TW202221387A - Method for colorizing contact lens - Google Patents

Abstract

The invention provides a method for colorizing contact lens by an ink-jet printing process. The method includes the steps as followings: providing a first transparent gel film having a cure surface with convex and concave surfaces and printing an image on the convex surface of the first transparent gel film by an ink-jet printing process. After the printing, the first transparent gel film is attached to a second transparent gel film in a direction the convex surface of the first gel film printed with the image toward a concave surface of curve surface of the second transparent gel film to colorize contact lens. The invention is capable of performing a massively colorizing contact lens by an ink-jet printing at one time and efficiency of production is improved. Moreover, in the invention the contact lens are directly colorized by ink-jet printing and extra color film is unnecessary, therefore the gel films of contact lens can be reduced to save manufacturing cost.

Description

How to color contact lenses

The invention relates to a coloring method for contact lenses, in particular to a method for coloring contact lenses through an inkjet process.

The current contact lens (Contact Lens) has become more and more popular. A contact lens is a lens that can be placed on the eye and worn for vision correction and/or decorative purposes. The early contact lenses were made of hard materials, which were expensive and fragile, and the oxygen permeability was low, which made it impossible to provide enough oxygen to the conjunctiva and cornea, resulting in poor clinical results. Recently, soft contact lenses based on hydrogel (Hydrogel) have become extremely popular and widely used. Most soft contact lenses are made of polysilicon hydrogel, which combines the advantages of very high oxygen permeability and the comfort of hydrogels, making polysilicon hydrogel soft contact lenses more and more popular. become mainstream.

Contact lenses are still a cost-effective means of correcting vision, including nearsightedness, farsightedness, astigmatism, and presbyopia. With the widespread use of contact lenses, there has also been an increasing demand for using contact lenses as decoration and to enhance the appearance of eyes, such as contact lenses with patterns and colors. Colored soft contact lenses can provide different functionality by using different materials, such as using light-colored tinted contact lenses to help the wearer find dropped contact lenses, using transparent Or translucent tinting to enhance the wearer's natural eye color, opaque tinting to change the wearer's eye color, etc.

Figure 1 is a schematic diagram of a conventional tinted contact lens. As shown in FIG. 1 , the contact lens is composed of three layers of adhesive films, which are a light-transmitting base layer 2 , an effect layer 4 and a contact lens body layer 6 respectively. The effect layer 4 can be dyed as required to provide the required functions. FIG. 2 is a schematic diagram of a conventional pad printing process for coloring contact lenses. Figure 2 shows only some of the steps for illustration. As shown in FIG. 2 , after dipping the ink 12 from the protruding surface of the front end of the dip stick 10, move it to the top of the lens 8, and stain the ink 12 on the inner surface of the curved surface of the lens 8, that is, the concave surface, so that the ink 12 is located in the inner surface of the lens 8. surface to prepare a tinted lens 8 , such as the effect layer 4 . After that, the dyed effect layer 4, the light-transmitting base layer 2 and the contact lens main layer 8 are encapsulated together in a sandwiched three-layer structure to complete the dyed contact lens. However, when various patterns and colors are to be prepared, the ink-staining step of pad printing will become very complicated, and the ink-staining step must be repeated, which is very time-consuming, resulting in low production efficiency and impossibility for mass production. Furthermore, the conventional method cannot contaminate the ink 12 to the main body layer 8 of the contact lens. Instead, the dyed contact lens must be prepared in a three-layer structure by contaminating the lens 8 with the ink 12 to the additional light-transmitting film. It is necessary to use triple-layer lenses without reducing the manufacturing cost.

Therefore, there is a need for a new method of tinting contact lenses to overcome the above-mentioned deficiencies of the prior art.

In view of this, the present invention provides a coloring method for contact lenses, comprising: providing a first light-transmitting adhesive film with a curved surface, and the curved surface of the first light-transmitting adhesive film has a convex transmissive surface and a concave transmissive surface ; Using an inkjet process, spray a pattern on the convex transparent surface of the curved surface of the first light-transmitting adhesive film; and provide a second light-transmitting adhesive film having a curved surface, which has a convex translucent surface and a A concave transparent surface is provided, and the first transparent adhesive film has a convex transparent surface of the pattern, which faces and is attached to the concave transparent surface of the second transparent adhesive film. The coloring method for contact lenses of the present invention can directly spray patterns on the convex transparent surface of the first light-transmitting film through an inkjet process, without the need for additional color film or effect film, thereby reducing contact lenses. The number of layers of adhesive film can save manufacturing cost. Furthermore, the present invention adopts the method of inkjet process, which can carry out the coloring process for a large number of contact lenses at one time, so that the coloring process efficiency of the contact lens can be improved. The present invention can also avoid the problem of ink fading.

Preferably, in the coloring method of the contact lens, the first light-transmitting adhesive film and the second light-transmitting adhesive film are composed of a material based on a hydrogel (Hydrogel).

Preferably, in the coloring method of the contact lens, the inkjet process comprises using an inkjet head to spray an ink onto the convex transparent surface of the curved surface of the first transparent adhesive film.

