I sought out the site to listen in a little, because I am being asked to tint windows on new equipment, and in doing so run certain risks in altering operators working environment. I would not care to be part of a hassle, and normally I am talking to the end users, but in this case it is the maker and their salespeople. Finding this site is pretty awesome from the point of finding out if something works or not from actual operators. I have worked on three cabs so far as a test run, and it was focused on cabin heat control. I have 30 years in the automotive and architectural side of tinting glass, but this is the first time I have been asked to assist on gear larger than farm equipment. The test equipment was sent to the Bahamas to a pit mine(s). I read one thread that mentioned using mini blinds in a cab! Pretty good idea really. What I am hopefully doing is actually eliminating UV light for occupational health reasons while stopping Infrared heat. I hope to create a condition that greatly reduces the greenhouse effect, and also stops heat from the shadow side of the cab. Doing all three things at once creates a passive heat sucking effect that could be described as high emission window tinting. The film is as clear as the glass in a car. I guess operators will still be using sunglasses or some other shade but won't feel the solar heat. Night visibility is a big deal, as the expensive equipment seems to run 3 shifts day. Decreased use of the A/C should also occur hopefully extending the lifespan of what seems to be problematic equipment, especially when it breaks down. On the test windows they sent to the Bahamas, one cab for a 3 story crane was done in a Low-E film. The other two were done in a High-E film. It was done earlier in the year, and now in the summer heat and after some good hours of use, its time to get some feedback from the operators and begin to dial in their comfort levels.
This is the Low E product. I may not use it again, because while it is an insulator, cabin heat from an internal source can be retained if the a/c breaks. That would be miserable for the operator. Its great when the a/c works though, especially if they are near or under the glass.
Welcome to the Forums tint cutter!:drinkup We're in the same neck of the woods. I've been wanting to get the windows tinted in my 953 for a while.
Are you around Birmingham or down in L.A.?
The 'ham. Born and raised.
Oh boy. You eat Thai food? Like at the Taste of Thailand on Lorna? You can explain this rig you want to tint.
How about some details on the films? We have some equipment that the AC needs all the help it can get. They are also worried about night time visibility. Would love to hear feedback as we are in the desert and summer temps 100+.
Generally when a machine has heat sources internally or at least close enough to the cabin to send heat through the floor and cabin surface areas the best idea is probably to try to absorb the infrared into the glass and trap it into a conduit or system that ends with external air cooling the then relatively higher glass temperature. If the IR bounces back inside off the glass this would be called the greenhouse effect. So its good to have a high level of absorbtion, and some films have achieved 99% Absorption in the range of 900-2500 nano/micro/millionths of a meter on the electromagnetic spectrum. This is the near IR range and the majority of what we feel as heat. Since visible light begins to fade at 750 nm they do miss a bit IMO and by my measurements this results in an effective rate of 85%, but then they are measuring with spectrometers that are limited to 900-2500 as a "pure" infrared lab measurement, as if there were really such a thing in a cabin. The problem is the multiple sources of heat stacking upon each other In a cab. Visible light energy dumps into materials like a console and reemerges as IR after it builds up, for example. What I have been doing is absorbing the IR as it comes through the glass, absorbing any energy coming from the interior back out as IR - again into the glass, and stopping the side loading that comes from ambient heat sources again through windows that are not in the sun. It has been effective. The clear material transmits 75% of the visible light. The auto vehicle you drive is allowed to have glass that is down to 70% VLT, though most are 80ish. This film will stop 58% of the Solar energy when it is in the sun, which is a number that can climb to 79% as they get darker, but for working machines I suspect the 65 or 55 vlt products might also be chosen, and they have a Solar rejection of 68-71% . Thats like saying 6.8 or 7.1 degrees out of every 10 over ambient that the sun is throwing at you. Pretty potent for clearish films. But thats not their best effect; its actually that the films are even more effective in dealing with IR by itself. Visible light is 44% of the heat energy we deal with, IR 53% and UV 3%. Mopping up the IR from inside and on the shaded windows really adds to the insulated cooler effect. Solar films made in the traditional way use ink for color. Red, blue, yellow just like a color printer. The yellow on the cheap ones fades first in the UV light, leaving red and blue ink which then colors them purple. Even if they are well made, the ink has effectively a 0% IR control. Metals are also used a great deal. The foil type constructions stop about 20% IR, and the best metal constructions which are the ceramic form as Titanium Nitride or Antimony-tin Oxides only approach 60%IR absorption and most are actually around 40% IR effectively. If a machine has no real heat source under it such a motor or tranny or pumps, it is possible to use a LOW-E film. This is the idea of a lightning rod, but reversed. Where a fine point allows energy laden vibrating photons to vibrate off a tip, the very smooth dense surface provide much less help in getting off the surface. Touch it and it is warm, yet an inch away you feel nothing in the way of radiant heat. The catch is, it wont absorb IR, it reflects it. Not a problem if you internal temps are 70. In that case the film stops 54% of the Total Solar Energy which is a measure of both reflected and absorbed energy, but it will only release 9% of that absorbed heat off the surface toward you. Not bad compared to the 90% emissivity that describes the majority of films. But if your A/C breaks you could cook a chicken in that cab. One neat thing I discovered. If you want to know if a film absorbs a lot of IR, hold a sample in front of a heat lamp. It will melt. It traps so much heat that the thin body cannot emit fast enough to cool without the glass to act as a heat sink.
So explain a little further, my climate goes from -40*C to +40*C. Would that film work well for my situation? Machine has heat, and air conditioning.
