Heat Lamps for Powder curing

[borris]

Hello All:

I am interested in moving from rattle cans to powder coat for my cnc signs and parts. Any information on using a heat lamp vs. an oven for curing parts that are powder coated?

Thanks

[WyoGreen]

I suppose if you can get your part up to 400 or so degrees with a heat lamp it might work, but I don't know anyone who has done it. Perhaps someone who has will chime in. I know my powder oven will pull up to 50 amps for about 1/2 an hour to get up to that temperature, and then it has to hold it at that temperature for a while. I'd normally recommend you go over to the Powder365 forum and ask your question, but it doesn't seem to be working right now.

Steve

[plasmanewbie]

I know they do lamps and always wondered how effective they were. I started out with an old kitchen stove/oven and have since replaced that with a small industrial oven I picked out of the scrapyard and fixed up. I have had great success with the oven, hardly ever use conventional paint any more.

[34by151]

I have heat lamps and two powder coat ovens.
The small oven is a converted double kitchen oven that I use for batches of small parts
The larger oven is 2400mm Tall, 1200mm Wide and, 1200mm Deep. Its powdered by a propane (lpg) space heater

Heat lamps are great for curing paint. You need enough to cover the part evenly and have to closely monitor the temps.
I use the lamps for paint cure that cant go in the oven.

For those that can go in the oven, I bake the paint in the oven at 80 degC for an hour or so
With tusing the lamps same rules apply but I bake for 2 hours and have to keep moving the lamps to get coverage

As for powder you really need an oven.
To cure the powder you need to get the part up to temp first, generally 200 decC. Once this happens you cook for part for 12Mins but this varys with the powder. Finally let it cool

If you wore to use heat lamps you will have trouble getting the part up to temp. To do it you would need at leat 3 lamps pointing at the part from all sides. The part cant be bigger than the lamps as the IR ony heatwhats directly inline with the lamp.

So your biggest issue with lamps and powder will be getting the part to an even temp.

[adbuch]

I have seen where they use a heat gun for spot repairs with powder coat on motorcycle frames. I don't know how closely they come to the correct temp, but it does seem to work.
David

[acourtjester]

When looking at the lamps I wondered how hard it would be to get full coverage on some parts. It seems spot coverage as David points out is what it is really designed for, not larger complex shaped projects. If you have the room an oven is not hard to build many video on YouTube showing DIY ovens. I built mine it uses 2 large round stove top burners for the heat, and standard pink insulation from the big box store. My burner are on the bottom. Electronics from eBay. The 2 smaller burner are not hooked up.

oven inside A.jpg

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q7lps1KZ9i4&t=5s
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k3oBkUafVqc

[ccoatings]

If you are talking about the heat lamps you see on say eastwood, then they are designed to heat the part. For flat components, say wall signs, art, then a gas catalytic IR lamp would be the way to go. That technology can cure powder in typically 1/3 the time of conventional baking. There are some great discussions and articles out there. Some setups can cure arts in under a minute. I have a few used lamps I have been looking at for some batch runs myself.