Trivex- what do you think?

[vinmcmahon]

Trivex has been around for a long enough time for opinions to be formed as to its performance. What do people think about its ability to be used in drill mounts, tintability, scratch resistance, and optical performance? I have read the specs, but what does
the real world have to say. Is it worth the premeium price?

Vin McMahon

[jjconcepts]

coating trivex

I was wondering the same question.

The hype is good enough, and there is enough chatter for us to pick up a few cases and start testing coatings. of the ones I got back, results are promising. better than average adherance as well as clarity after coating.

I am hoping for realtime surfacing and edging feedback. as I will be picking up equiptment sometime soon and I uderstand (through the not so reliable grapevine) that trivex can be a bear.

[jofelk]

Trivex has performed better than poly when ground to a 1.0 center and scratch coated. The material does not abberate as easy, tints nice and our drillling guy loves it .
Our surface lab has no problem, the finishing lab uses optronics 6E to edge with no problem.
It has performed so well I hope more accounts switch from poly.

[Pete Hanlin]

Trivex has performed better than poly when ground to a 1.0 center and scratch coated. The material does not abberate as easy, tints nice and our drillling guy loves it . Our surface lab has no problem, the finishing lab uses optronics 6E to edge with no problem. It has performed so well I hope more accounts switch from poly.
If you are purchasing equipment and plan to be finishing a lot of Trivex, from the labs I've spoken with Trivex is edged using a method somewhere between poly and CR-39. The material does have some of the swarfing tendancies that poly has, but requires some coolant due to excessive heat generated when edging. From personal experience, I would find an edger with either a "fragile" setting (which will reduce chuck pressure and feed rate) or some other way to reduce feed rate and head pressure manually- to avoid flexure of the lens and displacement of the bevel. Making sure the wheel rotates so that the cutting surface is traveling in the same direction as the edge of the lens can also reduce stress on the lens.

The Trivex samples I've been looking at lately also have a yellow tinge to them. Maybe its just the source of the product, so I'd welcome some input regarding the color of Trivex out in the field. Since I've only received Trivex from a few sources, I'd like to know if all Trivex is tinged- or just my inventory of samples. Thanks for the feedback.

[aaron]

I have used some Trivex here in my humble little establishment. This is an Opthalmology practice but we are also in Newport Beach. What that means is we have alot of older patients with very sensative noses, but they also want some pretty trendy stuff . I have used Trivex for some of them because it is so incredibly light and workes well in the drill-mounts.


They have tinted just fine, (actually a little easier than the poly we get.) I don't know about scratch resistance but I haven't had anyone come back yet with a pocket full of dust. I only do finishing work here and I will say that Trivex has the most god-awful stench of any lens I finish here. It smells like feet soaked in burnt mozzarella.


The lab I use for the drill mounts likes it very much.


As far as a premium price. I don't find it to be too incredably expensive so that it has to be given a crazy mark-up to be profitable. It doesn't match poly in value so it isn't going to take over polys hold on the universe, but it does have its place in the industry. Most of the newer edgers have a special fragile setting designed either specifically with Trivex in mind or something you can manipulate as needed.

Pete,
The Trivex that I have worked with has had a little tinge of color to it like your samples. Nothing that made me take a step back or anything. It probably was no worse than some of the poly that comes through here. But then again I haven't used tons and tons of it.


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[Robert Martellaro]

I have a pair of Silhouette drill mounts with a -2.00 coated Trivex on display. Probably weighs less than ten grams. Comes in handy when an OMD gets greedy and tries to talk a low myope into irreversible refractive surgery.

Robert

[varmint]

It smells like feet soaked in burnt mozzarella.

I don't think I've experienced that smell, & I'm not sure I want to know how you know what that smells like.
I have edged a few Trivex lenses. I normally use the poly settings (my edger has no in between) with no problem. Almost every single patient I have dispensed these lenses to have told me they felt their vision was very clear & crisp, unlike any other eyewear they have purchased. Of course that is probably due to my good work...ha, ha.:D :D

[Susan Henault]

Re: Trivex- what do you think?

vinmcmahon said:
What do people think about its ability to be used in drill mounts, tintability, scratch resistance, and optical performance? I have read the specs, but what does the real world have to say. Is it worth the premeium price? Vin McMahon

By all accounts that I hear, Trivex is everything originally reported to be, in terms of the above mentioned areas -- and even brags the lowest specific gravity of any material ever developed. Some of my customers have asked if Shamir plans to make our designs available in Trivex, and I have to tell them the rest of the story.

