Lets be serious about Micro-Wave lens tinting..........it actually works.

[Chris Ryser]

Here is the start of a new thread and a new discussion on a new way of tinting optical plastic lenses and other plastic materials that are surface tint able.

On October 15th 2002, the US patent office has issued Patent No 2246505 on "Tinting plastic articles" with the following abstract:

Plastic articles, especially plastic optical lenses are tinted by immersing the plastic article in an aqueous dispersion of tinting agent and exposing the dispersion and immersed article to microwave radiation to bring the dispersion to ebullition; the ebulittion is maintained for at least 2 seconds with transfer of tinting agent from the dispersion to the article to tint the article; the tinted article is removed from the dispersion and rinsed with water. The method achieves tinting in significantly shorter times than conventional methods and employs water-based dispersions thereby avoiding emmission of vapours of organic solvents.

Here is the basis for discussions and I will go more into details tomorrow if nobody has any objections.

Chris Ryser

[Jeff Trail]

Chris,

Oh so I'm not the only one that has been tinkering with this :-) I posted something on this about a year or so ago and no one was or seemed interested, I was getting some tints from a Canadian company under the name of Microtints.. I liked them and it was fast and they did have an awsome choice of colors on the pallete to choose from..I'll dig up the name of the comapny if you are interested, they also had a great price on AR stripper that I got a few bottles of and think that it worked well also.
I still mix and match and if I have a multitude of jobs will fire up the big tinter (I'm a wholesaler) but for the "quicky" tints this works great, for a retial location this should be the answer.. most everyone now a days has a microwave in the office and it sure is less upkeep and a hassle and cost effective to use microtinting than turning on a 6 or 9 pot tinter every morning if you only do a hand full of tints daily....
If you are using a tint besides microtint let me know the name, I'm always searching for alternatives :-)

Jeff "hmm..tint or make popcorn?" Trail

[John R]

Jeff Trail said:
Chris,

I was getting some tints from a Canadian company under the name of Microtints..

Its the one and same Jeff..

We are at present evaluating these tints and they are looking very good on CR39. Having a bit of a problem with poly but its far better than we could ever get hope for with a standard tint tank. I think we just need to spend a bit more time refining how we do it.

[Joann Raytar]

Jeff,

Don't get around The Board much lately do you? ;)

See the thread:

• Changing the way of tinting lenses

Chris Ryser said:
Micro-Tints, changing the way of tinting

I would like to start a discussion on the new Micro-Tint lens tinting system. I am the originator and the US Patent office is issuing pants on chemicals and application by the end of November. I am open to critics.
You can tint a CR39 in 60 seconds, a High Index in maximum 13 minutes and a polycarbonate in6-8 minutes and all of them to the darkest possible shades.

No tinting unit, no fumes, no heating up time and a totally clean process that can be used in any environment.

you can see it at http://optochemicals.com

Chris Ryser

Congratulate Chris on his new patent!

[Chris Ryser]

Thank you for your comments and congratulations , all of you. Actually I did, and do not want to commercialise on this forum, but think it is worth a discussion as the idea and technique is a solution for many serious tinting ptoblems coming up in the very near furture. But I will get into that later.

Some History on the subject

Having come up with numerous new ideas in the field of optical lens treatments which were taken over and copied by competitors within weeks after showing the first time over the last 20 years, I wanted international protection for this one and leave any future competition behind............

I have filed patents in most of the larger countries and they are just about coming in with the US Patent being the first one. Going through a patenting process is a nightmare by itself.
The first patenting attorney threw me out and sent back part of original deposit payment they take with the first application in advance.
"Reason: There was a partially abandoned Patent pending application by American Optical on tinting Transition type lenses with microwaves but in a solvent solution, and there was also a japanese idea pending." Therefore my idea was not patentable.

I was out on the street again, but started to call other patent agents, found one that said he did not think that we were going to have problems and now 4 years later we made it. The international Patent office gave its acceptance in March of last year.

We showed the idea the first time at Vision Expo New York in 1999 and had the booth full of lookers day in day out and they who could not believe what they were seeing (in 60 seconds a dark lens). Many of them went to see the competitition who declared openly that this idea was not working and actually they still do

One expierience along the way which is actually interesting, it is the optical media. It seem to be controlled by politics and not actual new value, good or bad. Press releases dealing with "Harry Miller" is moving from company XYZ to company ABC and becoming their new Vice President of sales, get a lot more attention than the small guy coming up with a novelty, either good or bad.
Actually I have send a press release to many editors of the optical media around the world over the few last days and so far one of them has acknowdleged receipt.. (the first to post the news release was Steve Machol on the Optiboard)

Having covered history in short.....at least in my eyes...I will ...be back with technical stuff on radiation tinting.

John R...I kept my promise, my posting will be out when you are having mid-morning tea at the office. Its only 5.15 am here.

Chris Ryser

[Clive Noble]

Hi Chris,

I was given a couple of samples of your tints some months back, but haven't tested them out yet, my big problem is the wife.

"You're not putting that stuff in my micro!"

