On a wide-mouth jar line, preform heating is where you earn your stability. If the heat isn’t even, you’re chasing flash, wall thinning, and necks that are just off-spec. If the heat is slow, the blow molder is left waiting. We built this preform heater to match the heating profile wide jars need and to sit right inside the actual geometry of the heating tunnel on your blow molder. What matters under the hood This unit runs short-wave infrared (IR) emitters with quartz tubes and R7s connectors—chosen because they respond fast and hold control. You get 12 kW at 400 V, and the emitting length is sized to cover the preform body and shoulder without cooking the neck insert. The energy is focused, so preform temperature climbs quickly and the heating tunnel keeps up with high-cavity machines. Output stays stable across tube life, with measured drift under 5% after 5,000 hours. Why it behaves on wide-mouth Wide-mouth preforms carry more surface area and thicker sections, which is exactly where temperature gradients show up and stretch becomes uneven. Our IR layout hits those problem areas directly, giving you a uniform heat band and cutting hot spots that lead to bursts and weak seams. The payoff is fewer rejects and cycle times that don’t swing all over the place. On 12-cavity systems, we’ve seen heating-related downtime drop 6–8%, and energy use falls because the emitter heats on demand instead of keeping the whole tunnel hot. The shop-floor details Installation is straightforward, but alignment is not optional. The preform path has to stay centered to the emitter focus—move it off by a few millimeters and your profile changes. Expect to tune the power zones when you switch preform weights or colors. And yes, the emitter runs hot, so keep clearances and shielding where they belong. If your blow molder is Sidel, Krones, SIPA, Husky, SACMI, or Nissei ASB, we supply mounting and wiring that match the OEM tunnel footprint. You can swap it in without re-engineering the line.