By Coburn Technologies, Inc. Staff

Optical professionals spanning the globe can all agree… the year 2020 (a most fitting year for the optical industry) posed some of the biggest challenges of their lifetime: mandated shutdowns, economic downturn, distance from customers and clients, and overall uncertainty. Each business was impacted in some way, and though 2021 looks more promising, last year’s unprecedented circumstances have created lasting stress on businesses.

Nevertheless, hard times can also breed extraordinary innovation and ideas. At Coburn, we kept our doors open as much as possible, and poured our efforts into five brand new products in our lens polishing, lens deblocking, lens coating and lens edging technologies. Our wish with these new products is to help customers launch into success in 2021!

Are you a smaller optical lens processing lab seeking high performance lens coating with more control of the coating process? The new Velocity LTE Spin Coating System is the perfect solution. Are you a larger lens lab seeking powerhouse automatic equipment? The new Agility Autodeblocker can replace time consuming manual deblocking. Are you an eyecare practice that is ready to upgrade your finishing lab with the fastest and easiest lens edging technology? HPE-910 EXXPERT Express Lens Edger is our most robust and feature-rich lens edger to-date.

Whether you are seeking one specific system, or you are deciding on a complete system, our sales team can walk you through each option, ensuring that you pick the technology that best fits your lab or practice’s unique needs. We are passionate about passing on our innovations to practices and labs; especially those vying for a strong comeback after setbacks from the 2020 health crisis.

For Optical Lens Finishing Labs

HPE-910 EXXPERT Express Lens Edger

One new lens finishing product that helped eyecare practices whether the storm of 2020 was our HPE-910 EXXPERT Express Lens Edger. What customers loved most about HPE-910 was its affordability as a higher volume, refined lens edging technology. They are thrilled to virtually eliminate paying edging fees, as this lens edger fits more frames than ever before. With 35 combinations of step bevel at hand, fulfilling even the most unique jobs is a breeze.

New to in-office lens finishing? No problem! For those who would like to ease their way into edging lenses, our trusty HPE-410 Excelon Lens Edger is great for new practices considering in-office finishing; or existing practices who would like to boost their offering. Our experienced sales representatives can help you calculate your return on investment with either lens edging option. Coburn leads the industry in equipment value, so you can be certain you are optimizing your practice for the best price on the market!

The Bottom Line: How HPE-910 Benefits Your Practice
HPE-910 EXXPERT Express Lens Edger is faster and offers more lens edging options for more patient frames, ensuring quick turnaround for jobs, and increasing patient satisfaction. And with an integrated drill, you can save space in your lab and finish jobs with less equipment and smaller footprint. Better yet, our equipment already beats most other lens edger pricing on the market, so you can rest assured you are getting the best price with the best return on your investment.

Watch the HPE-910 video on YouTube.

For Optical Lens Processing Labs

Agility Autodeblocker

We have been pioneers in the lens processing industry for over 65 years, and we have every intention to carry on our legacy. In 2020 we introduced Agility, the market’s cleanest and most agile deblocking system. It is quick and automated, deblocking up to 180 lenses per hour. Best of all, Agility deblocks two lenses simultaneously in one swift, mechanical motion; that’s right, no water is used for deblocking. Agility maintains the integrity of lens jobs while cleanly separating the alloy, and producing ZERO harmful, contaminated water waste. You have the option to have blocks dropped into a collection bin or reclaim tank, whichever works best for your lens processing lab.

Our engineers designed Agility Autodeblocker to run seamlessly with our Duality Lens De-taper & Cleaner and Velocity Automated Spin Coater. This lineup, now possible with Agility, automates the entire post-polishing process. Blocked and polished lenses are placed onto Agility’s conveyor, and exit the Velocity Coater in minutes, producing de-taped, clean, and coated lenses, ready for inspection. Request a quote today to see if Agility, or the Automated Post Polishing System, is right for your lens processing lab.

The Bottom Line: How Agility Benefits Your Practice
By just incorporating automated lens deblocking in your lens processing lab, you are increasing your throughput substantially. You no longer need to be held up by manual interactions and disruptions. Agility’s technology is reliable and convenient for labs trying to accommodate high volume. And by completely automating lens deblocking, lens de-taping and cleaning, and lens coating, you can focus on other important tasks rather than manually transferring lenses to each of your stations.

Watch the Agility Autodeblocker video on YouTube.

