Our company uses BPI to custom color lenses.
Is there anything better?
I would appreciate your professional opinions.
:cheers:
OKOART
www.opticalstore.com
BPI opinion
Our company uses BPI to custom color lenses.
Is there anything better?
I would appreciate your professional opinions.
:cheers:
OKOART
www.opticalstore.com
BPI is great quality, i tried a ton of differerent products and I always go back to BPI.......in fact I will never change to anything else its not worth the grief.
I am going to try Chris Ryser's red-free tintint dye.:cheers:
Newer Technology.........................
I guess , I can not ignore this thread as it looks like a direct challenge.
Above statement is probably one of the boldest ones ever made on this subject and must be a love affair with above mentioned dye manufacturer.Originally Posted by Matthew
BPI is the originator of plastic lens tinting, which started somewhere in the early to mid 70's. They mixed dyes and converted restaurant food warmers into optical tinting units. Somewhere along the way people working there jumped the wagon and started their own lens tinting supply companies.
However as one company copied the other, they all stayed with the same principle and theory, as well as the basic supplies of the dyes they are still working with.
The bottles might look different, some are in pill form, or concentrates, or ready to use.............but they are still dye technology from the mid 1970's. Which indicates ........no change nor improvement in 30 years.
Low energy dyes versus high energy dyes.
Conventional dyes (low energy) have to be used below the boiling point of water because at higher temperature they will disintegrate very quickly. Therfore you have to use the tinting unit with a heat transfer media, to get an even constant heat in the individual dye pots, that also includes the emmissions of toxic fumes .
The new lens materials as polycabonate and high index lenses can take hours in a tinting bath to accept some light color.
High energy dyes
These are products that were developed in the late 1990's and early 2000's. These dyes do not need a tinting unit as they dont care what and how much heat you apply to them. They will withstand temperatures of up to 130C without early decomposition. Therefore they have a life span of 114 hours under high heat, while conventional dyes disintegrate after ca 54 hours under low heat.
It is a known fact that the hotter you tint the faster the tinting process will work. However if you crank up the thermostat of your tinting unit your dyes will decompose very fast. So the conventional dyes are very limited when looking at all the new lens materials that do not tint very well.
One more addition to facilitate the tinting of hard to dye materials is the use of microwaves which besides producing heat, promote other chemical reactions which are comparable to a hammer.............by pounding the dye pigment into the substrate (lens) surface.
Today you can tint a CR39 in 60 seconds to the darklest shade, a poly to a no 3 shade in 4 minutes and high index lenses in 4 to 8 minutes to dark sunglass shades. And all of this with the addes benefit of having no smell and no toxic fumes because all the materials are water and surfactant based. (For high quantity production, there are Microwave units available that can let you tint up to 100,000 pairs of lenses per day)
Sunglasses to the US Navy and Coast Guard pilots are now being supplied with the Micro-Tint black color because it has the most even absorbtion curve of all available dyes on the market, containing no visible red reflexes as other dyes show.
By having discarded the old dye pot the US Navy can now tint lenses in their optical labs on ships under way.
Conclusion:
I always compare a conventional tinting unit to a wooden plow, pulled by a donkey..............................while the new tinting technology would be a steel plow, powered by a jet engine.
Last edited by Chris Ryser; 03-04-2006 at 05:37 AM.
Jerry......here is a link to high index transmission curves. High index tend to go a bit more into the blue when tinted black.
http://optochemicals.com/micro_highindex.htm
To be quite honest, I hate tinting. There is nothing I like about it but unfortunately i have to do it. I also use BPI dyes.
I have read about optochemicals and I was almost sold on the idea. My main concers are: UV filter, 10%-30% tints and the gradient process. I rarely do a 70%-80% tint (we mostly recommend polarized at that point) but I wind up doing a ton of 10%-20% Gradient with UV filter.
Will Optochemicals be at Vision Expo? If so I would like to see these dyes in action.
Thanks.
Chris
I am talking about apples to apples comparisons....BPI is the choice in my 21 years of experience opinion.
Now if there is better and different technology out there like you are talking about of course it might be the way to go.
Tinting process much too fast ......................
