On the plant floor, when you’re running a Krones Contiform Pro for PET stretch blow molding, uneven preform heating is not a “maybe” problem — it’s a production killer. Hot spots and cool zones in the heating tunnel punch straight through to inconsistent wall thickness, weak necks, and bottles that blow out. You can’t gamble with a generic lamp here. You need a heater that matches the machine’s geometry and cycle demands, period. What matters, technically We build the Contiform Pro heater lamp around short-wave infrared emitters in a quartz envelope, tuned to dump fast, focused energy into the preform body. It’s specified to the OEM electrical and mechanical interfaces: the correct R7s connector, rated voltage, and power density that lines up with the Contiform Pro’s heating zone layout. The filament geometry and reflector placement are aligned to the tunnel width and lamp spacing, so the heat profile stays stable across the whole preform array. This isn’t about brightness. It’s about repeatable temperature distribution, cycle after cycle. Why does this work on a Contiform Pro? Because the heating tunnel is a closed system that lives and dies on precise infrared input and controlled dwell time. With the right lamp, you restore the original heating curve, so stretch behavior stays predictable and rejects from crystallization or thin spots drop off. Operators see fewer temperature alarms, and maintenance gets longer lamp life, which means fewer unplanned change-outs. Energy use falls too — the emitter heats quickly and holds output without overshoot — and the consistent profile keeps the blow molder running at line speed. A few practical notes. Installation is straightforward, but handle the lamp with clean gloves and seat it squarely in the holder. If you don’t, you’ll get shadowing and hot spots. Make sure the lamp length and connector type match your machine’s revision; older Contiform Pro units can have different lamp-holder spacing. Expect peak output right at startup, so verify your power supply and cooling airflow match the OEM ratings. After replacement, run a temperature scan, and adjust zone power only within the machine’s limits to keep the designed preform profile intact.