Cleaning inside of lens

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lumenjunkie

lumenjunkie

Newly Enlightened
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Jul 11, 2005
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Palm Beach Gardens, FL
Hi, I have a couple of Streamlight Ultrastingers with a slight fog-like film on the inside of the lens. Anyone have any ideas on how to clean the inside of the lens without leaving a film or screwing up the reflector?? Thanks!!
 
You'll have to get the head apart and expose the lens. I have cleaned the insides of my lenses with a Q-tip and pure isopropyl alcohol. You have to be careful not to use too much alcohol and make sure you don't leave any strands of cotton fiber behind. Use a hairdryer to evaporate the alcohol quickly.

Don't touch the reflector if at all possible. IMHO its better to leave debris on the reflector than to try and scrub it off.

*note I've only done this with NON-coated lenses*
 
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Unless the window is easily removeable, I wouldn't try it. The material may have an anti-reflective coating on the back, which can be very delicate. Have you contacted Streamlight about sending it back?
 
I have to do this with my Sams HID. I would use denatured alcohol because isopropyl still have a lot of water in it and more likely to streak.
 
Tensix said:
I have to do this with my Sams HID. I would use denatured alcohol because isopropyl still have a lot of water in it and more likely to streak.
Click to expand...

I have a few of the Sams HID, now owned by Vector. Looks likethe lens is held in place with has these stupid tri tip screw heads. That looks like it should pull the retaining ring off to remove the cheap plastic lens. I found a place to buy the tri tip screwdriver online for about $8.00, (will post after I find it again) and I am gonna replace the lens with a high quality one. Anyone have an ideas on a replacement lens for the Sams Hid?

Thanks!
 
Cleaning the inside and outside of lenses is neat and easy with a LENSPEN. No need for wasteful swabs and alcohol :thumbsup: .
 
If you can find 91% isopropyl it works better than the 70%. Some pharmacies sell 99% and that works great. I haven't used a pure denatured ethanol, but I'm sure it'll work as advertised above. :)

My experience (mostly UCLs and camera filters if they've gotten really gunky) is that alcohol is not going to hurt most coated glass. I'd be a little wary using it on plastics without testing it on a particular sample... Note you do have to be careful of the alcohol dissolving the glue that binds the glass to the threaded rings for filters and the body of a camera lens, etc.

I have installed and cleaned lenses in various things and for that I use a trick I read about in an article about opening and working on hard disk drives at home. Apparently you can temporarily strip most of the dust out of the air in a bathroom by running the shower on hot for few minutes until a bunch of steam is formed, turning the water off and waiting several more minutes for the droplets of water to settle-out. Supposedly the air in the room after this is remarkably dust-free. (I'd be interested to know how much difference this makes quantitatively...)

The few Mag's with UCLs I've done in this sort of environment do seem to have have very little residual dust in them. I clean the lenses wearing power-free nitrile gloves, using some strong isopropyl alcohol and soft cotton cloths (e.g. freshly washed undershirts, no fabric softeners). Wash your gloved hands with the alcohol to remove any residual oils before starting. After cleaning the lens, carefully use a blower to get any cotton lint off the lens before assembly...
 
Zeiss lens cloth...Zeiss has optics that are some of the finest in the world IMO.Although a flashlight lens is slightly diffrent ,good question,lets have an expert chime in.:thinking:
 
I would use either the lens pen, which was mentioned previously, or eyeglass lens cleaner and the associated lint-free cloth that often comes with the cleaner. I have a cleaner, easily obtainable at any vision center, that is specifically designed for glasses with AR coatings.

What I do is make a little tube using some scrap paper. I insert it into the bezel to protect my cleaning cloth from the lube on the bezel's threads. Then I start cleaning.
 
There is a reason why Nikon recommends and rebrands the LENSPEN for use on even their highest end DSLR lenses.
 
I looked at a lenspen in a shop once, and I found that it had some black carbon stuff in it - I wiped it on my finger and it made a black smudge. I did a google but I didn't find any good explanation of why carbon black is used. :confused: And most of the lens cleaner products used some or other liquid.

What is denatured alcohol? And where can I get some? Now I need to go look at the label on the isopropyl alcohol I bought at a pharmacy and see what it says - I can't remember. But if it leaves any streaks, they're too faint for my vision.
 
What I use is microfiber cloth to clean lenses, screens, lcd's etc etc. I would never use alcohol on any lens, a damp microfiber cloth brings it up like new everytime. Most camera manufacturer's recommend microfiber on the lens and lcd viewing screen. Same deal for reading/sunglasses, only microfiber.

Steve
 
As an optical physicist, I typically clean loose unmounted lenses by placing a Kimwipe (lint-free tissue paper) on the lens, applying a drop of methanol, and then gently pulling the Kimwipe off the side. Repeat as necessary. This is normally safe for most coated glass optics.

I wouldn't try to mess around with the metal reflector coating other than gently blowing dust off it with a N2 gun or compressed air. A large mirror may potentially be cleaned using the above described method, but it is risky and probably impossible given the curvature of flashlight reflectors.
 
A clean microfiber cloth is pretty safe to use on AR coatings. I wouldn't do it too often but they usually hold up just fine. If the microfiber doesn't get it off use a mild soap and water solution (I recommend 20:1 water to johnson's baby shampoo) to clean the residue and then use a microfiber cloth to get all of that out, you won't need much liquid, just a drop or two.
 
As always, you guys came shining (haha) through with some great ideas! I forgot about the microfiber trick. I had used that once and it worked well with a stint section with a drop of isopropyl alcohol, and inserted with a cue tip and kinda swished around the inside of the lens. Then a debris blow out with a canned air blower. I am gonna try out the other new methods I saw here.

Swear to God , my Wife said: "of hell - just run the thing the through the dishwasher." I said sure, and we will run a pair of your Ferragamos in there with the beautiful ultrastinger head lol.
 
I just noticed the lens to the Ultrastinger is plastic. Uhhh! Anyone ever seen one with actual [optical] glass in it?

Re: cleaning the reflector - any time I tried that, even with the most delicate brand new, optical clothes, it produced fine scratches, (which made me sick). Learned the hard way on that with one of my SF 10X911's!
 
Yeah stay away from aluminized reflectors unless absolutely necessary. If you must I recommend using your clean freshly washed finger and some water+ baby shampoo followed by a rinse in the purest water you can get, tap, distilled, deionized. Then use a bulb/compressed air to dry it.
 
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