Innovations

Electro Forming

• Throughout our history in the electroforming business we have developed and sold technology to major manufacturers for the replication of optical molds. We are the only ophthalmic mold electroformer to have done this successfully on three separate occasions.
• We were the first to successfully deliver inserts for the injection molding of polycarbonate lens using electroformed molds.
• We bought and developed some of the first 3 axis (slow servo) diamond turning equipment for free formed surfaces used as finished inserts for polycarbonate injection molding or as masters for electroforming.
• The use of an electronic stress device has been an important part of our overall understanding of stress in the plated deposit of nickel.
• The use of solid state / programmable power supplies for the electroforming process that allow precise and repeatable control of plating deposition.

CNC Polishing

We have produced our own in-house CNC polishing equipment and process for reflector mandrels in an effort to provide better form accuracy to the final product providing faster and more efficient service to the customers.

Thin  Film Coating

• One of our first accomplishments with the coating department was the development of the Enhance Rhodium. This process isn’t new but was difficult enough to establish that very few are actually able to produce parts successfully. This process has allowed us to offer a reflective surface with a standard rhodium plated surface and improve the output from an average of 75% to that of aluminum range of 90%.
• Another coating developed in-house is our durable aluminum overcoat that goes down best on a diamond turned aluminum substrate which protects the surface through salt fog testing and increases the reflectivity to nearly 95% in the visible range.
• Our tooling design for the coating chamber allows for a reflector to rotate on its axis, tilted for the best “line of sight” angle while also rotating around the chamber as a whole unit allowing our coating to lay evenly (360 degrees) from the larger diameter to the smaller diameters.
• Customized tooling that matches different reflector geometry to work with our spectrometer so it will fit into the actual coated reflector for checking the reflectivity at a zero degree angle allowing for consistence and repeatable measurements.