Stop Overpaying for Your Krones Contiform Lamps
Let’s be honest: keeping a Krones Contiform line running is expensive. A huge chunk of that budget goes straight into IR lamp arrays. It feels like as soon as you get the line dialed in, you’re spending a fortune just to keep the heat up. We make IR lamps that act as direct replacements for these systems. The goal is simple: lower your costs without ruining your bottle clarity or ending up with thin walls.
The trick to heating PET
Getting a PET preform to the right temperature is a balancing act. You need enough heat to hit that “glass transition” point, but if you overdo it, you’ll scorch the plastic. We use high-wattage shortwave IR emitters to get the heat deep into the preform, and they do it fast. But here’s the thing—you can’t just throw any lamp in there. The voltage and wattage have to match the original OEM footprint perfectly. If the wattage is too low? You get cold spots and uneven bottles. Too high? You’re burning your product. It’s a narrow window, and we hit it.
What’s actually inside?
We use high-purity quartz glass. Why? Because production floors are brutal, and these lamps have to survive constant thermal cycling without cracking. They come with R7s or Sk15 connectors, so they just slide right into your existing sockets. No rewiring. No headaches. If you want to get fancy, we have coated options. These narrow the emission spectrum, which basically means the energy goes into the PET instead of just heating up the air in the oven. It’s a smart way to stop wasting electricity. Just a heads-up: those high-density 400V tubes getinsanely hot. Make sure your oven ventilation is clear, or you might find your sockets melting.
Swapping them out and keeping them alive
These are true drop-in replacements. You don’t have to mess with the machine frame or touch the control board. We spent a lot of time on the tungsten filament geometry to make sure the heat profile matches the OEM. That way, your preforms stretch uniformly every single time the blow cycle hits. One last tip to save you some money:Keep them clean. Dust buildup on the quartz envelopes creates hot spots, which kills the lamp way faster than it should. A strict cleaning schedule is the easiest way to make your lamps last longer.