How to choose optical grease?

March 13, 2024

How to choose optical grease?

Optical grease (hereinafter referred to as optical grease) is a very small branch of the industrial grease family, which plays the role of lubrication, damping, protection, filling, sealing and so on in optical instruments. Due to its unique performance, small yield and narrow range of use, its production and application are limited to a very small range.

At present, China's optical grease products compared with similar foreign products, there is a certain gap in terms of product quality and variety. In the past 20 years, the optical industry in our country has been growing, and there is an urgent need for the development and production of optical greases with many varieties, high quality and excellent performance.

First, the requirements of the domestic optical industry for optical grease

1. Market demand

The role of optical grease in optical instruments is particularly important, it directly affects the performance and effect of optical instruments, because the damping and lubrication requirements of each lubrication or friction part of optical instruments are different, so the requirements of each lubrication part for optical grease are also different. Therefore, higher requirements are put forward for the variety, specificity and cost performance of grease. After years of efforts by domestic manufacturers, it can now meet the assembly needs of most domestic optical instruments.

2, the requirements for the performance of optical grease

A. Suitable adhesion and damping requirements

Unlike other industrial greases, optical greases require their own adhesion to be fixed in the lubrication part, and will not be squeezed out of the scope of action because of the rotation and stretching of the friction part. The role of damping in the re-optical instrument is more important, it can not only maintain the working state of the optical instrument in use, but also bring a very comfortable feel to the user. Adhesion and damping complement each other in the formulation design of optical grease, and a good adjustment of the relationship between the two can bring ideal results to the use of optical instruments.

b, optical grease should have good dispersion resistance

The so-called anti-dispersion refers to the adsorption capacity of the grease to the Base Oil, and the optical grease with good anti-dispersion can ensure that the base oil will not spread to the non-lubricating part due to the capillary effect (the so-called climbing oil phenomenon), and pollute other optical systems to affect the normal use of optical instruments. Some domestic optical greases have found this phenomenon.

c, low volatility and good mold resistance

The low volatility of optical grease can ensure that the instrument is not polluted by oil mist during use; The good mildew resistance is mainly to prevent mold from growing in the optical instrument.

d, optical grease should have a certain temperature range

Optical greases are in principle required to meet the use requirements of -40 ~ 80 ° C, but for some general civilian optical instruments, the low temperature can be adjusted according to the needs of their actual working environment. For medium and low damping optical greases, the low temperature performance can basically meet the requirements below -40℃ after using low condensate mineral oil or some low condensate oil; However, for some high-damping optical greases, due to the high content of viscosifier in the formula, the low temperature torque of the optical grease is greatly affected, and the damping and low temperature performance are often difficult to be taken into account in the formula design. For example, the optical lubrication (damping) grease used in the adjustment, hinge and other parts of the optical telescope.

In addition, for optical grease, its life, anti-corrosion, extreme pressure of some parts of the grease and so on requirements should also be fully met.

Two, the development direction of optical grease in our country

In view of the vigorous development of the domestic photoelectric industry and the special role of optical grease in optical instruments, the development of highly targeted special grease is very important, especially some precision optical instruments, such as biological microscopes, photographic (camera) lenses, military optical instruments and so on. The serialization of these highly targeted optical greases can ensure the correct selection of domestic optical manufacturers. Due to the small output of these fats, the larger grease manufacturers develop and produce these fats have no practical significance, but for some large optical factories (companies) attached to the auxiliary materials production units do have very convenient testing and production conditions.

a, the selection principle of optical grease

According to the structure of the friction part and the needs of the product, the suitable damping grease is selected. For the rotating part, the size of the rotating torque directly affects its performance.

b, fully examine the comprehensive quality of grease

The quality criteria for measuring optical grease are dispersion resistance, oxidation resistance, high and low temperature performance, shear resistance, volatilization, corrosion resistance, mildew resistance and so on. However, it is very difficult for most non-professional manufacturers to conduct a comprehensive investigation of them, which requires the inspection of optical grease manufacturers, whether they have professional production technology, otherwise inappropriate selection often buries optical instruments with greater quality hazards, resulting in fog, mildew, oil seepage, etc. Quality accidents such as freezing at low temperature or sticking of rotating parts bring great economic losses to manufacturers.

c, fully consider the cost performance of optical grease

At present, the domestic optical industry competition is very fierce, according to the grade and requirements of optical products to choose the appropriate price of optical grease products is very important. For example, in the domestic telescope industry, the demand for grease for various grades of telescopes is also different.

Author:

Mr. James

E-mail:

sales@cn-lubricantadditive.com

Phone/WhatsApp:

+86 13783582233