Quartz tube forming infrared

Fri, 17 Jul 2026 08:55:48 +0800

Getting the Print Right Without Breaking the Glass

Here is the struggle when you’re screen printing on glass: you have to bake the ink in, but if you get the glass too hot, everything goes sideways. Either your crisp lines start to blur, or the glass develops internal stress that you just don’t want. To fix this, we use quartz tube infrared lamps. They give us a way to dial in the heat soak so we aren’t just guessing. Keeping your lines sharp If you crank the heat too fast, the ink pigments start to migrate. Your sharp edges? Gone. We use IR lamps because they hit the ink layer first. By playing around with the wattage and the distance between the tube and the glass, you can get the ink to cure perfectly while the glass itself stays cool enough to avoid any deformation. It’s all about hitting that sweet spot. The gear behind the heat We stick with high-purity quartz tubes because they don’t warp when things get hot. They can handle the shock of being turned on and off constantly without cracking. This gives you a concentrated blast of heat, which means you spend way less time waiting for things to dry. But there’s a catch. High heat density means your conveyor speed has to be spot on. If the glass hangs out under a high-wattage lamp for too long, it becomes brittle. And nobody wants a piece of glass that shatters if you look at it wrong. Finding the balance The real trick is making the drying and tempering happen in one smooth pass. You want the ink locked in and the glass stress-relieved without having to move the piece multiple times. It’s a balancing act between power and time. If you’re trying to push more product through and decide to bump up the voltage, just make sure your cooling fans can handle it. Otherwise, you’ll fry your lamp housing. My best advice? Keep a pyrometer handy. Check those surface temperatures. It’s a lot better to spend a few extra seconds checking the heat than to realize you’ve traded your print quality for a bit of extra speed.

Forming on Premium Quartz Heat Lamps

Quartz tube forming infrared

Getting the Print Right Without Breaking the Glass