DIY Fluid Goggles

[kook]

I've ordered a pair of the lenses, thanks for that DGP. I didnt really understand your description on how to mount them. What do you mean by 'stand off' and what is 22m? Do you possibly have any closeup pics from other angles? Or if anyone else has any luck in mounting them please could you post your method. Thanks
Kook

[donmoore]

Thanks for sharing Doug. Your optical knowledge is way more than mine. I have that old age far sighed disease. The doc has me wearing reading glasses with at +1.5 to read. He says my eyes don’t have enough stigmatism to warrant the extra cost of prescription glasses. If I’m going to order lenses and make my own, where can I found out what lenses to get to that will give me a +1.5 underwater?
don

[Pezman]

@don

Your astigmatism should go away under water, since it is a refractive problem in the eye and your eye's refractive elements hardly matter underwater (which is why we need lenses).

@kook

I am guessing that the stand-offs were used to hold the lens away from the surface of the goggles. This would allow the fluid in the goggle to competely surround the lens and it eliminates the possibility of an air bubble. It probably also adjusts the focus of the sysetem a bit, putting the lens very close to the eye. In fact, by making a stand-off that allows the distance between the eye and the lens to be adjusted, I think that the lens can be "tuned" so that you can compensate for vision problems ike nearsightedness and farsightedness.

Hmm, per Doug's post, it seems that I put the lens in backwards

[DGP]

Pezman,

GOOD GUESS!

but you have precious little room for the lens and mount in there but yours may well work.. I'll take a lens in the pool and see!<G>

Like I said, you guys take the ball and run with it. You may easily come up with a better mousetrap and when you do, please let us know!

Doug

[kook]

thanks very much for that doug & pezman. i look foreward to the chalange of assembling. hope they arrive soon. if anyone else gets theirs before mine please post your progress in assembling and reviews of there performance. i bet there will be a lot of interest in this. thanks again
kook

[unirdna]

First off: Doug, your cleverness is only outshined by your charity. And you're not too dumb yourself, Mike .

This may very well be the most innovative thread I've ever seen. With each post.....something new.

Now I have a question .

When chosing a traditional mask, I prefer one with a black silicon skirt. The reason for this is because I hate any other "kind" of light getting in, other than "good" light. Peripheral, bent light is disorienting to me; thus, my dislike for masks with a clear silicon skirt.

Do you find that a lot of ambient light is hitting your eye while wearing fluid goggles? If so, does it bother you? And if so , have you considered 'blacking off' all parts of the google that are not directly in front of the lens? Or even using a small piece of opaque plastic piping to create a tunnel of light to the lens?

Again, Great Thread!

Ted

[DGP]

Ted,

I don't know if I can be of any help. Remember that we made these for one purpose only; to set a record and in that case, peripheral vision, even if a glare issue, was a good thing.. Martin wants to know if there is anything near him; safety diver, boat, whatever. The vision off the lens isn't really "vision" to speak of but you would notice a mass nearby.

Also, we don't dive for fun using fluid goggles. Martin much prefers the mask for diving and wants to do all of his records with a mask until it becomes impossible for him. So far 93m+ with a mask and he can still equalize both mask and ears so it is not an issue yet.

I too prefer a black, not a clear mask for any type of diving so in that regard I might want to darken the goggles BUT remember that the field of view is much narrower than with a mask so maybe you'd want all the peripheral data you can get.. I dunno...

Try it both ways and let us know!

Doug

[bevan dewar]

Hi, I have a question for anyone about which goggles/mask to use. What exactly are the factors to consider when choosing goggles in which to mount the Edmund Optics lenses? Are there any swimming goggles that have both lenses parralell... thats not quite the word...on the same plane? if you know what I mean. Would this help. I have recently seen a swimming "mask" (I think it was a Mares but could be wrong) that had a flat glass lense for each eye but no nosepiece. The frame was rigid unlike swimming goggles so the lenses would not shift relative to each other. Would this be prefferable to swimming goggles? cheers
bevan

[Pezman]

Bevan,

Worth a try. I think that if you glue the lenses to the faceplate (on the inside, convex side pointing inward towards your eye) it should work. There are optically clear epoxies, which are used to repair windshields, that should do the trick. Alternatively, if you want to make stand-offs, 3/4" PVC pipig looks like a good candidate as part of the solution since its inside diameter is just shy of 22mm

If it works, that would be the most elegant mounting system proposed so far and if the frame has some give (like a regular mask), then it would take care of the issues that are raised by small, stray bubles in the mask -- the mask would collapse inward a tiny bit as the bubbles compressed, rather than sucking your eyeballs out of their sockets like a rigid structure would.

As an alternative, you could just use a regular mask. Flood it, pinch off your nose w/ a clip and viola.

My efforts are on hold for a little while due to some other recent purchases .

[phreak]

Hi everyone,
I read this thread with great interest.
And I am now the proud owner of a pretty decent pair of fluid goggles (or do we have to call them something else?)

As Doug said these lenses do the job excellently, the tricky part is getting them in the goggles.
I used a 10mm dia acrylic thick wall tube cut lengthways and used a power tool called a dremil (a tiny high speed drill) with a lens shaped grinding wheel to create the correct cut out.

I did a 3D autocad drawing to figure it out if anyone is interested
and if anyone wants the .dwg file let me know

Thanks and regards

Andre.
Guernsey

[Longfins]

Andre,

You can also export your drawing to .wmf (windows meta file) or .bmp format so people without autocad can view it.

Welcome to Deeperblue.

Peter S.

[phreak]

ok here it is i hope

[bevan dewar]

hi all. i'm going to try attach photos of my goggles. they work well, i can read my watch clearly and see people 50m away underwater(in a pool). the main problem is that i see double as the lenses are not alligned properly with each other. this could proberbly be fixed by filing down the plastic lense holders in a way that changes the angle of the lenses. or i might just use a lense over one eye and close the other. Although i'm pretty happy with them i'm still prefering to use a sphera with noseclip.(i can take it to 30m before i have to touch my nose to remove the noseclip to equilise the mask)
the plastic pipe the lense clips into is taken from a garden hose fitting. it has a 1 or 2mm narrowing/bottle-kneck which the lense butts up gainst. one of them. i used was the perfect diameter and the lense cliped in securely without the need for glue. the other one (of another brand i think) was a hairs-with to wide and so i used a bit of superglue to anchor it. i used a bit of superglue on the rim of the pipe to attach it to the inside of the goggles lense. i did a bit of experimenting to get the lenth of the pipe right, taking it out a few times to file it down. its about 9mm now, making the flat surface of the lense about 7mm of the goggle lense and just beyond the reach of my eye-lashes. bringing the lense closer to the eye seems to offer better near-field vision at the expense of the far-off(or is it the other way arround?). experiment to find the best compromise.
conveniently, the pipe comes with 3 holes down its side which allows water to enter.
and incase you cant make out from the photo i have put the lense with flat side closest to eye, convex side facing out.
dont know if this is the best method but i think it might be easier than the method using two half-pipes with notches cut into them. cheers
bevan

[bevan dewar]

o.k, that was the hose-fitting that you get the pipe from. now for the goggles

[phreak]

Ok so here is my system

You may make up you own minds
i have to say this is fiddly
I did all the design work using the information I had

1. As little as possible in contact with the lens( anything in contact would become part of the optic and change the characteristic)

2. Clear materials to allow maximum light in

3. As little material around the front of the lens for maximum vision

And I added a few

4. Removable for cleaning

5. They have to look neat not like tractor engineering.

and I came up with: