Cleaning a.r. coated lenses

Hello everyone. My question might be a no brainer, but being a newbie, I figure its the only way to learn!
Can you safely clean a lense with an a.r. coating applied to it, with any of the many commercial glass cleaners available today?
Do you risk wiping the coating off the glass?
Is there such a thing as a spray on aftermarket coating?
And if so, where would you find it?
Many thanks.

If the coating is on the inside of the lens, you won't be able to clean it off without dismantling the light. If there is a coating on the outside, any cleaner picked up in your local Opticians should be fine as it's the same type of coating that is placed on spectacles.

This begs a further question though.

If the lens has an AR coating on both sides, is this better than one side ?

Put another way, the light comes up to the lens, because of the AR coating, more light passes into the glass. When that light tries to leave the glass it would usually reflect another small bit back. For example of this, shine a laser through a thick piece of glass, you get two reflected dots. One when it enters the glass and one when it leaves.

If there is an AR coating on the outside of the glass, does the inner/glass side of the AR coat also work ? Does an AR coating only work from the air to the glass or does it also work from the glass to the air ??

Anyone know ?


I don't know if you can get DIY AR coatings.

An A.R. coating works on ANY air to glass surface, because light will be reflected equally both from planes of egress and ingress. Light makers like 4sevens which put it only on the inside are going for a compromise between durability and maximum transmission by replacing the outer a.r. coating with a scratch-resistant sapphire coating.

Here is a recent thread discussing cleaning methods.

After-market 'spray coatings' are not available. The optical coating process is done through vapor deposition and requires a precise and consistent thickness to be effective.

I clean my lens with whatever clean cloth or shirt that is handy and have never had a problem. Having to treat the flashlight lens as it was a SLR camera lens takes away some of the utility of an EDC light. I buy lights that can be used and not have it or its AR coating to be babied.

Regards.

Very few lights will have AR coating on the outside of the lens - even fewer factory produced lights.

MY said:

I clean my lens with whatever clean cloth or shirt that is handy and have never had a problem. Having to treat the flashlight lens as it was a SLR camera lens takes away some of the utility of an EDC light. I buy lights that can be used and not have it or its AR coating to be babied.

Regards.

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+1-- A flashlight is a tool to emit light, and the glass is not the same optical quality nor does it have the same delicate multiple coatings of the outer element of a fine, but very rugged Zeiss or Nikkor lens.

Any minute scratches or dust particles on a flashlight "lens" will have negligible effect on the output of the light, and in normal use would be completely undetectable. The outer glass of a flashlight would have to be extremely dirty and gouged with scratches before the effect on its output would even be noticeable.

Of course if you want to invest in special photographic lens cleaning cloths, dust brushes and solutions to clean your flashlight no harm will be done, but its rugged utility as a tool is no longer its purpose, and you might want to also buy a special satin pillow for it to sleep on too.

sabre7 said:

...and you might want to also buy a special satin pillow for it to sleep on too.

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ROTFLMAO!!!

You may laugh, but I think it's go good idea.

But seriously, I don't use special solutions of cloths on the window of my lights, either. Shirttail, blanket, paper towel or whatever piece of cloth comes to hand, really.

harro said:

Hello everyone. My question might be a no brainer, but being a newbie, I figure its the only way to learn!
Can you safely clean a lense with an a.r. coating applied to it, with any of the many commercial glass cleaners available today?
Do you risk wiping the coating off the glass?
Is there such a thing as a spray on aftermarket coating?
And if so, where would you find it?
Many thanks.

Click to expand...

Pure Isopropyl Alcohol and lint free wipes such as polyester cloth wipes.
Cotton/polyester blend T shirts have always worked well enough. Don't use acetone and don't spit on the surface to clean A/R coatings. If it has a good A/R coating its simple enough to just use the Ispropyl Alcohol. You may know it as rubbing alcohol.

Many of the spray bottles of eye glass cleaner is nothing more than Alcohol and pure water solutions which will work just fine for A/R coated lenses.

From some of the other responses here, it may be known as the emergency drinking alcohol.

I'm also known as the Clicky lens killer here... :nana:

I have a dustophobia or dirtophobia. While I always treated my photographic equipment nice and with special cloth and cleaning liquids, the lenses rarely got dirty as I used covers and didn't stick the cameras in my pockets (try that with an SLR!!!).

My flashights however are carried in my pocket and besides that some are jewels, they should be considered as tools. While I know I shouldn't clean the lenses with my pullover and knowing also that dust isn't hat dramatic for the output, my phobia makes me wipe the dust off all the time and if I don't pay attention, I touch the lens with my fingers in the pocket which means rubbing until the grease is gone... :shakehead

I'm used to have scratches instead of tools, on my SLRs I cleaned the mirrors, on my Mags I cleaned the reflectors. Yeah, that's bad, and it's worse because I would do it again when I see dust on them.

