manual blocker

[gogetter]

Yes its me again......heres the prob....our ancient lab has a Horizon III edger connected to an Optronics frame tracer (pain in the A**). well i have finally managed to figure it out.....now i need help figuring out the Manual blocker....so heres where im at...ok i got the SV blocking down....FPD - PPD /2= INset....so lets say, after the math is done i have 4. so i put the R lens under the blocker move the manual plate to the right which puts the mark correctly in quadrant 1 of the crosshair (thats as best as i can explain it)......so if anyone is familiar with this machine can you please give me specific instructions how to do a FT and Prog.....Machine Description.....Faded tan Metal (LOL).....on/off light switch bottom front right... circular discentration window front center.....blocking plate w 2 knobs....knob on left for moving slab vertical.....knob on left for moving slab horizontal.....lens bloker lever sticks out horizontally (facing the machine front to front)....lens blocker pull down handel on right side (pull down like a casino slot machine)....takes metal blockers that have the etching of vintage Key ..kinda looks like an upside down backwards F)....deblocker is attached to top of the blocker and sits on the right side of the machine.....hope the discription helps.......does this machine have a name??? HELP!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[The Mighty Mutt]

i'm glad to see that my lab isn't the only one left using this dinosaur. Yours sounds like a newer model than mine, but still sounds like the same principle. there should be some markers on the layout "slide" for blocking up lined multifocals, 28mm and 35mm. On mine, they are marked with blue and red lines respectively. When your blocking up bifocals and trifocals, you should use the patient's near pd and it's best not to split the pd's (for example don't use a 2.5mm inset for the right and 5mm for the left). Anyhoo, if for example, your blocking a FT28 bifocal at 2mm inset, move the slide to the 2mm mark and center the corners of the seg between the 28mm markers on the slide. The vertical decentration is a little hard to master manually. The problem being that the top of the "flat top" isn't exactly flat. It will have a noticeable dip in the top center part of the seg. if you need to go 4mm down, line up the corners of the seg on the 4mm mark, so that the rest of the seg is touching the top of the 5mm mark.

Progressives. the "T" or "+" in center of the top line is what you will be paying attention to in the part. the bottom line is mostly used for leveling the lens. horizontal decentration will not be any different from any other lens type, and if you need to go 3mm up, the "T" or "+" will line up at the 3mm mark.

SV lenses with prism is where things get tricky....at least for me

I'm not very good at explaining things without being able to do it visually, so i hope this helped. I think this animal we're working with is called a finish layout blocker.

~TMM

[Fezz]

Sounds like you got the AIT Speede Blocker.


Have you made any friends locally in the business? It may be time to if you haven't already. It sounds like you have gotten yourself in rather deep. A local fellow Optician who does lab work may be worth looking up. Maybe you could get them to show you how some of this stuff works. Once you see it done....it is really rather easy.

[DragonLensmanWV]

Sounds like you got the AIT Speede Blocker.


Have you made any friends locally in the business? It may be time to if you haven't already. It sounds like you have gotten yourself in rather deep. A local fellow Optician who does lab work may be worth looking up. Maybe you could get them to show you how some of this stuff works. Once you see it done....it is really rather easy.

Yeah, that sounds like the AIT Speede blocker. We still use one every day. After 28 years, the only thing that's gone "bad" is we have to tighten up the allen screw that secures the blocking handle frequently.
I'll look around, I might still have our manual, IIRC it's only a few pages long. I could scan them for you or you could call AIT and have them send you one.

[Kyle]

Gotta love the Speede.

We just replaced the bulb housing - the contact wire had worn through the fibrous "buffer" pad and would get pushed out completely whenever we inserted a bulb. A little compressed air, an alcohol swab on the mirror and we're golden!

There are a few similar blockers out there but the Speede (at least for me) is to blocking as the B&L70 is to neutralizing/marking.

And who you callin' vintage??? I RESEMBLE THAT REMARK.

[180]

Does anyone know of a free website that you can enter in frame measurements/pd to get the decentration specs for the manual blockers?

[optical24/7]

Does anyone know of a free website that you can enter in frame measurements/pd to get the decentration specs for the manual blockers?

You should be able to figure it in your head or at most a piece of paper faster than even clicking on a web site.

(eye size + DBL - PD / 2)

[Jacqui]

You should be able to figure it in your head or at most a piece of paper faster than even clicking on a web site.

(eye size + DBL - PD / 2)

I learned that on my first day in the business

[180]

Thanks, That's not a big deal and your right for SV. However, sometimes part timers don't care as much as people paying the bills.... Thought that may be easier but maybe not.

[MikeAurelius]

If you have a computer nearby, write a quick and dirty spreadsheet program to do it.

[180]

That's a great idea! Anybody have such an animal so I don't have to recreate the wheel? It's been awhile since I wrote spreadsheets on excel....

[MikeAurelius]

A1 = Far PD (entry)
A2 = Frame A Box (entry)
A3 = Frame DBL (entry)

A4 = ( (A2 + A3) - A1) / 2

[MikeAurelius]

And if you don't have Excel, here's some freeware (Apache Open Office): http://www.openoffice.org/download/

Fully compatible with Microsoft Office.

[180]

That worked great!!!! Exactly what I wanted. I need to do the same for Vertical as well.

Thank you :)

[MikeAurelius]

B1 = Full B measurement (entry)
B2 = Segment Height (entry)

B3 = ( B1 / 2 ) - B2

Note if B3 is negative, seg line is above center