perform cleaning while maintaining good ultraviolet irradiation efficiency.

Accordingly, the transparent substrates 2 having different dimensions are provided.
Since there is no need to provide a cleaning device for each time, equipment costs can be reduced.

In addition, since the distance between the ultraviolet irradiation lamps 7 in the direction perpendicular to the longitudinal direction can be reduced by inclining the ultraviolet irradiation lamps 7, the ultraviolet light having a higher energy density than when the ultraviolet irradiation lamps 7 are perpendicular to the transport direction can be obtained. And the number of ultraviolet irradiation lamps 7 to be turned on can be reduced, and power consumption can be reduced.

Further, since the effective irradiation distance of the ultraviolet irradiation lamp 7 can be increased, the number of the ultraviolet irradiation lamps 7 required for manufacturing the ultraviolet cleaning device 6 can be reduced, and the manufacturing cost can be reduced. Can be.

The present invention is not limited to the above-described embodiment, but can be variously modified as needed.

For example, in the above-described embodiment, the ultraviolet cleaning device is used for cleaning the transparent substrate 2 with ultraviolet light. However, an irradiation device for irradiating the inorganic oxide precursor formed on the transparent substrate 2 with ultraviolet light or a liquid crystal panel and an external driving device are used. An irradiation device for irradiating ultraviolet rays to cure an ultraviolet curing resin as a reinforcing agent for a connection member with a circuit may be used.

In the above embodiment, the rotating mechanism 9
Is constituted by the drive motor 10, the transmission gear 11 and the idle gear 12, but is not limited to this. For example, a rod connecting the tip side of each ultraviolet irradiation lamp 7 is provided, and this rod is connected to the piston of the cylinder. You may make it rotate by connecting with a rod.

Further, in the above-described embodiment, the end of the ultraviolet irradiation lamp 7 is rotatably supported by the rotation shaft 8. However, the present invention is not limited to this. The rotation shaft 8 and the rotation mechanism 9 may be provided at the position.

Further, in order to simplify the control, the user may be allowed to input the dimensions of the transparent substrate without providing the detecting means 13.

[0046]

As described above, according to the ultraviolet irradiating apparatus according to the first aspect of the present invention, an ultraviolet irradiating range corresponding to the width of the object to be irradiated can be obtained. Efficiency can be improved to reduce power consumption, and there is no need to provide an irradiator for each object to be illuminated with different dimensions, so equipment costs can be reduced. Since the distance can be increased, the number of ultraviolet irradiation lamps required for manufacturing the irradiation device can be reduced, and the manufacturing cost can be reduced.

According to the ultraviolet irradiation apparatus of the second aspect,
In addition to the effect of the ultraviolet irradiation device according to the first aspect, the ultraviolet irradiation efficiency of the ultraviolet irradiation lamp can be further improved.

[Brief description of the drawings]

FIG. 1 is a diagram showing an embodiment of an ultraviolet cleaning device as an example of an ultraviolet irradiation device according to the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a schematic side view showing a reflection plate in an embodiment of an ultraviolet cleaning device as an example of an ultraviolet irradiation device according to the present invention.

FIG. 3 is a diagram showing a rotating state of an ultraviolet irradiation lamp in the embodiment of the ultraviolet cleaning device as an example of the ultraviolet irradiation device according to the present invention.

FIG. 4 is a diagram showing an ultraviolet cleaning device as an example of a conventional ultraviolet irradiation device.

FIG. 5 is a diagram showing a problem of a conventional ultraviolet irradiation device.

[Explanation of symbols]

 2 Transparent Substrate 3 Conveying Belt 6 Ultraviolet Cleaning Device 7 Ultraviolet Irradiation Lamp 8 Rotating Shaft 9 Rotating Mechanism 10 Drive Motor 11 Transmission Gear 12 Idle Gear 15 Reflector

Continuation of the front page (72) Inventor Hiroshi Seki 2-2-234 Higashizao, Nagaoka-shi, Niigata F-term (reference) in Japan Seiki Co., Ltd. 3B116 AA02 AB14 BC01 CD42 CD43

Claims (2)

[Claims] 1. A transport means for transporting an object to be irradiated one by one, and at least one ultraviolet ray elongated in a direction orthogonal to the transport direction of the transport means at a position facing the transport means. An ultraviolet irradiation device that is provided with an irradiation lamp and irradiates the object to be irradiated conveyed by the conveying means with ultraviolet light by the ultraviolet irradiation lamp, wherein the ultraviolet irradiation lamp corresponds to a width of the object to be irradiated. An ultraviolet irradiation device, comprising a rotation mechanism for rotating so as to obtain an ultraviolet irradiation range. 2. The ultraviolet irradiation apparatus according to claim 1, wherein a reflection plate for reflecting the ultraviolet light emitted by the ultraviolet irradiation lamp toward the object to be irradiated is attached to the ultraviolet irradiation lamp.