And quite right too..... so you've given me the push, I don't know why I stand around wasting time, about an hour a day, on regular tinting.

I'm out tomorrow to buy a cheapy microwave.... I'm sure it doesn't have to be anything sophisticated does it?

Then I'll stock up on product.

Well done, and thanks for the 'push'

Clive

[Chris Ryser]

Clive Noble said:
Hi Chris,

I was given a couple of samples of your tints some months back, but haven't tested them out yet, my big problem is the wife.

"You're not putting that stuff in my micro!"

And quite right too..... so you've given me the push, I don't know why I stand around wasting time, about an hour a day, on regular tinting.

I'm out tomorrow to buy a cheapy microwave.... I'm sure it doesn't have to be anything sophisticated does it?

Then I'll stock up on product.

Well done, and thanks for the 'push'

Clive

Clive, Just make sure it has a turntable, most important thing. Otherwise you will be getting streaks and dark spots, and use the conditioner. Go on website and look up the short description how to tint.

Chris Ryser

[Chris Ryser]

A lens in order to be tint able has to be porous, the more of them the better,

CR39 is the easiest material to tint

High Index lenses are often tint able, but can take hours in the dye pot to achieve a half decent sunglass shade.

Polycarbonate has no pores and if tinted the color pigments just cling to the surface and mostly very uneven. All lenses are hard coated and the hard coat has to absorb the dye. On that lens material tintability is only possible if the hard coat is tint able.

The more pores the hardcoat contains the better it will tint, but the more tint able the hard coat is, the softer the coating will to be. Therfore a very tintable polycarb has a hard coat that provides only about half of the protection of non tintable hard coats.

A lens material has to be hot, and expand the openings of the pores to allow the pigments and other treatment to penetrate into the surface.

This is why the so called "60 Second UV treatments" are questionalble. The lens in a conventional dye pot has no chance of really getting hot and open its pores so the UV dye (benzophenone) clings to the surface and as it is alcohol solvable and most lens cleaners contain IPA (isopropyl alcohols) it can come off in due time.

Also there is one rule, the hotter the dye the faster it will tint.

Colors have to be pre-mixed by the dye supplier to achieve a lens tint at a certain operating temperature. A Micro Tint color will not tint the right shade when used at conventional dye pot temperatures.

A conventional dye-pot dye will decompose after 2 or 3 re-heats in a microwave


Micro Waves

Microwaves will heat anything containing moisture. When trying to heat up a normal dry CR39 out of the envelope in the microwave oven it will not even get warm.

As CR39 is very porous we can soak it in water or other related surfactant solutions and then it will get hot in seconds when exposed to microwaves.

The logical thread is now: we have a hot lens and we have a hot dye ..............it has to tint.

Microwaves have also one important feature compared to the dye-pot:

They actually bombard the lens surface with the dye pigment and hsmmer the pigments into the lens pores.

This was proven by using a microwave without homogenous radiation, or simply, without a turn table. The radiation was unidirectionally bombarding the non moving lens. Therefore it created streaks and and the end of the streaks were dark spots were the pigments had filled the pores of the lens at a much faster and dense rate.

This just about covers the basics of tinting in a microwave.

Next segment.............tomorrow

Chris Ryser

[Chris Ryser]

Conventional optical dyes require a controlled temperature, usually around 87 to 89C. Their livespan is much reduced when more heat is applied and they disintegrate.
A heat tranfer media (from regular water to sophisticated heat transfer silicone oils) is used to give them even heat when the dye pot is inserted into the heating device. These dyes do not have a good direct heat tolerance, therfore the tinting unit.

The micro tint technology uses a modern type of dye that is heat resistant up to 134C, way above boiling temperatures. Therefore the conventional heating methods (dye-pots with heat transfer medias) are not needed.

These new dyes will disintegrate after a continous boil of 12 H and 40 Minutes ( 720 minutes). As tinting times to tint a pair CR39 is 60 seconds maximum of boil, or 1 minute, to achieve a No 3 tint, one could tint 720 pairs of lenses in one batch of dye provided there would be enough pigment in the dye to do it.
Dyes are not are not heated until needed.

The heating aparatus, the microwave oven, has no limits, as todays technology can provide microwave devices that have the size of up to large rooms and some are made that can accommodate conveyor belts to accomodate mass production.

Chris Ryser

[John R]

I'm going to pose a question now...
Whats the darkest tint you have managed to get on poly?

[Chris Ryser]

John R said:
I'm going to pose a question now...
Whats the darkest tint you have managed to get on poly?

I'm going to answer your question now.....

The darkest ever done on Polycarb is 84% absorbtion or 16% transmisson measured on our nearly brand new CECIL Reflectascan Spectrometer. Tinting time 12 minutes.

[optispares]

which types of poly (manufacturer) have you found that will tint to the darkest shades ? and how long does it take to achieve a
sunspec tint.

[Chris Ryser]

optispares said:
which types of poly (manufacturer) have you found that will tint to the darkest shades ? and how long does it take to achieve a
sunspec tint.

Actually we can tint any Poly up to the saturation point in no time. We just have to find out where that saturation point is depending on the manufacturer or the coating company who does the job.

