Halogen IR Bulb - What Distance And How Long?

NickC

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What distance and for how long at a time should I start using my 1200W Halogen Heater light?
 

Peater

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I've got a 1400w halogen heater now winter is here (beats heating the whole house with convective heat) and I just use at a distance that is comfy. I'll take shirt off for ten mins or so and 'bathe' then keep doing whatever i was doing

Lets not over think it. It's just infra red heat and some visible light
 

TheDrumGuy

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Are you doing this for red light or IR? It's going to give you essentially no red light, and the majority of the IR will not be near IR.
 
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NickC

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Are you doing this for red light or IR? It's going to give you essentially no red light, and the majority of the IR will not be near IR.

Sorry don't unserstand why it will not be near IR, I thought according to the graph below Halogen was the correct frequencies.

upload_2017-11-7_14-53-41-gif.7205
 

TheDrumGuy

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All these things work by thermal radiation, so the what matters is the temperature at which they operate. According to some similar manufacturers these halogen heaters have peak wavelengths around 2-8um (2000-8000nm), so they operate at lower temperatures and will put out little red light. You can see some examples of their emission spectra here

Medium Wave Quartz Emitters - Electric Heating Elements - Friedr. Freek GmbH

Your graph is for halogen bulbs designed for lighting, and I think even 4100K is too high of an estimate.
 
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NickC

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All these things work by thermal radiation, so the what matters is the temperature at which they operate. According to some similar manufacturers these halogen heaters have peak wavelengths around 2-8um (2000-8000nm), so they operate at lower temperatures and will put out little red light. You can see some examples of their emission spectra here

Medium Wave Quartz Emitters - Electric Heating Elements - Friedr. Freek GmbH

Your graph is for halogen bulbs designed for lighting, and I think even 4100K is too high of an estimate.

Well it is more of a light, labled as a Halogen Heater but it has a deep red halogen bulb which does seem to put out quite a bit of red light.
 
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NickC

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Let me put it this way. You'll get more red light from an ordinary clear 60W bulb.
Well it certainly looks to put out quite bright red light, the heat is such that 2ft is about the closest usable distance. Are you saying that this heat is not InfraRed?
 

TheDrumGuy

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Well it certainly looks to put out quite bright red light, the heat is such that 2ft is about the closest usable distance. Are you saying that this heat is not InfraRed?

That heat is infrared, I'm sure it puts out a ton of IR. If you want longer wavelengths of IR then it's a good lamp. Look at the graphs I linked, they basically go to zero at 600-700nm, which is red.

Just because it looks bright doesn't mean much. The filament of an ordinary 60W incandescent bulb is blindingly bright to look at, and most of the visible light it puts out is red, but despite that it doesn't give you very much red light.
 
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NickC

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Just looking again at the graph above I had been assuming that my light was close to the "Halogen 4100k" line but I assume you are thinking that what I have is closer to the "Heat Lamp 2400k" line.

Bulb does not have a colour temperature written on it so all I have to work with is the bright red/orange colour of the light. Could I get a more appropriate bulb to use in this light?
 

TheDrumGuy

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Just looking again at the graph above I had been assuming that my light was close to the "Halogen 4100k" line but I assume you are thinking that what I have is closer to the "Heat Lamp 2400k" line.

Bulb does not have a colour temperature written on it so all I have to work with is the bright red/orange colour of the light. Could I get a more appropriate bulb to use in this light?

Halogen bulbs can operate at a wide range of color temperatures, that's the problem. For all we know your lamp is 1500K or something. Some manufacturers do use 1500k bulbs in their halogen heaters, and they would look red. I'm going off the graphs I found online and your description of the color of the light (red), which means a low color temperature. Keep in mind even at around 2500K, bulbs look yellow. I would call the manufacturer to get more info, and ask if there are any higher color temperature bulbs they recommend. Obviously you want to be careful swapping bulbs due to the risk of fire.
 

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