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www.ECPmag.com
2013 EQUIPMENT SUPPLEMENT — EDGING, SURFACING, MOLDING & MORE
For over 40 years, Santinelli International has delivered the highest quality lens finishing equipment and industry-leading service. Now you can get the same for your supplies, tools, frame parts and more!
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EQUIPMENT FOCUS John Seegers, M.Ed., LDO, owner – OpticianWorks.com
November, A Time To Try Something New
A TIME TO GIVE THANKS One of the things I love about writing for this publication is having the freedom to share the personal side of being an ECP. s a contributing writer, I always try to bring a slightly different perspective to what, for many of us, has become humdrum, the same old stuff. I actually agonized over this article trying to think of a way to do it. In the end, I decided to write an article based solely on the features and benefits of the equipment we use, without relying on comparing it to the antiquated equipment that it replaces.
A
Call me what you will: gear-head, petrol-head, whatever. I admit it. I am a car guy. So I usually fall back on car analogies. Here is one: A person who is arguing the virtues of a manual lensmeter or a pattern edger is like someone arguing the virtues of a carburetor over fuel injection. A carburetor is unreliable, complex, inefficient, open to subjective adjustment and prone to error. Fuel injection is reliable, simple, efficient, is set by objective measure and not prone to errors.
Edger. I have never personally used one. Chances are quite good that I may never use one. So, why am I thankful for one? Their milling technology allows me to order more complex shapes, fill difficult prescriptions, and create unique lens designs for better patient satisfaction. For me, just knowing that my high minus Rx will come back without the dreaded temple spread is enough to make me grateful! The 8000 series offers a 10.5” touch screen with GUI that allows for easy modification to shapes. Coburn’s dual feelers read the lens quickly assuring both lens cutout and quick job processing. The 8000 series can create standard bevels, mini-bevels, asymmetric bevels, semi-U bevels and hybrid groove-bevels. The Coburn 8000 is designed around modular system integration, allowing you to
From this point on, a lensmeter means a modern, electronic, WYSIWIG lensmeter. Gone is the preface “auto.” From now on, an edger means “an edger,” and will not be prefaced with the term “patternless.” OK. Let’s see if I can pull this off! Giving Thanks I am thankful that Coburn Technologies gives us the HPE-8000 Exxpert Series Coburn HPE-8000 Exxpert Series Edger
seamlessly add their drill unit or one of their tracers or tracer/blockers. I am thankful that Marco makes a series of lensmeters that are accurate, reliable and provide critical information necessary for the daily life of an active ECP. There are few things more helpful in troubleshooting a glasses problem than side-by-side lensmeter printouts of a patient’s old and new pairs. Have you ever forgotten to take a patient PD for a routine low power prescription? Of course not! However, if you ever did, and you read and printed out the patient’s glasses during the preliminary exam, you would have a PD to work with. For the best in lensmeters, I look at the Marco LM-1800. This featurepacked wonder has auto-lens detection, recognizes lens type, and automatically switches to the proper setting for accurate viewing. The display is full/color, extra-large, and tilts for optimal viewing. The LM1800 provides lens UV transmission data as a routine part of verification, and uses green-light technology to provide accurate prescription readings regardless of material index or Abbe value compensation. The LM-1800 provides a full print out of verification results, and has a lens marking system for lab layout work.
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I am thankful that Optical Dynamics brings us another step closer to desktop lens creation with their Q-2100™ Digital Lens System. Optical Dynamics has taken the same injection molding process used to create lenses at the wholesale or factory level and brought it down to the desktop. The Q-2100 can produce free-form quality lenses in under an hour, in some cases cutting existing practice lab bills “by 60% or more.” Enter the desired prescription and lens style, and the Q-2100 tells the operator which molds to pull. The operator assembles the molds and inserts them in the curing chamber. Liquid monomers are then forced in to the mold and then cured. Once the lens is cured, the mold is separated, leaving behind a lens ready for edging! It does not get much easier than that! The Q-2100 can produce three progressives: the CFL-18, an advanced design, high adaptation lens; the shorter corridor Paradigm-16 for smaller frames; and the Paradigm-22, for larger frames. It also produces aspheric single vision and an aspheric FT-28 with so many choices that you are sure to have your patient base covered. Lenses are offered in clear, in their clearLight™PLUS, in a light photochromic in either grey or brown in their sunSMART™ series, and in a full sunglass photochromic in their ultraSUN™. Lens material is a high-index category with an ABBE value of 40, and provides full UV protection. Lenses produced through the injection molding process have ultra smooth surfaces, providing superior optics. Power ranges are +4.00 to -6.00 for sphere, -0.25 to -2.50 for cylinder with add powers running from +1.00 to +3.00 all in 0.25 steps. Combine the Q-2100 with Optical Dynamics’ nanoClearAR™ system, and you can produce free-form quality lenses with a durable, easy to clean, hydrophobicoleophobic non-glare coating, all while your patient waits. The doctor where I work recently replaced the office Santinelli LX 9000 with a new LE 1000 Express Lens Edger. For him, this was just a basic business decision, a reinvestment in the business, keeping the practice up-to-date. It was a carefully weighed investment, guided by accounting. To me, the guy who runs all our finishing work, it was a thoughtful addition to the lab. The day it was installed, and I am not kidding, I walked down to his office and made a
Santinelli LE 1000 Express Lens Edger
