Heat Treatment of Membrane

[John V]

I used a bright flashlight to illuminate the membrane through the Spandex and it was quite easy to see the wrinkles/ripples in the membrane.
Have another person hold the flashlight while you manage the heat gun. I tried doing both at once and it got quite confusing at times as to which hand had the heat gun vis a vis the flashlight. ;))
You will easily see the wrinkles disappear as the membrane tightens up as the heat is applied, just don’t overdo it.

[ahh]

Thanks to both of you for your feedback; nothing beats hands on experience.
My panels have the single knit Spandex.
I plan to start by a detailed inspection to try to understand where the membrane has slackened but since the “flapping” occurs at certain low frequencies I suspect the section with the longest vertical spacing, i.e. bottom part.
In your experience is it easy to identify the slackened area (s) and is it easy to see when the tension is corrected?

Alf

[John V]

I have heat treated the membrane on my pre-PX panels.

My earlier panels had the Spandex grille material so
heat treating the membrane without removing/pulling it back is
easy, just be careful not to overheat the material because it can melt, ask me how I know.;))

If the panels have the double knit material as current production panels currently use then I would pull the material back as Tom recommended.

In my case I needed to treat the entire panel(U1) as the membrane had slackened overall.

As to a suitable heat gun, I would suggest a Wagner Furno 500
heat gun as it offers 12 heat settings. It allows you to dial just the amount of heat necessary to do the job.
https://tinyurl.com/tdwj575

Couple of pointers:
1. Try a low heat setting first, don’t want to melt the membrane.
2. Keep the heat gun moving and probably at a distance of +/-
4-5 inches from the membrane.
3. Take your time, just be conservative with the amount of heat used.

Good Luck, let us know what happens.
John

[TWB]

You are likely to have a better result if you first pull back enough of the grill cloth to expose the portion of the membrane you need to treat..

[ahh]

Have any of you experience with heat treatment of the panel membrane? One of my Pristine III+ panels “flaps” somewhat at certain low frequencies. It occurs infrequently, not impossible to live with but I am contemplating to have a go at heat treatment following the instructions I have received from Roger West. Any feedback would be most appreciated.

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