Preferably, in the coloring method of the contact lens, the ink contains an adhesive component, so that the first light-transmitting adhesive film can be directly attached to the second light-transmitting adhesive film.

Preferably, in the coloring method of the contact lens, the ink contains a color component.

Preferably, in the coloring method of the contact lens, the color component of the ink is selected from the group consisting of white, royal blue, magenta, yellow, black, and any two or more thereof.

Preferably, in the coloring method of the contact lens, the first light-transmitting adhesive film is a film of the main body material of the contact lens, and has a central area and a peripheral area.

Preferably, in the coloring method for contact lenses, the pattern is distributed in the peripheral region of the first light-transmitting adhesive film.

Preferably, in the coloring method of the contact lens, when in use, the concave transparent surface of the curved surface of the first light-transmitting adhesive film faces the wearer.

Preferably, in the coloring method of the contact lens, the second light-transmitting adhesive film is a light-transmitting substrate.

Preferably, in the coloring method of the contact lens, the sprayed ink has a viscosity range between 2-30 centipoise (cPs).

The coloring method of the contact lens according to the embodiment of the present invention can directly spray a pattern on the convex transparent surface of the first light-transmitting film, such as the main material film of the contact lens, through the inkjet process, without using an additional effect film, Can increase production efficiency and reduce production costs. Furthermore, the sprayed ink may contain adhesive components, and after the pattern is formed, the first light-transmitting adhesive film can be directly attached to the second light-transmitting adhesive film. Therefore, the coloring process efficiency of the contact lens can be greatly increased. Similarly, the inkjet process can precisely control the amount of ink required, and compared with the conventional method, the amount of ink used can also be saved and the manufacturing cost can be reduced.

2: Light-transmitting base layer

4: Effects layer

6: Contact lens main layer

8: Lenses

10: dip stick

12: Ink

20: The first transparent film

22: Inkjet head

24: Ink

25: Pattern

26: The second transparent film

Figure 1 is a schematic diagram of a conventional tinted contact lens.

FIG. 2 is a schematic diagram of a conventional coloring method for contact lenses.

FIG. 3 is a schematic flowchart of coloring a contact lens through an inkjet process according to an embodiment of the present invention.

Fig. 4 is the coloring method of the contact lens of the embodiment of the present invention.

In order to understand the technical features and practical effects of the present invention in detail, and to implement it according to the contents of the description, the preferred embodiments shown in the drawings are further described in detail as follows.

Please cooperate with the preferred embodiments shown in FIGS. 3 to 4 , the present invention provides a coloring method for contact lenses. As shown in FIG. 3 , it is a schematic flow chart of spraying patterns on the first light-transmitting adhesive film through an inkjet process according to an embodiment of the present invention. First, a first light-transmitting adhesive film 20 with a curved surface is provided, and the curved surface of the first light-transmitting adhesive film 20 has a concave-convex translucent surface (corresponding to the loading direction, which may also be referred to as inner and outer surfaces). As shown in the figure, the convex surface of the first light-transmitting adhesive film 20 is disposed toward the direction of the inkjet head 22, and the ink 24 is sprayed on the convex and translucent surface of the curved surface of the first light-transmitting adhesive film 20 through the inkjet head 22, so as to A pattern 25 is formed on the convex transparent surface of the first transparent adhesive film 20 .

In one embodiment, the first light-transmitting adhesive film 20 may be a contact lens body material film made of a hydrogel-based material, and preferably may be polysiloxane water with high oxygen permeability. Gel (Silicon Hydrogel). The above-mentioned contact lens main material film may refer to a lens with a power, which can be used for correcting visual defects of users, such as myopia, hyperopia, astigmatism (corneal asphericity) and presbyopia (ie, the loss of accommodation of the lens). In another embodiment, the first light-transmitting adhesive film 20 may also be a light-transmitting material film having no degree, so the first light-transmitting adhesive film of the present invention is not limited to the above-mentioned embodiment. In one embodiment, when the first light-transmitting adhesive film 20 is laid flat, its curved surface and the placed plane form a specific angle. nearly flat.

Next, the ink 24 is sprayed on the convex and transparent surface of the curved surface of the first light-transmitting adhesive film 20 through the inkjet head 22 to form a pattern on the convex and transmitting surface of the first light-transmitting adhesive film 20 . In one embodiment, the above-mentioned ink 24 may include at least an adhesive component and a color component, so that after the ink 24 is sprayed, it can be directly Follow the steps for attaching. For example, the adhesive component in the above-mentioned ink 24 may be water-based glue. However, the above-mentioned color components may be, for example, white (W), royal blue (C), magenta (M), yellow (Y), black (K), or a combination of any two or more thereof, such as royal blue and magenta, etc., and preferably can be a water-based UV material. The above-mentioned color components are only examples and are not intended to limit the present invention. In addition, in one embodiment, the above-mentioned ink 24 may have a viscosity in the range of 2˜30 centipoise (cPs).

