lens cleaning help

My Evo pro 130mW got smudges on the lens and I need cleaning tips. I've read around and I've found that people use alcohol, but at the moment I do not have any alcohol.

However, I do have eye drops. Would eye drops be suitable for cleaning my lens?

I've been reading up on this, since recently I'd done the same thing to my custom green.

I have a removable module on mine which makes it slightly easier, from seeking help from a few people over at photonlexicon, I'll give a a run down on some of the PM's:

First head for a pharmacy or chemists I belive you call them. Tell them what your doing and tell them the tool of choice is a wood sticked cotton tip swab. They should be able to sell you a sealed pack for about 2 euros.

Next you need some acetone, which can be used to gently remove the dust or crap on the lens, then you need some methanol which removes the residue acetone leaves.

Make sure you get very pure stuff, and not the cheap rubbish that is transferred in 55 gallon tubs.

The other option is:

Rob (Stanwax) over at photonlexicon.com, he sells some polymer lens cleaner. It's not cheap, but a small bottle will last forever! You just paint this on the offending optic, let it dry and then peel it off. It comes off the lens in a sort of stretchy sheet that contains all the dirt and dust that was on the lens. This leaves the lens pristinely clean

Well hope this helps.

Pilgor said:

My Evo pro 130mW got smudges on the lens and I need cleaning tips. I've read around and I've found that people use alcohol, but at the moment I do not have any alcohol.

However, I do have eye drops. Would eye drops be suitable for cleaning my lens?

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I would not use eye drops. usually eye drops contain saline, and or other minerals. They may not harm the lens, but could leave a residue.

use a cotton tip with some distilled water.
Why cant you get some isospray alcohol. You can find it at any pharmacy or grocery store, usually sold as rubbing alcohol. Usually costs less then a $1.

I read somwhere (here on LPF) that a Q-tip wrapped in Teflon tape works good. I have not tried it yet because none of my lenses are dirty.

My 100'th post YAAAH!

Cotton would probably be ok in this application. But I wouldn't trust it, you just never know if there was a process error and you get something hard in there that scratches. Lens tissue should be easy to find online.

At work we use only lens tissue and methanol. IPA, even 100% leave a residue which can cloud up a lens and really decrease power in a heart beat. And we only use lens tissue, but I have to be concerned about telecentricity, plane power and wavefront aberrations.

130mW with such a small beam as these make, I would be concerned the power was enough to harm something with the residue that IPA would leave behind. But then again I am probably over anal about it.

maybe a tissue used to clean camera lens will be OK

lens tissue - Google Product Search

I would imagine any of these would be OK. Ones without a solution already in them. Just dry wipes.

http://secure.sciencecompany.com/Methyl-Alcohol-ACS-Methanol-16oz-P6657C670.aspx

rpaloalto said:

Why cant you get some isospray alcohol. You can find it at any pharmacy or grocery store, usually sold as rubbing alcohol. Usually costs less then a $1.

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I don't know about OP's situation, but here in Russia they stopped selling rubbing alcohol at pharmacies a few years ago because people were buying it for cheap and drank instead of vodka I'm serious BTW. Now it's a prescription drug.

EDIT: one of my relatives has a friend who's daughter works at a pharmacy, that's how I got my two little bottles