Increased Oven Capacity with Infrared

 Q. We are trying to increase capacity in our powder cure oven and we want to know what the impact will be if we change to a hybrid type (IR + convection). Will an addition of infrared cure the parts in less time compared with convection alone? Our actual current cure cycle is 70 min and the part thickness varies from 2–12 mm. Is there a way to know how much time an oven can be reduced by adding an IR booster oven? Thanks for your answer. J.G.

 

A. The addition of an infrared booster section to your convection oven can reduce overall cure time and it will probably work for you. Unfortunately, there is no standard that will provide the specific time advantage that you can gain with the application of IR. You should see if you can get into a test lab with some of your parts and try different times and oven types to see how it works. If you do it correctly, it is possible that you could reduce the overall cure time by around one third.