After spraying the ink 24 , a pattern 25 can be formed on the convex transparent surface of the first light-transmitting adhesive film 20 . It can be understood that the pattern 25 can also be composed of the above-mentioned color components. As shown in FIG. 3 , the pattern 25 may preferably be distributed in the peripheral area of the first light-transmitting adhesive film 20 near the edge thereof, and the central area surrounded by the peripheral area may be selectively unpatterned to maintain better Perspective ability. As shown in FIG. 4 , a second light-transmitting adhesive film 26 having a curved surface is provided, and the curved surface has a concave-convex transparent surface. The first light-transmitting adhesive film 20 with the convex and transparent surface of the pattern 25 is pasted and attached toward the concave and transparent surface of the second light-transmitting adhesive film 26 to complete the process steps of coloring the contact lens.

In this embodiment, the sprayed ink 24 contains adhesive and adhesive components, and the first light-transmitting adhesive film 20 and the second light-transmitting adhesive film 26 can be directly pasted and bonded without any additional steps step. In one embodiment, the second light-transmitting adhesive film 26 may be a light-transmitting substrate, that is to say, a light-transmitting substrate material without a corrective degree, and may also be a hydrogel material, such as high oxygen permeability. of polysiloxane hydrogels. In one embodiment, the first light-transmitting adhesive film 20 and the second light-transmitting adhesive film 26 may be hydrogels with a water content between 25% and 85%. In addition, in one embodiment, for example, the first light-transmitting adhesive film 20 and the second light-transmitting adhesive film 26 serving as contact lenses may be circular, elliptical, or truncated. At the same time, it can also be planar or non-planar.

In one embodiment, the contact lens shown in FIG. 4 can be used with the concave transparent surface (also referred to as the inner surface) of the first transparent film 20 facing the wearer, and the second transparent The optical film 26 is oriented towards outside world. That is to say, the convex transparent surface (also called the outer surface) on which the pattern 25 is formed is located between the first light-transmitting adhesive film 20 and the second light-transmitting adhesive film 26 . As shown in FIG. 4 , the contact lens of the embodiment of the present invention only needs two light-transmitting films, the first light-transmitting film 20 and the second light-transmitting film 26 can realize a patterned or dyed contact lens, and No additional color or effect layers are required, thus reducing manufacturing costs. In one embodiment, when the contact lens is worn and used, the pattern 25 distributed in the peripheral area of the first light-transmitting film 20 may be the area corresponding to the limbus and iris of the wearer's eye, so that the user's eye produces The effect of discoloration or decoration, and the area corresponding to the wearer's pupil may be a central area without a pattern, but it is not limited to this embodiment.

Furthermore, the method of coloring the contact lens through the inkjet process in the embodiment of the present invention can directly spray the first light-transmitting adhesive film such as the main material film of the contact lens, which can be sprayed and colored in large quantities at one time, which can increase the production and manufacturing. efficiency. For example, a plurality of first light-transmitting adhesive films can be placed on the swing plate, and a plurality of first light-transmitting adhesive films can be sprayed with patterns at one time through an inkjet head, so it is possible to realize the feasibility of coloring a large number of contact lenses , greatly increasing the production process efficiency of contact lens coloring.

The above descriptions are only preferred embodiments of the present invention, and are not intended to limit the scope of the claims of the present invention. All other equivalent changes or modifications without departing from the spirit disclosed in the present invention shall be included in the present invention. within the scope of the patent application.

20: The first transparent film

22: Inkjet head

24: Ink

25: Pattern

Claims (10)

A method of tinting contact lenses comprising: A first light-transmitting adhesive film with a curved surface is provided, and the curved surface of the first light-transmitting adhesive film has a convex transmissive surface and a concave transmissive surface; Using an inkjet process, spray a pattern on the convex transparent surface of the curved surface of the first light-transmitting film; and provide a second light-transmitting film having a curved surface, and the second light-transmitting film is The curved surface has a convex transparent surface and a concave transparent surface, and the first transparent adhesive film has a convex transparent surface with the pattern and is attached to the concave transparent surface of the second transparent adhesive film. The coloring method for contact lenses according to claim 1, wherein the first light-transmitting adhesive film and the second light-transmitting adhesive film are composed of materials based on hydrogel. The method for coloring a contact lens as claimed in claim 1, wherein the inkjet process comprises using an inkjet head to spray an ink onto the convex transparent surface of the curved surface of the first light-transmitting adhesive film. The coloring method for contact lenses according to claim 3, wherein the ink contains an adhesive component, so that the first light-transmitting adhesive film can be directly attached to the second light-transmitting adhesive film. The method for coloring contact lenses according to claim 3, wherein the ink contains a color component. The method for coloring contact lenses according to claim 5, wherein the color components in the ink are selected from the group consisting of white, magenta, magenta, yellow, black, and any two or more thereof. The coloring method for contact lenses according to claim 1, wherein the first light-transmitting adhesive film is a contact lens body material film, and has a central area and a peripheral area. The coloring method for contact lenses according to claim 7, wherein the pattern is distributed in the peripheral area of the first light-transmitting adhesive film. The method for coloring contact lenses according to claim 7, wherein, when in use, the convex transparent surface of the first light-transmitting film faces the wearer. The method for coloring a contact lens according to claim 3, wherein the ink to be jetted has a viscosity ranging from 2 to 30 centipoise (cPs).

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