Ultra Optics Back Side Coater

[Mike Fretto]

Is anyone familiar with the Ultra Optics Back Side Coating Machine? My home office has a small full service lab and they bought one for their use. For some reason it never got off the ground so I end up with it. They bring it down and set it up and give me a crash course on how it works. Its been one problem after the other. Now Ultra Optics is telling me weve been using the wrong coating for our system. It seems our's recirculates the coating and the coating were using is designed for draining in a bottle and throwing the waste away. Heres the kicker the coating were using is $80.00 a quart and what they want me to buy is $500.00 for 8 ounces. So here's my question can I convert my machine to drain and pitch instead of recirculating. They say no, spindle speeds are different and upgrading would cost $2,000.00 What a racket!!!

[Steve Machol]

Mike,

The two coating resins are drastically different. There's no doubt in my mind that your coating machine would need some major modifications to handle the solvent based resins. In fact, I'm kind of surprised that the modifications only cost $2000. I honestly would have expected this to be higher.

Sorry - I'm sure that's not what you wanted to hear!

------------------
Steve
OptiBoard Administrator

[Jim G]

Mike. I can understand your frustration BUT, even with the initial cost of the coating, the cost per lens for the $500 goop is equal to (or, maybe even a little less than) the stuff at $80.00. It is also solvent free (less dangerous, no special shipping, etc.), does not require any special disposal procedures and provides a harder coating. All in all, you're MUCH better off where you are.

In fairness to all, I work for the company that owns Ultra Optics but base my answer more on what customers are saying than any personal bias. Steve can back me up on that.

[Pete Hanlin]

I managed a lab that had an Ultra Optics unit when I was living in Pennsylvania. As with any new piece of equipment that entered my lab, I visited some labs that were already using it for advice.

As a result, I pretty much followed Ultra Optics instructions to the letter. The labs that tried to "cut corners" always had a lot of problems with the equipment. To my recollection, we never had a problem with our unit (wait till you have to change the UV lamp, though $$$).

Coincidentally, we did have one spectacular failure with the coating... We had one of those patients who was annoyed that she could see the "invisible" manufacturer markings on her PAL. We figured we would eliminate them by coating the front surface of a pair of PALs. Well, we got the coating on fine- and it eliminated the markings just as expected- unfortunately it peeled pretty quickly (she went out in the rain and the cool raindrops pretty much blew the coating right off). Seems you can't apply the coating over top of another hard coat...
Pete

[Rick Tinson]

Gee Mike. Is it Ford's fault if your car doesn't work because you put alcohol in the tank instead of gasoline? The coating and the coater are designed to work as a system, just like the gasoline and your engine. Changing that system should be approximately as difficult as converting your car to run on alternative fuels. And that's what you just found out.

Do some homework, and you'll probably find that using the solventless recirculated coating system gives you:

a) a harder coating
b) fewer rejects
c) less coating cost per lens, especially when you factor labor in
d) fewer environmental worries

Ultra Optics didn't just stumble into the design you've got. Give the system the chance to run correctly.

[Jim G]

Pete & Rick. Bless you for your comments. But, as you know, every surface jockey knows how to make a lens better than anyone else (including the manufacturers). Besides, being men, we never read the directions anyway!!!

[Jeff Trail]

Jim,

I thought you would have known it's a "gene" thing... it's in the DNA string right by the "I don't need no stinking map to tell me how to go anywhere" gene :)

Jeff " never gets lost..or is that never admits to being losted" Trail

[Rick Tinson]

Originally posted by Jim G:
Pete & Rick. Bless you for your comments. But, as you know, every surface jockey knows how to make a lens better than anyone else (including the manufacturers). Besides, being men, we never read the directions anyway!!!

Well, Jim. I wouldn't read the directions either. I resent the assault on my manhood to suggest that I would<g>. But I would stop short of having to rig some fancy plumbing to shove the wrong goop into the machine.
RT

[Mike Fretto]

I feel like I need to clear a couple things up there seems to be some confusion or better yet an inability to read the original post carefully. 1st of all the system was up and running at one of our other locations, but there was an unwillingness to work with Poly at this location so the decision was made to send it to me. THEY brought it down and set it up and showed me how to run it. after a month or two the system got all plugged up. It seems the wrong coating was being used from the start, this system can be used either as a recirculating system with a small holding tank for the coating, or as a drain and pitch with seperate types of coating for each. Our system is set up with the small holding tank but THEY were using the drain and pitch coating. There is a higher pecentage of solvents in the cheaper drain and pitch type so when THEY tried to recycle the coating after a period of time the solvents evaporate out and your left with a thick, heavy, plug up the machine, coating. So maybe now it can be seen that the same basic machine is capable of using two types of coating with the exception of the speed at which the coating is spun off. This is where the upgrade comes in, different circuitry causes the machine to handle the different coatings. By the way we went with the manufacturers suggestion of the better coating and everything is working fine. Thanks for the input.