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Infra-red Medium-wave pre-heaters help Bentley Motors Production Line

The Problem

Bentley Motors has recently introduced the hugely successful Continental GT. The marketing and subsequent sales of the car have been so successful that the production line at Bentley's manufacturing site in Crewe is now at full capacity.

The wiring loom for the new car comes ready built and is transported in a box for installation. The problem is that, at ambient temperature, the wiring loom is extremely hard to handle and is difficult to manipulate into the shape required for fitting into the car on the production line.

The Solution

Infra-red Systems International Ltd have supplied four specially designed medium-wave infra-red pre-heaters that have been installed on Bentley’s production line. These automatically controlled heaters ensure that there are always wiring looms available at the correct temperature for handling and fitting. Recently the system has been updated to cater for other models.

The Benefits

With the four medium-wave infra-red pre-heaters in place, Bentley Motors can heat the wiring looms to a temperature where they are easily taken out of the boxes and installed into the cars as they pass down the production line. An even temperature across the whole loom is achieved by a carefully designed heating profile linked to an optical pyrometer (remote temperature sensor) The pyrometer constantly monitors the temperature of the loom and feeds back information to the control system so that, once the wiring loom has reached its target temperature, it is maintained at this temperature indefinitely

Electric Infra-red Heating

Infra-red heating is based on the transfer of thermal energy by electromagnetic radiation. Infra-red emitters are classified according to the temperature dependent peak wavelength which they emit and can be short-wave, medium-wave and long-wave.

Infra-red is both versatile and flexible and finds application throughout the industrial spectrum, from paint curing to print drying and from rubber vulcanising to metal heating.

Electric infra-red systems are more compact than convection ovens and are easily controlled. They are also extremely efficient as the emitters are switched on only when required and very responsive because of their rapid warm-up.

* Photo’s used by permission