Getting the Heat Exactly Where You Need It: Custom SWIR Tubes
Let’s be honest: standard straight heating lamps are great until they aren’t. The second you’re dealing with a non-standard bending furnace or a cramped oven layout, those stock lamps just don’t cut it. They don’t fit, and they definitely don’t hit the right spots on your workpiece. That’s why we build short-wave infrared (SWIR) tubes that actually fit your space—custom lengths, custom bends, the whole deal. Making the shape work for you We bend quartz glass to match the inside of your furnace. But this isn’t just about squeezing a lamp into a tight corner. It’s about distance. Short-wave radiation moves in a straight line and doesn’t get bogged down by the air. By curving the tube, we can essentially wrap the heat around your part. You get a much more even soak across complex surfaces instead of having “cold spots” that ruin a batch. The nitty-gritty (and the trade-offs) You tell us your power grid—220V, 380V, whatever you’re running—and we tweak the tungsten filament density to get the heat flux you’re looking for. But here’s the thing: when you pack a lot of wattage into a short, bent tube, things get hot. Really hot. You’ve got to make sure your furnace housing is vented properly. If the air around that quartz tube gets too trapped, you’re looking at deformed glass or a burnt-out filament. To keep things from spiraling, we usually suggest pairing these tubes with PID controllers. It keeps the temperature steady and stops the system from overshooting. Getting it up and running We offer a few different end-cap options so you aren’t fighting with the wiring. The best part? Because these are shaped to your specific gear, they usually just drop right in. You don’t have to rip out your entire furnace chassis or redesign your whole line. You just get the heat exactly where it needs to be, without wasting energy heating up the furnace walls.