Getting Your Curing Temp Right (Without Burning Everything)
Look, a curing time recorder is only as good as the heat source it’s watching. If your heat is inconsistent, your data is basically useless. For those of you running small or mid-sized spray booths, the struggle is always the same: you need to hit that target temperature fast, but you can’t afford to scorch the surface. That’s why we lean heavily on high-output infrared (IR) lamps. They give you the thermal punch you need without requiring a giant, clunky convection oven taking up half your shop. Why short-wave IR? Most of our setups use short-wave tech. Here is the difference: long-wave heat just warms up the air around the part. Short-wave radiation actually cuts right through the coating layer. It’s a lot faster. You aren’t sitting around waiting for the part to slowly soak up heat. We spec these lamps with high wattage-per-centimeter so the heat stays steady across the entire piece, no matter where it sits. The gritty details: Power and Wiring This is where people usually mess up. You have to match your voltage and lamp length perfectly. If you get it wrong, your lamps will either burn out way too soon or they just won’t get hot enough. To make things easier, we use standardized connectors. They’re basically drop-in replacements. Now, if you’re running a high-voltage line, you can get more power out of a smaller tube—just make sure your control panel can handle the surge, or you’re going to have a bad day. The trade-offs you need to know High-density IR lamps are fast, but they’re intense. You can’t just blast your parts with heat and hope for the best. If you look at your recorder and see a massive, steep spike in temperature, watch out. You’re risking “skinning.” That’s when the top layer hardens too quickly and traps solvents underneath the surface. It ruins the finish. The trick is finding that sweet spot between how far away the lamps are and how fast your conveyor is moving. We build these lamps so smaller shops can get the same performance as the big guys without paying a “big brand” tax. It all comes down to the quality of the quartz and how precise the filament is. Get your specs right, wire it up correctly, and your curing cycle will stay rock solid.