Advice on manufacturing specialty lens for Head-Up Display

Hi,

I am interested in manufacturing a specialty lens for a Head-Up Display. The lens is used to reflect information from a display as shown in the picture below:


https://www.continental-automotive.c...aspx?width=500


It has a predominantly rectangular shape with rounded corners. It is a plano lens with base curve of around 0.25D. In particular, one side of the lens is concave and the other side of the lens is convex with the same radius of curvature. The curvature is spherical without any cylindrical component. The dimensions of the lens are approximately 85mm x 55mm, which results in a diagonal of 100mm.

I am interested in producing 2 lenses for R&D and I would like to know if it can be made the way eyeglass lenses are made. In particular, take a blank and grind the front and back surfaces to the specification of the custom lens. If only the back surface can be ground then the front surface can be flat or have a base curve that approximates the radius of curvature.

I understand that stock blanks usually go up to 80mm and that size may be a problem but this company says they can make lenses with effective diameter of 100mm.



http://www.norville.co.uk/acatalog/FAQ.html




I am looking for an optical lab that can make 2 lenses. Can anyone point me to the right direction?


Kind regards,


Nikolaos Beratlis, Ph. D.

Anyone with a "hand pan" and a couple of the appropriate laps should be able to easily crank this out for you. Unfortunately, not too many ophthalmic optical lab still have this tooling nor the skills. If you strike out with eye glass lens grinders you might want to contact a precision optical lab. United Lens (https://www.unitedlens.com/) could probably do this job for you but I don't think that they work in polymers. give them a call.

Thank you very much for your suggestions. I will try the company you mentioned. I already looked into optics manufacturers and the price for 1 lens is $8000. That's why I turned to eyeglass lens optical labs hoping I can get the lens for a price similar to prescription lenses, that is $100-$300.

I am assuming that your "lens" will not be required to have any refractive considerations, rater you re looking for a -0.25 somewhat spherical surface upon which you will project some sort of image. That being the case, a real cheap and dirty solution could be to get yourself a piece of Plexiglas and heat it in your wife oven and hand shape it. Check out how aircraft Plexiglas is formed, in fact check out these guys https://ceebaileys.com/. they may have something right off the self that you can use (a Cessna 172 rear side window.)

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Originally Posted by rbaker

I am assuming that your "lens" will not be required to have any refractive considerations, rater you re looking for a -0.25 somewhat spherical surface upon which you will project some sort of image. That being the case, a real cheap and dirty solution could be to get yourself a piece of Plexiglas and heat it in your wife oven and hand shape it. Check out how aircraft Plexiglas is formed, in fact check out these guys https://ceebaileys.com/. they may have something right off the self that you can use (a Cessna 172 rear side window.)

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This is what I was thinking. .25D is nothing. The plano curve on plexiglas should work. You can get large sheets and cut them any shape/size you want for under 50 bucks.