Discovering Unique Applications for Madico’s Amber 81 Window Film

By: David Smith

Madico Window Films are designed to solve specific issues and concerns for our customers.  From providing a more comfortable driving experience to reducing the heat and glare coming through a home or office building’s windows, we strive to provide products that make a difference in our customers’ day to day lives. Often, special uses are also discovered for our films that go beyond their initially intended purposes. Madico’s Amber 81 film was originally designed as an automotive tint. While no longer sold as an automotive film due to a shift in consumer preferences for car tint coloring, it is now commonly used in the medical field*, technology based clean rooms, and for photography purposes. It is an amber colored window film designed to block UV light into the low visible light region.  UV light starts to transition to visible light around 380nm and a standard clear or lightly tinted window film will block over 99% of energy up until that 375nm.   Madico’s UV Gard film blocks up to 380nm.  However, there are a number of medical and clean room applications that require additional blocking from 380nm to 400nm, where UV and visible light are both present.  Amber 81 provides excellent blocking throughout the 400nm range, with transmission below 10% all the way up to around 500nm. In situations where this type of extreme UV light blocking is required, the film is applied to all sources of light within the room such as windows, fluorescent lighting and even lasers.  The amber color of the film gives it this extra blocking capability, as opposed to our clear UV Gard film, which blocks transmission up to about 390nm and then increases to around 85% across the 400nm range.  UV Gard is better suited for museums and historic venues where only valuable furnishings need to be protected and a colored window film is not desired. The graph below shows the transmission of Amber 81, UV Gard, and a standard clear film through the UV and visible light regions. Amber 81 is suitable for interior use and is covered by our standard 7 year warranty against film defects.  *Before using any product to address health issues, a medical professional should be contacted to ensure that the product will in fact block the radiation necessary.