The best coating so far is the tinting Oracle-Sola but sadly their coating does not have the same thickness all over the lens and when tinting to the maximum it gets darker on the thicker part.

[harry a saake]

:D Chris, i can believe this would work as i remember years ago in Atlanta ,Georgia i helped out a fellow who had some sort of medicaid type operation that he ran out of his garage. He did not have a tinting unit, but instead was using a coleman stove and a very small pot. As you can imagine the dye became hot extremely fast, but the lenses also dyed extremely fast. these were all cr-39 as poly did not exist at time. Seemed to work,but i left as getting though his yard each day and past the german shepherd was more then what i needed.

[Chris Ryser]

harry a saake said:
:D Chris, i can believe this would work as i remember years ago in Atlanta ,Georgia i helped out a fellow who had some sort of medicaid type operation that he ran out of his garage. He did not have a tinting unit, but instead was using a coleman stove and a very small pot. As you can imagine the dye became hot extremely fast, but the lenses also dyed extremely fast. these were all cr-39 as poly did not exist at time. Seemed to work,but i left as getting though his yard each day and past the german shepherd was more then what i needed.

Harry,

This is an old fact, the hotter, the faster. This also works fo Poly and all other high index.
Additional micro waves are working like a hammer, and are knocking pigments into the lens pores. This all works even without German Sheperds.

Chris Ryser

[icare]

Jeff Trail said:
Jeff "hmm..tint or make popcorn?" Trail

My wife is going to be so ****** when her popcorn smells like tint dye!
:o

[Chris Ryser]

icare said:
My wife is going to be so ****** when her popcorn smells like tint dye!
:o

NEWS FOR YOU...............Micro Tints dont smell..........nothing within that tinting system does smell......................Your wife will be very disapointed that the popcorn will still have the original smell:hammer:

[chip anderson]

Note: If you have more than one employee, OSHA and the EPA get very, very fussy if you even keep your chemicals in the same room you eat your lunch in.

Thier "warning tickets" can cost $ 7000.00 or more.

Chip

[Chris Ryser]

chip anderson said:
Note: If you have more than one employee, OSHA and the EPA get very, very fussy if you even keep your chemicals in the same room you eat your lunch in.

Thier "warning tickets" can cost $ 7000.00 or more.

Chip

Chip,

If you work with regular neutralizer you have long term exposure to ether or ethylene glycol.

Long term damage on liver and kidneys is provided for you and any others in a lab at no charge if you dont ventilate the fumes directly from your dye-pot toward the outside.

Hot solvents are many time more dangerous than cold ones.

The Micro Tint system is all fully water based, no fumes, no danger. By the way Walmart sells a 1000W Microwave for $ 75.00 on special, do you really have to tint in the lunch room????????????

Your optical dye manufactureres have been very quite about the dangers of the lens dye neutralizers, and their MSDS sheets do not give you the real story.


:finger: :finger:

[dpaul]

Chris

Do you know if anyone in the Houston, TX area is using your system?

The boss and I would like to check it out.

Fast, no odor, long life. Sounds like what we want.

[Chris Ryser]

dpaul said:
Chris

Do you know if anyone in the Houston, TX area is using your system?

The boss and I would like to check it out.

Fast, no odor, long life. Sounds like what we want.

Dan,

Send me an e-mail through the optiboard with your address an tel number and I will give you all the details and give you some free sample too.

[craigmanderson]

Hi, I was wondering how the microwave solution deals with Gradient tints.

Also, what are the maximum pairs that can be tinted at one time?

Thanks, Craig

[Chris Ryser]

1) Hi, I was wondering how the microwave solution deals with Gradient tints.

2) Also, what are the maximum pairs that can be tinted at one time?

1) As the MicroTint system works so super fast you have to reverse the process for grafient tinting. You fully tint the lenses and then remove the color with you gradient dipper, lens uside down.

2) There is no limit on the amount of lenses that can be tinted at one time. On an industrial microwave with a conveyor you can do a hundred thousand pairs a day or more, feeding one pail of dye after another containing a few hundred pairs on a continous basis.

It all depends on the size of microwave oven you are using. The tinting time is a standard 60 seconds for CR39 to reach 70% absorbtion and comparably less for lighter tints.

Microwave tinting is expandable from the kitchen microwave to any size commercial system you want or need to use. It has the capacity to work on a one pair to a few hundred pairs every 60 seconds or depending on lens materials.

Click the link below to see a maximum production type installationby Thermex.

[IMG]file:///C:/DOCUME~1/HPAUTH~1/LOCALS~1/Temp/FrontPageTempDir/wpe37480.gif[/IMG]

[jofelk]

Just a few nagging problems I can't get beyond:
Cosmetic tints, including gradient, could be done as easily with standard tinting unit. Dark gradients would not work, you can not remove all the tint on the bottom, and the neutralizer bleeds into the lenses leaving the upper half with runs in the tint. A good part of tinting is matching colors, multiple dipping in different colors, a problem with microwave.

[LENNY]

But it sounds SO good for those G-15 poly 70% sunglasses!