A full fledged permanent UV filter rated at 400nm is done in 2-4 minutes.
Your 10% - 30 % tints will take a 10 to 30 seconds to tint outside of the microwave.
Doing a gradient you will have to do a negative gradient, which means, you tint the whole lens in a few seconds and then remove the dye with the gradient arm instead of tinting it. The tinting process is much too fast to do it the conventional way.
After exhibiting in New York for 17 years straight we quit going there 4 years ago and will be another no show.
Not better.............................
but different.........100x faster..........tints lenses that conventional ways can not even do.................and all without any health hazards because of toxic fumes.
After having made many inventions in the optical field over the last 25 years that have become standard items in daily optical use, some of them sold as the latest newest technologies while they had been on the market for 20 years.............I decided to patent this idea. First time ever an optical tinting system is under patent protection.
Check it out at http://optochemicals.com
Thank you Chris..
Chris - Thank you,…….Thank you,……….Thank you,
for all the helpful information.
I will definitely consider Micro-Tints.:idea:
Arnold OKO
www.opticalstore.com
Last edited by okoart; 03-06-2006 at 05:59 PM. Reason: spellingggggg
Chris
How much is your Micro Tint unit out of curiosity???
Not much .........................
If you have a small operation that uses a regular conventional tinting unit whenever needed...................
You go to your closest department store and purchase a 750 or 1000 watt microwave. Get a model with as many controls as possible and the turntable is a must. Top of the line models are about $ 100 to $ 130.
For higher volume you can go to commercial microwaves, as used in the fast food industry, or Thermex can supply units with conveyor belts where you can tint up to 100,000 pairs a day for the price of about $ 70,000.
Actually you can get setup for $ 100 and you can tint to you hearts desire.
Tinting hard coated lenses.......................
The harder a protective hard coat the less it is tintable. Many service lab will coat the minus side of a surfaced with a hard coat which is required on polycarbonate lenses.
There are usually 2 types of hard coats used.................tintable or non tintable.
An easy to tint hard coat is actualy so soft that it provides not the best scratch resistance. Another variation of tintable material will accept some tint, but will not go very dark after a prolonged time in a conventional tinting bath.
By exposing the lens and dye to the influence of microwaves, the chemical reaction of the dyes promote a speedy penetration of the lens surface, that then will tint to dark shades in just a few minutes.
Toxic fumes in lab................................
Maybe I should bring up the matter of toxic fumes by conventional tinting units
It has been discussed at other occasions, but it would not harm anybody if would warm up the sibject again as it affects nearly everybody in the optical business. I have seen hundreds of stores in past years and most have a tinting unit in the back lab in some corner without any ventilation to the outside, and that creates serious problems to the health of people working there.
click on blue link for press release:
Hundreds of Thousands of Optical Stores and Optical Labs Endanger Employees Health by Emitting Toxic Fumes Inside Their ...(PRWEB) July 26, 2005 -- Most optical stores and prescription laboratories (estimating about 80% in North America) are doing lens tinting operations by means of conventional lens tinting units, whi...
That press release...Maybe I should bring up the matter of toxic fumes by conventional tinting units
It has been discussed at other occasions, but it would not harm anybody if would warm up the sibject again as it affects nearly everybody in the optical business. I have seen hundreds of stores in past years and most have a tinting unit in the back lab in some corner without any ventilation to the outside, and that creates serious problems to the health of people working there.
click on blue link for press release:
Was it put together by an independent party?
Independent.....................
If you would have read it down to the bottom you would have seen that my name is at the bottom.
And yes, i am an independent party.................not dependant of anybody else than my customers of which I make a living and I am thankful to them. I am besides my family, not dependent on anyone else,, isn't that a nice way to be?
The press release and its subject has been discussed on the optiboard, the subject of toxic fumes emitted by tinting units is a fact. That many are used without ventilation to the outside is also a fact. That people have gone sick because of it is also a fact. There is one active optiboard poster who posted a few items about getting sick because of inadequate ventilation in the lab.
There are currently 1 users browsing this thread. (0 members and 1 guests)
Posting Permissions
Reply With Quote
Bookmarks