AR all the same?

[mrba]

It has come to my attention that independant AR coating companies are now producing their own super ar coatings. Clear Sight's Clairis, and ICoat's Vivix are the first to come to mind.

I have been told different stories by different people, but it boils down to these companies using a basic AR machine such as satis, and then having their own TD2/ZEISS XT like undercoat which makes the AR super touph like a Crizal, Carat whatever.

I believe that some of these coatings are even including the oliphobic coat that can be found on Alize, as I understand the same stuff actually not proprietary to Essilor or so I have been told.

But then it continues to get more twisted in that I know some lab owners that are waiting to purchase their AR machine b/c in the future these ar coatings will be cheaper to produce in house by everyone, and in fact licenced by the big companies. So in this world I am describing you would have a lab with Satis super coating and a licence to call it Crizal. I guess this is quite a common conception, and was not news to the people I have spoken too.

Can anyone out there shed more light on the future of AR coating and what we can expect?

I know that Vivix and Clairis arew among the top in Bayer scratch resistence.

[Jacqui]

I've been wondering the same thing. Also been thinking about setting up my own small AR lab.

[Peter Z]

In fact companies like I Coat, Clearcoat and our group ,Optovision ,have premium A/R coatings.

Lens manufactures like Zeiss, Essilor, Hoya and others purchase the hardcoat and hydrophobic coatings from other suppliers in the market which we have as independent coatings labs access to as well. The hydrophobic coating Essilor uses on the "CRIZAL ALIZE" is available from suppliers in Japan. Hoya uses the same product and we purchase it as well from the supplier in Japan.

However, only a select group of coating facilities can do this since you need a good group of technical people who understand how to use the material and obtain the results on the lenses that are being coated.

Yes, Essilor is already licensing the Crizal and RFnp process to wholesale labs. However the investment is high and only a few labs have the volume to warrant this kind of investment.

I don't see the price or cost to manufacture A/R coatings being lower. For example the new hydrophobic coatings(Essilor Alize) is 8-10.00 per pair higher then standard Crizal. This is due to the high cost of the new Hydrophobic coating material which for just a 100Gram bottle (less then 8 ounces) costs $2,000.00. The older materials cost $20.00 for a 100Gram bottle.

[Texas Ranger]

20 years ago, my brother put in an AR lab in his small, independent lab, and it is a tremendous expense to maintain "clean room' environments, and if I remember right, there was an awesome increase in the use of power to run the vacuum units, the building had to have special wiring run because of how much power it took. And it did require technicians with unique skills. you must also consider that only about 50 lenses can be processed in the chamber at a time (?). So there is a tricky balance between having enough AR work to justify the unit, and having so much that it takes a lot of extra time to process all the orders...I believe that AR in those days was $12.50 and everyone thought it was atrociously expensive!

[Chris Ryser]

In fact companies like I Coat, Clearcoat and our group ,Optovision ,have premium A/R coatings.

I have never seen a manufacturer/supplier that has not stated that his products are premium quality. That is part of business life.

But it is a fact that AR coatings are all the same basically. A good hard-coat provides a good adhesion and then the AR coating on top of it, just for the basics.

Then comes the power of advertising, the more money the more advertising power. The morer advertisng power the more people believe that the product is better than the next one

Actually very often manufacturers buy and use the same basic products, but introduce them under many different names and trade marks. Then again it is the power of advertising that decides who is the winner.

Just think that the same coating machines and basic materials are used to coat computer chips and other electronic parts as well as hundreds of other application.