Looking for a new Lensometer choice

[Grubendol]

Hey everyone, I am hoping you can help me out here.

I was just recently promoted out of lab manager to office manager. I'll still be doing lab work, but it won't be all day, so we need to streamline things a bit. We were hoping to find an auto-lensometer that does a really good/accurate job of checking progressive lenses.

As it stands right now, all progressives are handed to me to dot and manually neutralize. Honestly I like this process cause it's so accurate and we can have the dots there to double check fit of the glasses before the pt. checks out. But we do need to speed our processes a bit.

Do any of you have recommendations on auto-lensometers that do a good job on progressives?

Thanks,

your humble and obedient manservant, Grubie.

[AWTECH]

Congradulations on your promotion to office manager.

As far as an autolensometer is concerned I am not sure how much faster one will actually be. We use a very advanced form of lens measurement since we produce unique freeform lens surfaces, but we also have two autolensometers. One is a Humphrey and the other is a Grand Seiko which is made in Japan. I think the Grand Seiko is a good machine for a reasonable price. I also recall you saying that you recently purchased edging equipment from AIT. They rep the Grand Seiko autolensometer product.

[Grubendol]

Thanks for the tip. We're not really looking for a streamline on time, as much as on staffing. I won't be available to do the neutralizing all the time, so we wanted something our exam techs could handle without having to rely on the optical department for assistance.

[LENNY]

Congrats on the promotion!

Did you get it because you are a maried man NOW!?:idea: :)

[LENNY]

We just boght a cheap one on ebay!
It works ok for the price!
Gerber has one which is nice but way overpriced and I think its verrrrry simular to Visionix one.

[Grubendol]

Actually I almost think so ;) But I am the jack of all trades kind of guy, done everything possible in optical, have even been a computer support guy, an a tech support for an internet company. He wants to fully modernize and go completely paperless, and I'm the guy to make it happen.

new auto-anythings are part of that process.

[AWTECH]

Lenny said:Very similar to the Visionix one

Hint- Visionix actually makes lensometers

[LENNY]

I know!

[Bezza]

we have been using a Shin-Nippon SLM-3000 for some years now in our workshop and it has been a very reliable autolensometer. It speeds up checking of uncut lenses coming into our lab a great deal (we only ever check finished lenses on manual focimeters). Has a little diffuculty when you present it with 12 dioptres of prism or more but thats about it and hey that aint bad. I would advise to always have a back up focimeter in any case for those tricky RXs......we use a Magnon LM 350 with prism compensator ( god..... i love those focimeters). The SLM 3000 does a great job however and has plenty of adjustable functions including a vari layout screen ( which i prefer not to use but which others seem quite fond of) and adjustable ABBE values for when you get high index glass, plastic or poly lenses (only really necessary to use for high RXs). A great auto lensometer which is very easy to use and also very accurate. Still nothing beats a manual focimeter in my opinion but hey.

[Barry Santini]

says that no *one* lensmeter can do all well. Therefore, we use a Topcon conventional lensometer for axis checking and OC dotting, and verify powers (SPH, CYL & add) with a Humphrey model which has been upgraded to LAB 360 software. It also has a printer (very useful) and the Spectrometer.

With both of these instruments, we feel we can arrive at proper and reasonable tolerancing of all lenses. MY LAB, an Essilor lab, is also phasing in a more comprehensive lens analysis tool known as a "focavision". It's Belgium, and I'm plan to see it when I visit my lab in Dec.

BTW, *ALWAYS* set your power precision to 0.01D (where possible) ...anything less precise is, in my opinion, akin to "taking someone else's word for it."

Hope this helps

Barry Santini, ABOM

[HarryChiling]

If you are trying to go paperless, I would make sure that your lensometer can interface with your particular office software. Oh and congrats on the promo.
:cheers:

[Grubendol]

We have one that does, but it's not very good at reading progressives and that's our main concern at the moment.

But yes, thanks Harry that's a very good point on something to consider.