Stop Fighting with Cold Spots in Your KHS Oven
There is nothing more frustrating than pulling a batch of bottles off the line only to find thin walls or, worse, a pile of burst plastic. Usually, it comes down to one thing: your heat is uneven. When those preforms aren’t warming up the same way, you’re fighting a losing battle. Most of the time, it’s because the IR lamps are just worn out or the spectral output has drifted. We got tired of seeing people struggle with this, so we built a replacement lamp that actually fixes those annoying cold spots common in older KHS setups. The secret is in the glass. We use a high-purity quartz envelope. Why? Because we want the heat hitting the plastic, not getting trapped in the lamp housing. We also tightened up the filament winding. It sounds like a small detail, but it stops those temperature dips along the length of the tube. No more weird stretching during the blow cycle. Getting them installed is the easy part. You don’t need to rewire your rest of your oven or call in a specialist. These are drop-in replacements. Whether you’re using R7s or Sk15 connectors, they just fit. We have a few different wattage options depending on your voltage. Just a heads-up: if you go with the higher wattage for more heat density, make sure your cooling fans are humming along perfectly. You don’t want your reflectors warping because things got too hot. What to expect after the swap. We ditched the standard coatings for a specialized halogen cycle. This stops the quartz from turning black over time, which means your heat stays consistent for thousands of hours instead of dropping off after a few weeks. You’ll notice the thermal profile across the preform looks much flatter. One quick tip before you swap them all out: these high-output lamps pull a bit more from your power supplies. Take a second to check your contactors for any pitting. It only takes a minute, and it’ll save you from burning out your brand-new tubes prematurely.