April 201919MANUFACTURINGTECHNOLOGYINSIGHTSAnti-reflective (AR) coating for eyeglasses is increasingly popular with consumers ­ for aesthetic reasons, for improved vision (eyeglass lenses with AR are more transparent than uncoated lenses) and most recently for blue light protection from heavy screen use. If it's so popular, why does it typically take 3-5 days to get coated lenses from an ophthalmic manufacturing lab? One of the main bottlenecks in labs is the coating room due to long lens degas and hard coat cure times combined with the fact that large batches are being coated, which adds time since batching means that lenses have to be accumulated. These processes can take as long as 10 hours. But there's a better way with an innovative approach to AR coating: Express AR, producing lens coatings in just 1.5-2 hours. Furthermore, Express AR almost completely automates the coating process, which traditionally is very manual labor intensive.The new process begins with blanks that have factory hard and AR coatings as well as a special grip layer already applied on the front side. This happens in large mass manufacturing facilities. Coating only one side, the back side, in the local lab greatly reduces process time and increases the throughput of any box coater. Express AR uses three special components:· An alloy-free lens blocking technology can be used inside a box coater without affecting the pump down time or the AR stack. This also protects the pre-applied front side coating during the lens surfacing and degassing processes.By Brian Peterson, Sr. Director, Coating Technologies, Satisloh NAA New Fast and Automated Way to Manufacture Eyeglass CoatingsCXO INSIGHTSExpress AR almost completely automates the coating process, which traditionally is very manual labor intensive
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