Just for awareness:
Was doing a routine lens cleaning and Donner’s lens has a spot I cant clean off, so im replacing it.
3 Likes
Thank you! We should have our new maintenance log for each machine by Saturday.
1 Like
Just curious, what solvent(s) did you use for cleaning the lens? Also, would you mind leaving the damaged lens at Science? I’ve had some experience previous experience with these before and would be interested to take a look later to see if I notice anything.
Okay, I looked at the SDS for lens cleaner #4 and its not suitable for laser lenses. Its 50% IPA, 45% water, and 5% detergent. Water and detergent is bad news for ZnSe. Use 100% IPA if you are out of the one from the manufacturer or 100% acetone.
I’m a little suspicious about alignment given the spot of the dark mark. I will determine if the issue is caused by something adhered to the surface or if this is a burn mark. I’ll update you further but there may be more steps that can be taken to reduce the consumption of lenses.
EDIT: I may be mistaken as to the suitability of water as a cleaning agent for the ZnSe lenses. It may depend on what particular coating is on the lens. When I was trained on a Universal Laser the tech discouraged the use of water for cleaning that particular lens but maybe its not the same for every lens.
1 Like
To be more specific, I was trained to basically blow off any powder or loose residue from the lens every day with one of those rubber bulb air dusters. Followed lightly wetting a lens wipe with IPA or acetone only and just lightly dragging it over the lens without pressure for regular maintenance.
For more heavily soiled spots you might use q-tips making sure to work in small circular motions with very light pressure making sure to rotate the q-tip at a similar rate so that you don’t rub the same area on the lens twice (to avoid scratches).
I can’t say wether 4 is suitable or not, but I would recommend using 1 for cleaning lenses.
The lenses are ZnSe coated glass, and 1 is for ‘coated optics’. 4 is for ‘plastic optics’ like eyeglasses, not the lenses or mirrors found in lasers.
The process @GreenOrbs described is the same way I was taught to do it on a ULS system, it worked really well until I got to DMS. The lenses here got more soiled in a week than our ULS machine did in a year, so more aggressive cleaning and thus more frequent lens replacements were needed.
1 Like
We were using our laser system for non-standard applications that could generate a lot of debris so we had a similar issue with lens lifetime.
So in order to save on expensive lenses, I designed a cover with cheap disposable flat ZnSe window disks to prevent debris when lasing particularly problematic materials. Maybe we need to do something similar here. Not sure if there is a good point of attachment for something like but I can also take a look tomorrow as well as at the lens.
Per thunder lasers the lens’s should be cleaned at least once a day. More often with heavy Use.
IPA is suitable for cleaning the lens. Or the white bottle in the top of the box.
Took a look at the lens at Science. I have some findings that could be useful. Not sure if I’ll make it to the laser committe meeting tomorrow morning but I’ll see if I can’t put together some slides for y’all later this evening.
1 Like
Our meeting isn’t tomorrow, but Saturday morning:)
I’ve been so busy that I’ve completely lost track of what day of the week it was. I totally thought it was Friday today.
1 Like
Pretty nice to get a free day:)