Getting Infrared Heating Right for Long Glass Tunnel Kilns
Most infrared lamps are fine for small jobs, but they hit a wall when you need real length. If you’re running a glass tunnel kiln that needs steady heat over 2 meters, the stuff you find in a catalog just isn’t going to cut it. That’s why we build custom, continuous-array units using the SK15 ceramic lamp holder. Why we stick with the SK15 Here’s the thing about tunnel kilns: the heat is constant. It’s brutal. Plastic or cheap composites just can’t take it—they warp, they melt, they fail. Ceramic is different. It stays put. These holders give us a rock-solid grip on those long quartz tubes, which means your filaments won’t sag or shift around as they heat up and expand. It just works. The struggle with 2-meter arrays Building something this long isn’t as simple as just adding more lamps. If you just string them together, you’ll run into voltage drops. You end up with a nightmare where the first lamp in the line burns out while the last one is barely lukewarm. We fix this by carefully mapping out the wattage and voltage for every single segment. Then there’s the physical side of things. Long arrays have a tendency to bow. If the lamp isn’t perfectly parallel to the glass, you get hot spots. To stop that, we use rigid support frames. It keeps the gap consistent, which is the only way to get a clean, even finish on your glass. A few things to keep in mind You can’t just plug these in and walk away. When you pack that much heat into a 2-meter stretch, your cooling system has to pull its weight. If your ventilation isn’t strong enough to suck the waste heat away from those ceramic holders, you’re going to fry your wiring insulation. And one last tip: these units are great for replacing old, clunky systems, but double-check your power supply first. A continuous array pulls a lot of juice, and the last thing you want is to trip your breakers right in the middle of a run.