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point of saying, “Thanks for the new edger. It’s great, and it makes my job easier.” Accurate, reliable, versatile, efficient and fast, it lets me provide a complete pair of perfect glasses to a patient in less than a half an hour. The LE 1000 provides soft-grind mode for slippery non-glare coats, grooves, polishes, safety bevels, and has guided tracing. Grooves are perfect, consistent, clean, and, even in poly, require almost no clean-up at all. The polish wheel provides a full high-luster edge, and the safety bevel feature assures that the lens is ready for frame-mounting straight off the edger. The guided tracing option allows me to guide the tracing point in to the bezel by sight, making sure I am not tracing the false groove found on some frames. I am thankful that technology is making life easier in for eye care professionals to work with contact lens-wearers. A difficulty sometimes occurs for the ECP – not daily, but often enough – where a high prescription wearer does not, or cannot, wear contact lenses. For these patients, trying on glasses is difficult, at best. For those with extreme prescriptions, it is almost impossible. For these patients, the ABS Smart Mirror allows them to try on a series of frames and really see how they will look. The Smart Mirror can be thought of as both a sales assistant and a money saver. As a sales assistant, the Smart Mirror takes a series of images with its high-resolution camera, which can then be displayed to the patient. This allows the ECP to review the patient frame selection, show a non-glare simulation, photochromic and polarization simulation, color contact lens choices, and even prescription and lens comparisons, fully engaging the patient in the selection process. The Smart Mirror is a money saver because it will greatly reduce the chances of costly remakes from patients who change their mind on frame style, lens style or coatings. A remake made for any reason has an impact far greater than the cost of another set of lenses. It colors the overall patient experience. When the patient is engaged in the decision making process of choosing their frame, lenses, coatings and treatments, they will be far more likely to enjoy their decisions. The ABS Smart Mirror is based on a simple-to-use 19” touch screen monitor and high-resolution camera. It can be set up as a desktop station, wall mounted, or built into a full display unit. Look to ABS for other sales and dispensing tools, including the stand-alone Smart Look Sales Assistance system and their all-in-one Smart Centration series of centration measuring systems combined with their Smart Look technology. Now, I’ll leave it for you to judge. I think I pulled it off. Not a single mention of older equipment, comparisons, or remembrances of “when I was young.” Let us start off 2014 grounded in the present, and looking toward the future. I
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VISION CARE TECH
Santinelli International Launches a New Line of Tools & Supplies Santinelli International has vastly expanded its selection of high-quality supplies, frame parts, tools and accessories, offering convenient, one-stop-shopping for both dispensary and finishing lab needs. The Santinelli International Optical Supplies product line includes hundreds of items showcased in a beautiful, full-color catalog available in an e-mag version on their website, at trade shows and upon request. The collection includes everyday staples, such as nose pads, temple tips and screws, but also features unique workshop aides which are sure to become relied upon solutions for dispensing. One of the featured lines is the exclusive “Visionary” Plier Collection developed by Breitfeld & Schliekert (B&S), a German company known internationally for highly functional and “refined craftsmanship” quality products. To request a catalog or place an order, please email orders@santinelli.com.
Digital Lens Technology for the Progressive Practice
Optical Dynamics Q-2100™ Digital Lens System and nanoCLEAR™ AR unit allow ECPs to capitalize on premium lenses and coatings to grow business profitability. Optical Dynamics can show the ECP how to produce digital quality AR lenses, progressives and photochromics with just-in-time delivery to their customers while significantly cutting their existing lab bill. For most businesses this means thousands of dollars in additional cash flow every month, improved patient satisfaction and more repeat business. The Q-2100 Digital Lens System utilizes digital free form molds to create a finished Rx directly from the liquid lens material eliminating the need to cast a semi-finished blank that is later surfaced to the final prescription. This process allows for pristine optics and improved vision. Lenses are available in premium index materials including clearLIGHT™ PLUS, sunSMART™ and ultraSUN™ photochromics. For more information, go to www.opticaldynamics.com
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Coburn Technologies Launches a New Suite of Diagnostic Equipment Coburn Technologies debuted its new portfolio of over a dozen diagnostic products to the United States ophthalmic market at last month’s International Vision Expo West. This included auto ref-keratometers, digital refracters, auto lensmeters, slit lamps and digital cameras. These new products will be manufactured and distributed through a new strategic partnership with Huvitz Co., Ltd; the largest manufacturer of digital refraction systems worldwide. Coburn has been working with Huvitz since 2011 to develop and distribute the popular Excelon and Exxpert series of edgers and other in-house finishing equipment. This has now grown to include exclusive development and distribution of their digital refraction and diagnostic equipment in the United States. A full list of diagnostic products manufactured by Huvitz and available through Coburn Technologies can be found online at www.coburntechnologies.com.
Muskogee, Oklahoma, USA 800.688.1806/918.682.1806 www.opticalworks.com owc@opticalworks.com Hablamos Español
/HW 8V 6KRZ <RX +RZ ³2SWLFDO :RUNV´ With your staff to solve your surfacing problems To provide parts for most machines of all manufacture With technical know-how to help with repairs To offer new, rebuilt and reconditioned equipment To completely rebuild or recondition your existing equipment
Booth LP7209 March 28-30, 2014
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