Flashlights should have a A coating on the inside and a sort of diaamond coating or another specialtreatment to make surfaces smooth, so that dirt gets off easily. I should only buy such lights or at least let the other ones in the showcase. But they are tools, also those with double AR coating, especially the Ra Clicky!

If you are not ill : Use special cleaning cloth like microfiber which is made for optics, perhaps some special liquid or alcohol if there's much dirt and don't clean more often than necessary! :thumbsup:

was.lost.but.now.found said:

Very few lights will have AR coating on the outside of the lens - even fewer factory produced lights.

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I just bought a UCL for my Maglite and it appears to have the AR coating on both sides of the glass. At least when I hold it up to the sunlight the glass has the very slight bluish coloring on both sides and I'm assuming that that coloring is the AR coating.

I hate dirty lens also and I know one day after cleaning its gonna have dirt or dust on it again but I clean them every so often anyway. I like to use the pre-moistened eye glass cleaners. I have never scratched a lens cleaning one and they seem not to leave a milky looking coating behind as much as alcohol and cotton.

If you wanna see the absolute cleanest lens, try this. Use lamp black. It's essentially just pure carbon. It absorbs oily films like no one's business. I found out by trying to find what makes lens pens so effective. It's not even that hard to procure. Just take a piece of glass like the bottom of a drinking cup and take a zippo or oil burning lighter or candle and run it under the glass making a sooty mark. Then fold a tissue into a tight applicator wad and wipe up the carbon and use that to wipe the surface. I've found it is the gentlest to use on my multicoated camera filters which are pretty much impossible to get completely clean even with lens tissues and alcohol, the oil just wants to stick to the coating more than the tissue. It is also very fast, only a couple wipes instead of wiping, buffing, polishing, breathing on it and repeating thereby further minimizing the possibility of scratching since you're only touching the lens for a couple wipes.

Locoboy5150 said:

I just bought a UCL for my Maglite and it appears to have the AR coating on both sides of the glass. At least when I hold it up to the sunlight the glass has the very slight bluish coloring on both sides and I'm assuming that that coloring is the AR coating.

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Right, what I was getting at is the more custom kind of stuff you get the more likely it is to have AR coating on both sides. You're not generally going to get fully coated optics on a stock Maglite.

Thanks for some good ideas everyone. Most of my flashlights are showponies, but a few of them are edc and workers, and these are the ones my questions refered to. Many thanks:thumbsup:

I did the lamp black thing and all I can say is thanks a million.
as it works great removing those unidentifiables on my lenses

Hey, if lamp black works that well, just think how clean and clear they would be after you wiped them down a black permanent marker or some White-Out!

:devil:

Jvalera said:

I did the lamp black thing and all I can say is thanks a million.
as it works great removing those unidentifiables on my lenses

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qwertyydude said:

If you wanna see the absolute cleanest lens, try this. Use lamp black. It's essentially just pure carbon. It absorbs oily films like no one's business. I found out by trying to find what makes lens pens so effective. It's not even that hard to procure. Just take a piece of glass like the bottom of a drinking cup and take a zippo or oil burning lighter or candle and run it under the glass making a sooty mark. Then fold a tissue into a tight applicator wad and wipe up the carbon and use that to wipe the surface. I've found it is the gentlest to use on my multicoated camera filters which are pretty much impossible to get completely clean even with lens tissues and alcohol, the oil just wants to stick to the coating more than the tissue. It is also very fast, only a couple wipes instead of wiping, buffing, polishing, breathing on it and repeating thereby further minimizing the possibility of scratching since you're only touching the lens for a couple wipes.

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Or you can get the Lenspen like you mentioned which uses the same principle without the complicated science experiment. It's not that expensive.

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00006JN3G/?tag=cpf0b6-20

I have it and it works really well

qwertyydude said:

If you wanna see the absolute cleanest lens, try this. Use lamp black. It's essentially just pure carbon. It absorbs oily films like no one's business. I found out by trying to find what makes lens pens so effective. It's not even that hard to procure. Just take a piece of glass like the bottom of a drinking cup and take a zippo or oil burning lighter or candle and run it under the glass making a sooty mark. Then fold a tissue into a tight applicator wad and wipe up the carbon and use that to wipe the surface. I've found it is the gentlest to use on my multicoated camera filters which are pretty much impossible to get completely clean even with lens tissues and alcohol, the oil just wants to stick to the coating more than the tissue. It is also very fast, only a couple wipes instead of wiping, buffing, polishing, breathing on it and repeating thereby further minimizing the possibility of scratching since you're only touching the lens for a couple wipes.

Click to expand...

Take lighter,make soot,wipe up soot with tissue,use tissue to clean lens.

Now it doesn't get any easier then that!

I'll keep my 15 bucks

Thanks for the tip!