Keeping Your FAB Lamps Clean: The Deal with Quartz Shields
If you’re moving toward lead-free, eco-friendly drying in your FAB, you’ve probably already realized that IR curing is the way to go. But here’s the catch: those IR lamps are sensitive. That’s where quartz glass shields come in. They basically act as a bodyguard for your lamps, keeping the junk out while letting the heat get exactly where it needs to go. Why bother with quartz? Lead-free solders are picky. They need higher temperatures and a much tighter window to cure properly. IR curing works great here because it doesn’t waste time heating up the air in the oven—it just hits the part directly with radiation. But you can’t just use any old glass. Regular glass blocks way too much of that IR spectrum. We use high-purity fused quartz because it’s practically invisible to short-wave radiation. The heat just slides right through. Plus, it doesn’t freak out and crack when the temperature swings wildly from hot to cold. The battle against contamination In a FAB, a single stray particle is a nightmare. If a piece of dust lands on a lamp filament, it creates a hot spot. And hot spots kill lamps. The quartz shield stops that from happening. But it’s a bit of a balancing act. You can’t just shove the glass right against the lamp, or the heat reflects back and stresses the filament. Push it too far away, and you’ve left the door open for contamination. It’s all about finding that “Goldilocks” gap where the heat density is high but the lamp stays safe. The reality of using it Quartz is great—it’s chemically inert and handles heat like a pro—but it’s also brittle. If your team is rushing through a lamp swap and gets a bit clumsy, those edges will chip. It happens. And then there’s the “bake-on.” Over time, curing agents can build up on the glass, turning it into a cloudy, opaque wall. When that happens, your lamps have to work twice as hard to push heat through the grime, which wears them out faster. The fix? Just get a cleaning cycle on the calendar. Keep the glass clear, and your lamps will last a whole lot longer.