Out on the line, those heavy oil-bottle preforms are brutal on the heating tunnel. Standard emitters tend to leave the neck short and dump too much heat into the body. That shows up as weak biaxial orientation, heavy crystallization, or wall thickness that swings all over the place. When the heat profile is off, you pay for it in scrap and restarts. What matters under the hood We built this heater for thick oil preforms around short-wave infrared halogen emitters, paired with quartz tubes for fast response and stable output. The geometry is tuned for thick walls: crank the watt density on the neck and shoulder, then ease off with a smoother ramp along the body. You get a 1:1 match to the OEM heating tunnel specs—voltage, power, length, and R7s connector details—so the lamp drops right in and the control reads true. Setpoints hold, recovery after a jam is quicker, and output stays consistent across the full lamp life. Here’s why it works on thick oil preforms. They carry a lot of thermal mass, so you need penetration without scorching the surface. Short-wave infrared puts the energy where it needs to be, fast and precise, which helps shorten cycle time and cut down temperature drift. The payoff is fewer underheated shots that blow out, fewer overheated ones that crystallize, and less time chasing one bottle style by tweaking zones. You also save energy because the profile hits equilibrium sooner, and changeovers mean fewer scrap bottles. Installation is straightforward, but alignment is everything. A sloppy R7s connection gives you uneven heating and will cut lamp life. These emitters run hot, so airflow and keeping reflectors clean are non-negotiable. And with that high power density, the preform has to rotate steadily—any wobble and you’ll get hot spots. Spec the lamp to your machine model and the preform geometry, and the heat profile holds shift to shift, line to line.