We also provide rapid prototyping services. Using the state of art fabrication processes, we can produce prototypes very quickly to verify the design before production commitment is made.   Upon your approval,  we will start mass production in our factories in China. The specifics of the prototyping process depends on the design details.  For each type of components, a different process will be used.  The following is a brief summary:

Glass optics

Glass optics (lens elements, prisms, etc) are fabricated using prototype jigs and fixtures including grinding and polishing laps, etc.  We use interferometers to test the surface accuracy and roughness without fabricating custom test plates at this stage.  Generic and general purpose fixtures are used for coating applications. Once the prototype glass elements are complete or fabricated,  we would conduct extensive tests and measurements to verify the accuracy of the components. 

Plastic optics

High quality single-cavity prototype tooling (expandable to multi-cavity production tooling) is built to verify the design performance and manufacturability in mass production. Single-cavity tooling reduces lead time, and allows us to build prototype optics quickly to verify the design performance.  More importantly,  it also proves the manufacturability of the plastic element using multi-cavity tooling in mass production environments.

Mechanical components and assembly

Mechanical components are produced using state of the art CNC-machining.  The components are then finished matte black.  This allows quick validation and testing of the optical design before expensive production tooling/fixtures for the mechanical components are built. Once the components are fabricated and tested,  the assembly process takes place in our class 10K assembly area.

Prototype testing

Once we have the prototype assemblies we conduct extensive tests to verify that they meet the design requirements. Our test engineers design and build fixtures that enable us to test your custom optic on standard test equipment. A typical set of tests will include: optical performance, mechanical dimensions, cosmetics, and other functional requirements.