Getting Your Anatol Printer Heat Just Right with IR Tubes
If you’re running an Anatol printer, you already know that heat is everything. If your thermal management is off, your ink doesn’t stick, your cure rates tank, and you’re left with a mess of wasted garments. A lot of shops try to save some money by swapping out those pricey OEM heating elements for domestic infrared (IR) tubes. But here’s the thing: you can’t just look at the wattage and call it a day. It’s not just about the numbers on the box. It’s about how that heat actually hits the fabric. The science part (made simple) Most Anatol machines use short-wave or medium-wave IR. If you put in a tube that operates on a different wavelength, you might see a “perfect” temperature on your pyrometer, but the ink won’t actually cure all the way through. It’s a frustrating trap. That’s why we obsess over the filament density and the thickness of the quartz. We want the radiant energy to hit the shirt with the exact same punch as the original parts. No head-scratching during install Nobody wants to spend their weekend rewiring a control box. We use high-purity synthetic quartz—which helps stop those annoying premature burn-outs—and we design these as true drop-in replacements. The footprint and the electrical terminals match your existing wiring harness exactly. Plus, we use reinforced end-caps. In a high-volume shop, those tubes expand and contract constantly. These caps can actually handle that stress without snapping. A quick word of caution Higher heat density is great because it lets you speed up your line. But don’t get greedy. If your reflectors are looking a bit rough and you try to overcompensate by cranking up the wattage past the OEM specs, you’re asking for trouble. You could fry your power supply or even overheat the machine frame. Do yourself a favor: keep a close eye on your amp draw during that first hour of operation. Just to be safe. At the end of the day, switching to domestic IR tubes is a smart move. You get the same cure rate and the same reliability, but you stop paying that “brand name” premium. Your bottom line will thank you.