I was wondering if anyone had any experience in using light cure cement and if they had any tips.  I purchased some online and while i can get it to set pretty well, it doesn't seem to be anywhere near as strong as it should be.  I've tried several times each time being sure that I'm etching my teeth fully and that I'm using the right amount of primer and in the right spots.  I'm relatively sure that I'm not contaminating the surfaces.  The cement hardens but it seems to come off rather easily, to the point where i can pull off my bicuspid brackets just but grabbing the ball hooks with my fingernails.  The front teeth seem to be the strongest, but i can still pop them off using my fingers if i push hard enough.  I've never had actual braces before nor do I know anyone that tested out how strong theirs were, so i'm not sure *exactly* how strong the bond should be, but i know it definitely should be stronger than this just by watching how some ortho's treat the brackets in videos.  I can barely get ligatures on without debonding them.  I have a slight feeling that the cement i got was either sub-par or it's past it's shelf life.

Did you use a UV light to harden the cement?

Yeah of course.  It turns rock hard and is a bitch to get off the bracket, but it just pops off the tooth easily.

120 seconds with the acid etch that came with the adhesive, then rinse and dry

Ok, so i changed two things and it seems to work perfectly.  I was previously using two methods to cure the adhesive.  Originally I purchased two high intensity blue LED's with the correct wavelength and I wired them to my USB port -- but this didn't seem bright enough (even though it did set).  I then used the LED flash on my Droid -- it was white but it seemed to work faster (it was much brighter).  Well this time I decided to splurge and I went to Home Depot and I bought a $50 LED flashlight thats twice as bright as the flash on my phone.  This thing works wonders, but i do need to wear sunglasses or else it takes 2 minutes for my eyes to adjust after I turn it off. 

The other thing I did was a more intensive etch.  I think this was the issue.  I did the normal 120 second etch and then I rinsed it off and did it 2 more times.  The brackets stuck perfectly this time and I totally could tell it was the etch because the previous times, the glue came off on the brackets but this time the glue came off on the tooth (which means the glue-tooth bond is stronger than the glue-bracket bond).  I did have to scrape glue off my teeth for quite a while but this was made easier by illuminating my teeth from behind using the LED light and I could clearly see a shadow of where the glue still was.

As I was scraping the glue off I was getting paranoid that I was scratching my teeth because the scraped-off glue was a fine powder, but upon looking at videos of the adhesive being high-sped-handpeiced off, the same thing happens. 

Unfortunately this experience was hampered by the fact that my set of brackets had hard glue caked under the tie wings so my wonderful 60-color ligature set did no good, they just popped right off everytime I tried to put one on (except for the brackets with ball hooks, in which the ligature would just snap back to being on the ball hook). 

I'm going to order some new brackets and another kit of this adhesive now that I know it works well (Before tonight I was thinking the adhesive sucked and was contemplating spending $100 on 3M Unitek). 

Oh... also another thing I did was that I purchased a small art paintbrush set to use to brush the etchant and the sealant on because they came in eye-dropper bottles and previously i was using my finger through a latex glove to dab it on, but the sealant needs to be a thin layer, and the brushes work beautifully.