English (UK)Infrared Heating
Heating Painted Items or Epoxy economically without heating the entire room to cure paint.
Is there a way? YES!
Infrared heat. The wavelength of the energy heats the items in it's path when then radiates and heats the area. Safe to use to keep you warm also.
The lamp that I use is an Infratech SRU-1615. It requres 1500 watts of energy which is about 12.5 Amps. I have two of these. I use them to cure paint, resin castings, heat things etc.
There are smaller units available but this unit has been around for over 30 years and it is going strong with parts readily available. It is also built for commercial use so it takes a beating. (bulbs can break but they take a beating though).
It comes with a stand as shown, but it can be arranged to hang as you will see. The stand would likely get in the way for a lot of what we do. I will be coming up with a better hanging method.
The temperature in the back portion of my shop on a wonderful day that is -49 degrees windchill. This portion of the shop does not see direct heat. Just gravity heat through a door.
Temperature with the heat lamp on some samples that I was working on. This took about 6 minutes to go from 40 something to 100 plus.
lamp in use.
How can you control how hot your item gets? The distance of the lamp will do this. The further you pull the lamp away, the bigger the area that you are heating and the heat will be less intense. Closer will concentrate the heat and make it more intense.
There are units that cost a lot more that do have temperature probes and will adjust the amount of energy automatically.
What will this do for you? It will heat whatever item that you are painting, applying epoxy, resin casting etc. Shorten your cure times for faster cycle times. But it will do it a LOT cheaper than trying to heat an entire room and probably safer.
Things to consider. You do need 12.5 amps at 115 volts of power available to you. If you use an extension cord, please use a HEAVY DUTY cord and no longer than you need. This is true of all space heaters also.
Maintenance. Keep the parabolic lens clean. It reflects a large portion of the power back to the item being baked. Make sure all electrical connections are kept clean and tight. This will cause less resistance, better lamp performance, and less heat in areas that you don't want the heat and longer bulb life.
Just normal maintenance that nobody does..... LOL
