Anyone Know This Company??

**Chris Ryser** · 07-06-2011, 12:31 PM

Originally Posted by Jacqui

No Chris. Pictures are nice, but I want to see the real thing, feel the finish, push the buttons, maybe even make a few pairs of lenses with it. If I can't see the real thing, how can I form an honest opinion??

Making lenses in house is a nice idea..........however since I have followed the developments over the last 30 years none of them have succeeded. Since 1982 when I invested and lost $ 38,000 in a lens casting scam together with 38 other optometrist's that had put in the same., I have followed each and everyone I heard of, and all went down the drain with many millions of Dollars from investors. :hammer:

**DragonLensmanWV** · 07-06-2011, 01:16 PM

Originally Posted by Chris Ryser

Making lenses in house is a nice idea..........however since I have followed the developments over the last 30 years none of them have succeeded. Since 1982 when I invested and lost $ 38,000 in a lens casting scam together with 38 other optometrist's that had put in the same., I have followed each and everyone I heard of, and all went down the drain with many millions of Dollars from investors. :hammer:

From Post #40:
Speed is right.......................

I lost $ 25,000 invested in a molding system in 1982 along with 25 Can Optometrists, and have not seen one successful setup ever since the first disaster. They all have loosing propositions. Big fanfares and then a slow and quite death.

$25,000 or 38,000 - either one is a lot to lose in a failed venture. I know a doc that put the Opticast system in. Closed it down after hanging on for a year with it. If they had just asked me....

**himmeroo** · 07-11-2011, 11:57 AM

what do they look like 6 months after edged and dispensed.

**FVCCHRIS** · 07-11-2011, 03:54 PM

These guys are gonna end up renaming the company Bla-bla-Optical Lab and produce cut rate lenses out of one central warehouse location using minimum wage labor to cast a thousand lenses a day selling direct to patients via the internet. They'll have lots of molds and product to burn through once they get the whole 12 million together. As a former Innotech surface caster I can tell you quality of product takes time to produce well and with the advances into freeform lenses I can't imagine someone trying to tinker with this stuff again. ???

**gatorbait** · 08-09-2011, 02:20 PM

Has anyone had success with molding units? Or does everyone have the same experience as getting a lot of air bubbles?

**Jacqui** · 08-09-2011, 02:39 PM

I had an Opti-cast at one time, seemed OK except the limited power range and lens styles. We used it mostly for charity work and almost all of the patients were happy with the lenses. The one thing that we really didn't like were the mooshy powers, hard to get mires focused in the lensometer. The air bubble problem may be from filling the molds too fast, slow down a bit. We also had ours in a climate controlled room with a Chemlux AR system, I've heard from others that it helps a lot to keep the humidity down.

**Johns** · 08-10-2011, 04:13 AM

I am not a lab owner, a big time OD, or even an owner. I'm a part-time optician that often works the front lines of 2 optical practices. One practice is quite small, while the other has 4 opticians, an OD owner, and an associate.

The one thing that struck me while reading through this post was that one of the spokesman stated you can make a pr of lenses in less time than it takes to order and track a job. Are they serious? We order online, which takes no more than 2 minutes (even typing w/one finger). Tracking is a mere keystroke to achieve real-time results, and the job arrives around 10:00 AM the next day.

If I'm reading this correctly, they are saying that in a 10 hour day, you can fabricate 20 prs. of lenses? Is that supposed to be impressive? If the lab tech/optician is making $15 an hour (average around here), that's $150 in labor, not counting taxes, vacations, and other payroll type expenses. That's around $9 per lens in labor costs, and you haven't even paid for any consumables. To be fair, much of the time might be curing, and the person could be doing something else, but even then, how could a lens in 30 minutes keep up with even an average practice? Someone mentioned using this to mkae lenses for someone else, but they'd have to operate 24/7 to get 50 pr a day.

Am I way off on this? I don't see the lab bills, so maybe there's a huge, huge expense that's being spared, but from what I hear, the labs are all fighting for work, and prices don't seem as high as they used to be.

Am I way out of my league here? From an outsider (in terms of lab), it doesn't make sense to me.

**braheem24** · 10-28-2011, 08:56 AM

I just had a short demo, making the a pair of lenses takes 2 minutes, cure for 15.

$3995 for the unit, "notchable, groovable" 1.55 material, A/R PAL costs about $15.00 More then an uncut Image CR39 PAL with basic A/R.

EDIT: Photochromatic and polar also available in SV D28 and PAL all with combination with and without A/R

Photochromatic to be released by end of year.

**gatorbait** · 10-28-2011, 09:39 AM

whats the risk of bubbling when pouring the cast? Thats my biggest fear!

**braheem24** · 10-28-2011, 09:57 AM

I dont know,

I do know do know spoilage lenses are replaced at no charge whether it's a defect or a breakage as well as Rx changes.

**jefe** · 10-29-2011, 08:32 AM

Originally Posted by himmeroo

what do they look like 6 months after edged and dispensed.

I used to see lenses dispensed at W made by a casting system which looked as though they were slumping -- probably weren't cured long enough.

**d_a_h_u_k** · 11-07-2011, 12:10 PM

If anyone has any casting trouble specifically with bubbles or with anything else please send me a message and I should be able to help. Any monomer will bubble until you get your procedure sorted out.