Ultrasonic cleaners

Routinely? I wouldn't. I suspect it would have the lens coating off after not many passes. Once in a while to get any accumlation of muck off from around the pads/bridge supports might be OK.

I wash my specs, little bit of liquid hand soap, flowing warm water and very gentle rubbing between finger and thumb. Good rinse and shake, dry with a bit of kitchen roll.

Thats my method as well bit it can still leave some greasy smears.

I find the ultrasonic is very good for getting stuff out of the hinges, pad mounts, metal frames. Or for metal watch bands, Swiss Army knives etc.

For getting greasy smears off the surface, not so good.

Beware, placing spectacles lens-down will create a blind spot on the lens right quick: The spot where anything touches the wall of the cleaner rubs and wears. .

This for the consumer-grade coupla-quid ultrasonics. Those that have industrial-strength ultransonic cleaners assure that these may completely remove the spectacles, i.e. disintegrate them.

Thomas Prufer

It happens that Dave Liquorice formulated :

Hand and face soaps usually contain lanolin to help prevent skin drying out, which will leave greasy smears on lenses. Washing up liquid is much better.

Yes. ... and I was always told that you shouldn't use kitchen roll (or 'ordinary' tissues) on lenses because they contain wood which can scratch the lenses. Use cloth, i.e. a clean cotton handkerchief or similar, or 'proper' lens wipes.

I cant imagine wood scratching a lens surface especially if it has been har dened

I use Bio-D washing up liquid as it doesn't have all the 'kind-to-your-hands' junk in it. It's quite concentrated, with an undiluted pH of about 5.5, so less aggressive than the high pH ones (e.g. Tan Hill Inn :-) ). 'Wet' the lenses, one spot on clean finger and thumb tips, dab on both sides of (in my case 4) lenses and rub quite hard. Rinse whilst rubbing.

Note: Bio-D is about the same as Ecover WUL was about 20 years ago, before getting junk in it. On the Ecover H&S Data sheet, under Ingestion: 'don't drink too much of it at once' - bet that's not on nowadays!

Lot of salt in washing up liquid... I don't find that "Carex" leaves and sears.

I theory. When I have cold my nose tells me that kitchen roll is a damn sight softer than any tissues or loo roll. This is the cheap jumbo kitchen roll not any fancy cloth substitute.

I used to use an ultrasonic cleaner, with CitriClean as the liquid, fairly frequently on an old pair of glasses, which I kept for work. It didn't seem to do them any harm and they came up sparking clean every time.

Were the sparks when you dried them in the microwave? :)

The coatings on a fairly old pair of mine did 'peel' off after a few ultrasonic cleanings, they might have been sligtly crazed beforehand.

Yes, quite satisfying watching all the gunk 'flow' out of the crevices.

I'd never with paper towels, very abrasive, the little lint free alcohol wipes are cheap from Lialdi, or for a bit more the Boots ones are significantly more moist.

And the vibration make loosen the screws holding the arms on (or clamping in the lens)

Kitchen towel is abrasive ??

No way.

This is beginning to sound like those idiots who proclaim that only Meguires soft clothes are suitable for cars, others are not soft enough. Soft in the head.