Fixing those annoying hot spots in your Sidel SBO 20 Series 1
Ever pull a bottle off the line and see those thin walls or that weird, cloudy “pearlescence”? It’s frustrating. Usually, it comes down to one thing: your heating isn’t even. In KHS and Sidel machines, this usually happens because the lamps start to drift in wattage or the filaments aren’t centered. Once that heat field gets messy, your bottles suffer. We built our replacement lamps specifically to stop that from happening. The science (without the boring part) We didn’t just make a generic bulb. These are tuned to the exact voltage and wattage the OEM intended. We use high-purity quartz glass, which is key. It lets the short-wave infrared radiation punch right through the PET preform instead of just heating up the oven walls. Here is the trick: the power density is dialed in so the preform hits that glass transition temperature fast. Some people try to fix old, dying lamps by cranking up the wattage. Don’t do that. You’ll just end up scorching your plastic. Built to actually last You know how some lamps get that “blackened” look inside the glass? That’s tungsten evaporating and sticking to the walls, which kills your heat output. We use a halogen cycle to stop that from happening. And we kept the installation dead simple. They use standard R7s or Sk15 connectors, so they just drop right in. No rewiring, no headaches. We also tightened up the seals on the end-caps. Cheap tubes leak gas when they get hot and cold repeatedly, and that’s usually why they pop. Ours don’t. Getting them running on your floor Once these are in, you’ll notice the temperature is steady from the neck all the way down to the base. It just feels more consistent. One quick tip: these lamps put out a lot of intense heat. Make sure your oven ventilation is clean and free of gunk. If the airflow is blocked, that heat has nowhere to go but back into your sockets, and that’s a great way to fry your wiring. Keep it clear, and these things will hum along just fine.