While Trivex does provide superior optics and comparable impact resistance to poly, it doesn't hold a candle to poly or high index in terms of "THIN". As for drills, tensile strength is the key (not impact resistance). Although the tensile strength of Trivex is significantly better than CR-39, so are many of the new high index materials now available (which are MUCH thinner and also offer superior optics with abbes often in the low 40s).

From a manufacturing perspective, Trivex can be a bear. I am not talking about lab processing. I mean to say that it is not easy to manufacture a spectacle lens out of the raw materials that combine to make Trivex. It basically requires a new process that has a long learning curve (during which yields are low and manufacturing costs are high). It is my opinion that this alone makes it very difficult for venders to justify making a committment to move forward with Trivex. After all, poly is extremely profitable (with a quick turn time and very low material costs). Because of this, I seriously doubt that the "premium price" will come down any time soon.

Lastly, as with many new product technologies -- I have no doubt that "Trivex" and/or future generations of it will only get better. We did not like the earliest Transitions product, but thank goodness that PPG didn't give up on that one -- proving that over time, the manufacturers CAN meet our industry's demanding expectations.

[Pete Hanlin]

Great post, Susan...

I agree- down the road Trivex will only get better. If it can replace CR-39 as the "base material" of our industry, than kudos to PPG, Younger, and Hoya. Before it does that, however, it needs to become less expensive to produce.

In the long run, it all comes down to one number- 1.530. Even with its low specific gravity, the lower index requires more lens mass- which pretty much erases the weight advantage it has over poly and results in the thickness to which you referred.

[Susan Henault]

Pete -- Good point about the specific gravity/light weight feature of Trivex. CR-39 is the only material over which one can say Trivex has a significant advantage (in terms of "as worn" weight).

[Jim Stone]

Trivex is less likely to develope stress marks and cracks in rimless mountings. It will never be thinner than polydue to the index. It will always be lighter. It is not nessessary to apply scratch ressistant coating to the back surface of trivex (one of the culprits,I believe, giving poly a bad name by causing abberations) to trivex.

[APV Optical]

A lot of my accounts are starting to use the Trivex/Trilogy. Most of my jobs consist of drill mounts. I have to say I love it. The Optics after grinding to a 1.0 are phenomenal. Of course you dont want to grind a -.50 to a 1.0 and try edging, but higher minus powers from -2.00 and up produce a sweet finished product. The color has not been an issue. It does have a cosmetic/brown tone. Which only helps with glare especially after the AR is applied. Scratch resistance is equal to that of any mid index that goes uncoated. However we coat ours to produce a very scratch resistant, light weight, product with great optics. Edging is about like poly was before edgers were designed for poly. After you learn how to handle the material it is a breeze. It does require a learning curve when you first edge. I guess thats all I can think of at the time.

[Jim G]

Poly and Trivex are the materials of choice for drill-mounts. Period.

I've always used uncoated (naked) CR-39 as the basis for determining if a lens requires a hard coat. Trivex has a Bayer of about 0.5 putting it about half-way between CR-39's 1.0 and poly's 0.1 (a good factory hardcoat will have a rating of 3 or above). That puts it into the definitely coat category. Plus, I believe that both Hoya and Younger would also recommend using a hard coat. Plus, the backside coating will make the tinting easier (uncoated Trivex is tough to tint).

I think the one disadvantage to Trivex is the lack of lens styles
currently available tho, as use and manufacturing costs are reduced, this should be overcome.

[Jim Stone]

Younger recomends tinting before coating. The coating is not required, but some may prefer adding it. The trivex advantages are, better optics, lighter weight and less stress cracks than poly. I put better optics first for a reason. Optics are most important for me. The poly advantages are thinner and more lens styles. I'd go with trivex.

I remember, in the earley days of poly, a still prominate lab here in NC, put out a letter in total frustraition, about any poly lens that did turn out exceptible was "a lucky mistake". I think that this is still true to a degree. Shame is that although the process has improved some, out standards have been permanately somewhat eased. You ever have a poly pat' express dissapointment with accuity to find the lenses check fine? What did you do then? Shame!

[Jim G]

Wouldn't disagree on the drilling but I was remiss in not adding the 1.67 MR-10 material to the "approved" list for 3-piece mountings.

Would still disagree on the hardcoating. Consumers expectations are pretty much based upon uncoated CR-39; anything softer will only lead to increased dissatisfaction.

Hoya recommends 100% coating; Younger equivocates. I think that in either case, with a good tintable backside coating, you'll prefer tinting AFTER coating.

The new Younger tinting recommendations for untinted Trivex is to tint at about 170F for no more than 5 minutes at a time, allowing that to cool to room temp and cleaning thoroughly in soap and water before retinting. Repeat until desired depth of tint is attained. DO NOT use glycol based neutralizers (most); use only water w/ detergent.