Video - How Binoculars are Made (1 Viewer)

[LPT]

Here's an excellent video showing how binoculars are manufactured.http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HMeDSmZHxSo

 

[Pinewood]

Hello LPT,

I loved the way the worked used his fingers to flick dust off the prisms.

Happy bird watching,
Arthur Pinewood

 

[pdh]

really all hand-assembled without gloves?

 

[Ingle1970]

Interesting film.

 

[Sancho]

Superb, LPT. Very Educational. I´ve spent a lot of time and money on binoculars, and often wondered how they´re put together. I can´t understand how so much glue and "mineral coatings" on the actual glass actually enhances rather than diminishes the view. Obviously a Steiner promo...I wonder what that "Big-Eyes" was in the end line-up?

 

[Tero]

It is a thousand dollar Steiner
http://www.opticsplanet.net/steiner-binoculars-7x50-commander-v-w-compass.html
very good fov for a 50mm

 

[joannec]

I can´t understand how so much glue and "mineral coatings" on the actual glass actually enhances rather than diminishes the view.

I wondered that too Sancho.

Interesting video, thanks for posting.

 

[Pinewood]

Superb, LPT. Very Educational. I´ve spent a lot of time and money on binoculars, and often wondered how they´re put together. I can´t understand how so much glue and "mineral coatings" on the actual glass actually enhances rather than diminishes the view. Obviously a Steiner promo...I wonder what that "Big-Eyes" was in the end line-up?

Hello Sancho,

Glue, usually Canadian Balsam, has been used in optics for at least a century.
Those mineral coatings make today's binoculars brighter and more contrasty than those made before their introduction, by minimizing reflections. In the video, it would appear that Steiner does not coat the prisms which is a little old fashioned.

The body of that Steiner binocular is plastic and everything is glued together. I believe that Steiner binoculars may be impossible to collimate; should they lose collimation they can only be replaced.

Happy bird watching,
Arthur :hi:

 

[JPAC]

Compare and contrast how a big Canon lens is made;
http://www.canon.com/camera-museum/tech/l_plant/index.html

 

[birdazzLED]

Compare? I'll take the Canon please.....and a camera to go with it.

 

[Fozzybear]

Those mineral coatings make today's binoculars brighter and more contrasty than those made before their introduction, by minimizing reflections. In the video, it would appear that Steiner does not coat the prisms which is a little old fashioned.

Indeed - widely used on camera lenses and image sensors too. Where I used to work we made CCD chips for satellite cameras (environmental monitoring and the like) and those all had anti-reflection coatings applied in the same way, using electron beams to vaporise material to coat them. A piece of kit I built monitored the reflectance and stopped coating the chips when it reached a specified level - as the coating was applied you could see the reflectance dropping.

 

[Kevin Purcell]

This video doesn't show all the steps e.g. they don't show the construction of the multipart eyepiece.

The "glue" used to hold the prisms together isn't Canadian Balsam: it's an UV-set optical adhesive. These UV set glues (usual polyurethane) are very widely used in optical manufacture these days. They're very tough. They don't expand or contract on curing or heating/cooling. And they don't cure (harden) until exposed to UV so you can make fine adjustments to the parts then set them with the UV light and leave them to cure for a few hours.

The tech flicking dust off the prisms after surface finishing doesn't need to wear gloves as the prisms will be cleaned after this step. They just don't show that step.

Same with the doublet assembly. The tech holds the lenses by the edges. If she doesn't the lens goes back through the cleaning process.

The "mineral coating" (i.e. metal oxide coating) is either a single layer or more likely the show only shows one layer being added. Multilayer coating are the standard today. It's just multiple trips through a group of vapor deposition machines. And for best results the AR coating structure will vary with the glass type (i.e. it would be different on the two sides of the doublet that have different refractive indices for each lens in the doublet. That all depends on what they want the transmission to be and where the product is placed.

They don't show putting the AR coating on the prisms but that doesn't mean it isn't done. The PU glued doublets get AR coated. I suspect the PU glued prisms get AR coated too.

The terminology used isn't correct "the machine that aligns the focal points of the prisms and the objectives" is just a script righter getting it half right. It's getting the prisms and objective collimated together so their axes align. Once again I suspect there are some steps missed out.

The structures of the bin body and the prisms are designed so that they hold the parts in precise alignment when assembled (perhaps with a minimal number small adjustment just before gluing) and then glued for life. This is the way all the "top" bin makers make their bins today. They bin will only come out of alignment when one of those glued interfaces break and to get that to happen you have to apply a lot of force. This is not like the old days where a short drop would knock the prism out of it's friction mount. It's better to build the bin this way for ruggedness and to deal with the returns when they come back after being badly mishandled. Better for the user too.

It's not for optics geeks but Discovery viewers to watch between the ads

 

[Yippeekiay]

I think Sancho may have been referring to these. http://www.opticsplanet.net/steiner-binoculars-15x80-senator.html Been looking for a pair for my cousin and wondered about them also.

 

[tonydc220]

Kevin have u worked in manufacturing?

 

[Kevin Purcell]

No, but I have been around scientific optics and a lot of this stuff is well described in the optomechanics "literature" (papers and books). I've also work a fair amount on experimental gear (in ultra high vacuum with optics too). And I've worked in doing QA.

I do have a production mindset though.

The main point of my comment is that a Discovery program is not a comprehensive step by step guide to Steiner bin construction.