Lens cleaning

Ok... so i had a spare green laser that i decided i would use for a lens cleaning experiment, so here goes:

1. (NEW/CLEAN) Womans Makeup brush <-Perfect

2. Microfibre cloth <- NO GOOD! You will only make the problem worse!

3. Canned Compressed air <- Didn't seem to make any difference in my case.

4. Q-tip AKA Swab.. (With or without alcohol/White spirit) <- NO GOOD!

5. Microphone head from (NEW xbox live headset) AKA Sponge <- Totally Perfect!... Don't apply to much pressure, a gentle poke and twist is all you need

6. Lenspens's have also been confirmed to work very well, I did not test because i don't have one.

Hope someone finds this useful.

EDIT: Prior to trying these the lens was not covered in dirt... Just alot of spatter around the dot indicating dirt was present.



-Paul

I must try using my xbox's mic sponge

nice tips for beginners

I've actually used a Q-tip with window cleaner and it worked like a charm... Only did one 360 degree turn with each Q-tip though

+1 EDIT: cant at the moment... Wont forget though...

You might want to add lenspen's aswell

Added.

Yeah i was thinking window cleaner, but i didn't have any left heheh, when you done that, was there a very noticeable decrease in "spatter" around the dot?

Make sure your xbox mic sponge is new and clean, i wouldn't want you biting my nuts off

I also hear that CD Lens fluid can restore an optic coating but you must leave it to evaporate rather than wiping or cleaning it off with anything... surely that's not going to work though unless you have the lens clean beforehand, seems to me like just a good form of protection.

You might want to be a bit more specific than just "window cleaner".
I have access to 3 kinds of "window cleaner" here at work.
The first is an alcohol based store brand with color and fragrance added. Hate this stuff. Why do you need your windows to smell "nice" ? Last thing I actually want is a bunch of no good window nose prints to look at because somebody stopped to sniff my glass.
The second is keytone based. This is a more industrial version used for it's guaranteed "no-streak finish". The fumes are harmful and as it is more of a solvent than a detergent there can be many detrimental effects when applied to the wrong types of surfaces. (It will eat/melt away some plastics !) Use a lot of it in a small closed room and you can get a kind of "buzz" that may never go away ! (brain damage !)
The third is a really old container of some sort of "mystery" cleaner without proper labelling. It smells more like a laquer thinner type of solution (but much milder) and I can't see it not leaving a residue of some type behind but for a few types of cleaning on a certain few types of glass this is the only thing that works. The color of the glass prevents you seeing the residual film.

So perhaps the inclusion of the type of "window cleaner" you mean. Not all are the same.

I used acetone, iso-propanol or methanol on lens papers in the university lab to clean optics. But with pulsed YAG or Ti:Sa lasers things really have to be clean.

Well, I use windex to clean my glass and that's what I use for lenses.

This is a good read on the subject. :beer:

http://www.thorlabs.com/tutorials.cfm?tabID=26066

Thats a good page!

+1

this stuff is the legit
FIRST CONTACT Polymer Optics Cleaner - opticlean

LaZeRz said:

Thats a good page!

+1

Click to expand...

Thanks LaZeRz it is a good page. I'v been pretty happy with that company and its services.

as I said in some other thread:

i was never able to clean a lens perfectly with qtip with ethanol or without one... and i did some experimenting and i found that
a dry tip of a rumpled soft piece of toilet paper does the job pretty well,

I have cleaned the window of a 445nm diode this way, where
I couldn't do it with qtip.

hope it works for you too.

Click to expand...

would windex multisurface work

20gasmith said:

would windex multisurface work

Click to expand...

I wouldn't use it... I forgot where I saw a cleaning "kit" at. I'll try and find it for ya

I wouldn't use anything but canned air or a lens brush on a plastic lens. From what I got from the post we are discussing a plastic lens and not glass.
With plastic lenses the bottom line is really to not touch it. Just about everything will scratch those cheap pen lasers lenses.
As far as all the different glass lenses people sell take a look at the threads really close and usually you will see they are full of debris and sometimes oily so be careful handling them. Lots of times if you look at your clean fingers they aren't so clean after touching them.

here just gonna throw this in here since i dont have time to post atm. https://marketplace.idexop.com/Frontend/PDFs/cleaning_methods.pdf

First of all, i'd never use any product that left a residue when it dries up. This is a problem with basically anything that contains soaps sush as windex and all.

Personally i often use a mixture of about 1:1 deionized water and p.a. grade isopropanol to clean things like lenses, output windows and such.

What works best depends on what you are trying to clean and what it is contaminated with, but the the pure water/ipa mix seems to work very well for most issues. I also use it to clean surfaces of computer screens, tablets and phones since it just works extremely well.

For me the best method is to allow it some time (a minute or two) and then wipe the surface clean with a microfibre cloth. Anything that's not removed with that is probably baked on, though you can try pure isopropanol to get rid of it if the material allows this.

Note here is that by 'pure' isopropanol i mean 'pro analyse' grade, not some cleaning product sold for desinfectation or other household use. It costs $10-$20 a litre or so, but with the small amounts required a litre will last you for years.