Velocity LTE Spin Coating System

Our Velocity Automated Spin Coater is an award-winning platform, but we saw the need in the industry for more control in the coating process and for a smaller volume of jobs; enter Velocity LTE. For small to mid-sized lens processing labs, Velocity LTE coats lenses using the same award-winning platform, but in a more controlled environment.

“Velocity LTE is a unique system that operates in a recipe-driven environment, allowing lens processing labs to optimize the coating process for different lens parameters”
Alex Incera, President, Coburn Technologies

Velocity LTE’s “recipe-driven environment” means labs are free to create custom cure profiles for certain lens materials. For example, operators can tailor their settings to eliminate warpage on higher index materials or adjust spin speeds and times to optimize film thickness. These metrics and parameters are process-driven directly from the user interface. And with each spindle having its own control board, the power is in the operator’s hands. Need to process many jobs quickly? Velocity LTE can process up to 80 lenses per hour.

The Bottom Line: How Velocity LTE Benefits Your Practice
Having a completely automated lens processing lab can be a great investment, but sometimes small to mid-sized labs are working with various custom jobs that require more fine tuning. At a small footprint, Velocity LTE remains quick and automated in the wash, coat, and cure stations, but allows for more operator control when inputting lenses. You can be confident that Velocity LTE will coat your lenses to their exact specifications the first time around.

Watch the Velocity LTE video on YouTube.

ProCoat Hard Coating

Over the years, our UVMAX and DURA-UV coatings have been our mainstay. Customers love how they perform, the improved yields at reduced costs, and compatibility to many lens substrates. However, we are always striving for better, and saw the opportunity to create an even more robust, feature-rich hard lens coating. Meticulously developed, our new ProCoat Hard Lens Coating is compatible with more lens materials and substrates than ever before. Better yet, ProCoat is highly tintable while maintaining high adhesion and abrasion resistance. And at an average of one bottle per machine per month, ProCoat has the longest life cycle of our hard lens coatings.

As experts in backside spin coating, we maintain high standards for harboring safe, effective, VOC-free recipes that surpass quality and purity criteria. With ProCoat, you no longer need to sacrifice abrasion resistance for tintability and vice versa. With this coating, you can check all the boxes!

The Bottom Line: How ProCoat Benefits Your Practice
Any of our coatings can deliver high abrasion resistance and high adhesion, but a bottle of ProCoat will last longer and is highly tintable. This broad array of features makes this coating perfect for increasing yields and fulfilling a wide range of lens coating jobs. ProCoat will also replace the need for multiple coatings, drastically decreasing your coating expenses.

Acuity Max Lens Polisher

Though we continue to develop technology for digital labs, we have not forgotten that many lens processing labs rely on traditional methods to deliver high quality lenses. We listened to the customers who expressed a need for innovative systems in the age of often expensive digital systems. This came in the form of a new “cut-to-polish” system, developed as a combination of our CTL65 Compact Lens Generator and the new Acuity Max Lens Polisher. Once off the lens generator, lenses are polished with Acuity Max using versatile soft tools in a two-step polishing process. This eliminates the need for bulky, labor-intensive hard tools and traditional fining and polishing pads. And with soft tools, operators can skip the fining process.

“Our CTL65 Compact Lens Generator already produces an excellent surface finish. Paired with Acuity Max, operators can skip the fining process, eliminate hard tools, and use innovative soft tools to produce more accurate lens powers than traditional hard lap tools.”
Ram Narayanan, Executive Director Asia Market, Coburn Technologies

The Bottom Line: How Acuity Max Benefits Your Practice
If you are currently using traditional hard tools and polishing pads for your lens polishing, Acuity Max provides a huge opportunity to save you time and money on equipment consumables. By replacing traditional hard tools with soft tools, you no longer need the storage of bulky tools and you produce more accurate lens powers. This means you can deliver a better product and satisfy more customers.

We promise to consistently innovate year after year, no matter what challenges arise. Eyecare practices and lens processing labs are still pining for higher efficiency and the chance to boost return on investment by choosing the best equipment for the best value. We at Coburn continue to deliver on the promise for value in lens processing, lens finishing, and ophthalmic diagnostic equipment. Together with our sales team, we can help you calculate estimated return on investment and tailor equipment specifically for your unique business. Whatever you can imagine for your business is possible by working with us!

Interested in gaining a boost for your optical business in 2021? Let’s start the conversation today!

Request a Quote   |   Talk to an Expert   |   Why to Consider In-Office Finishing