Please explain it in a condensed version. Are you using something special? Or?
Without running afoul of the website sponsor rules it would be hard to start slinging brand names. There are at least three of these IR films on the market. They are special in the sense they absorb so much IR. The films I am using get slightly darker in the presence of heat, which I think is also pretty cool. I recall 0-100 C being equal to 32-212 f, so -40 +40 I would use a heavier LOW E film. They retain heat better in the bitter winter cold, and can reject 77% of that summer heat, plus the emission of the film I am thinking of is only 7% which is amazing.
-40*C is equal to -40*F. What is the cost on the film? Do you need to install it or can one put it on themselves?
I dont see why you couldnt put the infrared absorbers on yourself. The smaller full cabs I have done had about 400 in materials which is the same across the board for infrared filters of high caliber. The biggest cab was double that. The low e film that is really clear just had a price hike by the American supplier, so I am sourcing some out of Europe that I hear is half the cost, but I have only seen samples so far. The coating that does the work on those is about as cutting edge as it gets, so they have to prove to me that its up to the standards of the film I have used so far. The specification sheet says it is. We will see very shortly when it gets here for me to test. The installation is a garanteed failure if you put those on like regular film. The stack of layers is not going to evaporate the mounting solution and the film literally grows larger on bigger windows making it buck off. We usually install it with an acid instead of soapy water, and the squeegee looks like a small shovel with a D handle for max pressure. We are supposed to reach a state of traveling for installs or sourcing certified installers in an area for those films. You are welcome to try it yourself of course. The low E coatings from the American supplier that have the very low emission numbers is 1200 for the smaller cabs but I am hoping to get that down to 600-800. We dont have a good database of window shapes yet but paper templates marked with a sharpy conserves waste and if you mark the outside direction I would be interested in the help provided in creating that database.
What effect does the film have on light transmission when it's dark outside..? A lot of operations run 24/7 and are historically wary of anything that reduces light transmission through the window glass at night.
The feds regulate your glass in your car to not be darker than 70% visible light transmission. This is considered clear, and if you have ridden in a domestic pickup truck or sedan you have seen a darkness range of 70-85 VLT. The films are 70-75 VLT. The effect is small yet present and dependant upon on board lighting in dark areas I would imagine. I would say this is a strength of the Lightwave film that gets slightly lighter when it cools off. Its right at a 76 VLT when it is not absorbing heat, 70 VLT during the day when it is in the heat.
In my specific case I'm not thinking US but the rest of the world and I have no idea what US regulations for road vehicles will permit. Mining equipment is a whole different ball game and on the whole tends to be very conservative because safety is a major issue for every large fleet operator because of 24/7 operation. Most mining operations use floodlights in loading and dumping areas but the machines are dependent on their own on-board lighting in between those areas, a reason why HID work lights have become so common recently. Internal cab lighting is usually LED and is adjustable from 0-100% strength. I think you might find any regulations for light transmssion for cab glass that do exist might for such equipment may well be more conservative than what is on the statute book for road vehicles. Worst case is that it will be the same, but I suspect it will not be. What happens to film performance if stays relatively hot at night, say an ambient temperature above 80F..? I'm thinking tropical climates outside the US. Does atmospheric humidity affect the performance of the film..?
I discussed all those issues with one or another parties along the way, and while I appreciate your general direction you havent raised any issues I am unaware of, and I thank you for helping me avoid potential problems. The transmission of light through glass is not a unique problem. Airplanes, Boats and other equipment can take passengers to a higher risk of fatality when operators make a mistake. Glass is only able to be so clear, and is not itself 100% clear because it is a material and occupies space Itself. It was probably a mistake to use the word domestic relative to cars, as they are shipped all over and parts are globally specified. I observed the tint work being done in Paris once and found the only major difference was the use of thick safety lamination film to prevent thieves. I can't imagine the British are able to come up with a better idea but anything is possible. We have some films that laminate strong enough to stop missiles from F3 tornados, but I have not addressed any safety issues related to broken glass from picking up materials, which seems to be extremely common, especially on the front windows. My focus has been Infra red energy, which is invisible, and as such allows the clearest of coatings to be used to stop It. It has been my observation that most people coming to my store have been looking at the sun all their lives, and feeling the heat of the sun on their cheek, naturally assume what they see and feel are the same Lightwave but they are feeling the infra red and assuming its the visible light they see. I had to put a machine demonstrating this by my front door so that I could conserve my voice and time spent explaining this pertinent fact to every single customer. As to your question relative to humidity, the answer is no humidity is not an issue. While we do use a steamer to remove film, we still have to apply mechanical force on top of the steaming. Generally the worse problem we run into is actually the effect of oxygen, which likes to attach itself or imbed like a tick into a surface causing swelling and loss of clarity in the scratch resistant coatings which are acrylic. The protectant for this is silicone polish which is clear. The abrasion resistance of a dirt covered grader window will be best supported during cleaning by simply being aware of the film being plastic and taking time to remove the majority of dirt particles lightly before polishing.
Does the tint affect dual pane windows or windows with multiple layers of glass stuck together?
All the vehicular design windows of that type that I have installed have been fine. There are cautions for absorption rates higher than 50% on architectural that take into account the flimsier and less robust design and larger size of glass used in buildings so do not use on your home unless approved. Being in the desert, a mirror tint with dull interior may do you right but those arent the lightest for night work.
They are adamant about not loosing night visibility that's for sure. So it would need to be fairly clear.