Getting Your IR Spectra Right for Specific Glass Chemistries
Most medium-wave IR lamps just throw out a wide, broad curve of energy. For basic drying, that’s fine. It gets the job done. But when you’re working with glass that has specific chemical additives, that broad approach is basically just wasting electricity. Think of it like this: if you want the heat to actually penetrate the material, the photon energy has to hit the exact absorption peak of that glass. If it doesn’t, you’re just guessing. Hitting the sweet spot We handle this by tweaking the filament and the coating on the quartz envelope. Here’s the problem with generic lamps: if your glass additive absorbs at 2.5 microns, a standard lamp is going to reflect way too much energy. It’s like trying to push a square peg into a round hole. We shift the emission peak so it lines up perfectly with that window. That way, the heat actually goes into the glass, instead of just warming up the air or heating your machine frame for no reason. The trade-offs (because there’s always a catch) When we narrow the spectrum, you get a lot more energy density right where you need it. Everything heats up faster. It feels efficient because it is. But there is a quirk you need to know about. These specialized lamps are a bit more sensitive to voltage swings. If you try to “force” more heat by over-volting the tube, you’ll actually shift the spectral peak. Suddenly, your emission isn’t lining up with the absorption peak anymore, and your efficiency tanks. It’s frustrating. To avoid this, you’ll want a power supply with really tight voltage regulation. Moving from the lab to the floor Whether you’re doing a small research project or running a niche production line, we build these tubes based on your actual data. No guessing games here. You send us the absorption curve for your glass additive, and we engineer the lamp to mirror it. It makes the whole thermal footprint of your line much smaller. Plus, it fixes that annoying “over-bake” problem where the surface gets scorched while the core stays cold. Just a tip: wire these into a PID controller with a fast response time. It’ll keep you from overshooting the temperature, which is a lifesaver when you’re working with high-sensitivity glass.