Borosilicate Glass
Excelitas utilizes Borosilicate glass (or hard glass) extensively for our Flashlamps that are operating under low average operating power. This includes signal beacons, low-power stroboscopes and low-power photographic applications.
There are four Borosilicate glasses characterized by their exceptional resistance to the arc and by optical quality.
- Borosilicate glass B1(standard glass), ideal for automatic processing ability with many tube diameters available
- Borosilicate glass B2, withstands approximately 30% more power than B1 but requires manual processing
- Borosilicate glass B3offers enhanced UV transparency with automatic processing ability similar to B1
- Borosilicate glass B4allows up to double the flash energy in photoflash applications compared to B1with similar automatic processing ability.
Hard glass can be coated with a yellow layer that absorbs the excessive blue radiation for photography lighting effectively lowering the color temperature by 1000 – 2000 K.
For special applications, flash tubes can be colored with a uniform and crack-free colored layer. Typical colors are red, blue, amber, green and purple.
Our highly skilled glass blowers know how to form this material in any Excelitas Flashlamp shape.