Twice in 25 years, my optician has gotten lenses back from the "lab", installed them in the frames I already owned, put them on me, and said "These are not quite right." He was correct. They were weird. He gave me the option of putting the old ones back in and coming back when the replacements were done, or living with the "rejects".
It's worth a few hundred bucks to some people to know that what they're getting is perfect the first time.
Note that the angles are in one-degree increments. Is the store supposed to stock 180 different versions of a lens with -2.5 diopters refraction and -.5 diopters cylindrical? You'd need at least 10,000 different lenses to cover the common combinations. Even if the cylindrical were limited to 5-degree increments, you'd still need a huge number of lenses.
No, no, no, no, no. I don't believe it.
If this is true, how could you expect a reasonably close fit?
So take your imports to the optometrist who wrote the Rx. That's his job, to check that sort of thing. And you can check them yourself, if you know how.
What sort of work do you do? In other words, what do you do for a living?
Read my earlier reply. One lens blank covers all cylinder angles for a given spherical power and cylinder power. The angle is determined by the trimming of the blank.
Various engineering things, including optical engineering.
Do you work for free in all your "things", or do you get paid for some of them?
Ya sure? ;-)
Their web site quotes:
Zenni Optical
27 Sunny Oaks Dr. San Rafael, Ca.94903 Phone 1-800-211-2105 Fax 1-415-491-4516And their domain registration is "domains by proxy" with no contact info, which is usually a very bad sign.
But not always.
They seem to at least have some US presence, which is a very good sign.
[I buy rechargeable batteries from a company which has dozens of different "customized to different demographic" web sites, based in HK, but ships from CA. No problems with them.]
The blanks are circles. They spin the blank around to 174 degrees and cut it with a machine to fit the size and shape of the frame.
Anthony
Duh. Duh, duh, duh. Of course.
Instead they rotate the stock lens 174 degrees, one -.5 lens for all angles!!
Huh? You asked me what I did for a living. That means I get paid for engineering. Unless I've missed your point.
You're both right. The 1 hour places stock a bunch of lenses and cut to fit frames as needed. Not a big deal. If, however, you have more complex needs, progressive lenses, etc, you won't get them in an hour. Those will be sent out and the stock lenses are modified to your particular prescription. There are many labs that do this on a regular route basis. They pick up at the optometrist and drop them off a few days later.
The lenses are mostly plastic today. They are molded as a round lens and cut to shape as needed and the optic center is placed as needed. The same was done with glass lenses years ago but they make a tiny percentage of the market today. Plastic is optically clear, safer, cheaper, lighter, easier to work with. They are not "ground" as glass was years ago, but molded to the proper diopter. Most of the work is done by machine and it takes but a few minutes.
Before they moved out of town, I used to sell lens trays to American Optical. The glass making sections of the factory were being replaced by molding machines. They make the lenses for pennies.
Round lenses rotated as needed. Clamp them into a machine and let 'er rip. Cut to the frame size.
The optician screwed up when he fit the lenses to your frames and had to order another set so he could try again. There was nothing wrong with those lenses until he screwed them up.
Even 10,000 lens blanks at $1 each seems like no big deal to most people, especially when you consider the mark-ups involved. You could waste 3/4 of the inventory and not even worry about it. The display racks for the frames cost more than that.
You suggested taking imported glasses back to the person who wrote the prescription. In many cases, that person also sells glasses, so essentially, you're doing this:
- Buy $200 lawn mower from Wal Mart
- When it has problems, take it to a locally owned specialty shop and ask them to "check it" for free.
You never actually said "free", but if the optometrist said he charged $35 to check them, you might balk.
I can't believe how many people here are in the eyeglass business! Amazing! How long have you been doing that job?
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