TW202026134A - Mold for demolding contact lens and method thereof capable of fast demolding a contact lens by backward folding the mold cavity to effectively enhancing production efficiency of contact lens - Google Patents

Abstract

The present invention provides a mold for demolding a contact lens, comprising a first mold and a second mold. The first mold comprises a mold cavity that is recessed toward a first direction, a curved section extended outward from a periphery of the mold cavity, a first mounting part adjacent to the curved section, and a recessed section formed between the first mounting part and the curved section. The curved section has a wall thickness thinner than that of the mold cavity to be matched up with the recessed section and help the mold cavity to deform and folded backward. The second mold comprises a circular protrusion part protruded toward the mold cavity and a second mounting part adjacent to the circular protrusion part. The second mounting part and the first mounting part are formed with an assembling structure therebetween. As such, when the above-described mold is applied to demold a contact lens, it is easy to complete demolding through backward folding and thus deforming the mold cavity.

Description

Mold and method for demolding contact lens

The present invention relates to a mold, in particular to a mold for manufacturing contact lenses and a method for demolding contact lenses by using the mold.

The production method of modern contact lenses is mainly formed by heating or irradiating liquid contact lens materials to polymerize and solidify, and then inject water to soften them.

According to the steps, it can be further subdivided into turning method, rotating mold method, and mold method. Among them, the turning method is to pour the liquid contact lens raw material monomer into a tube, polymerize it into a long rod shape and then cut into a piece of circular body, because the lens can be processed according to different designs, which has the advantage of multiple variability. , But because the process steps are complicated and easy to produce errors, it cannot produce a satisfactory remanufacturing rate, and it is not suitable for manufacturing contact lenses with a large demand. Rotary casting method is to inject the liquid contact lens raw material monomer into a rotating mold and rotate the mold. The liquid contact lens raw material monomer is distributed on the mold through the action of centrifugal force, gravity and surface tension, and the raw material monomer is injected The amount and the rotation speed of the mold determine the change of the lens. Although the rotary casting method has good economic benefits, it is difficult to produce high-complexity lenses. The molding method is to place the liquid contact lens raw monomer between two molds to polymerize and solidify into a suitable shape. After taking off the mold, edging, polishing, and then soaking the lens in warm water to soften it to complete the manufacture of contact lenses. The casting method has high replicability and can obtain thin lenses, but it has the disadvantage of high cost.

Among the above methods, the casting method is the most commonly used in recent years. Many manufacturers make improvements based on the casting method to solve the problems of remaining material and demoulding during the production process. For example, Chinese Patent Publication No. CN103465410B proposes an ultrasonic demolding device and its application in the manufacturing method of contact lenses. The ultrasonic demolding device includes an ultrasonic vibrator, a vibration transmission member, and a mold, so it is applied to contact lenses When manufacturing demolding, it has the advantages of extremely short demolding time, increased production speed, and dry contact lenses after demolding, which can improve the accuracy of subsequent inspection processes.

However, there is still room for further improvement in the demolding efficiency in actual use, and it is necessary for people in the field to continue research and development and improvement to improve the manufacturing efficiency of contact lenses.

One of the objectives of the present invention is to provide a mold for manufacturing contact lenses, which can improve the problem that the mold release efficiency of the conventional mold method for manufacturing contact lenses is not as good as expected.

Another object of the present invention is to provide a method for releasing a contact lens, so as to quickly release the contact lens from the mold during the manufacturing process of the contact lens.

To achieve the above objective, the present invention provides a mold for releasing contact lenses, which includes a first mold and a second mold that cooperates with the first mold. The first mold includes a mold recessed in a first direction. Cavity, a bending section extending outward from the peripheral edge of the mold cavity, a first mounting portion adjacent to the bending section, and a recessed section formed between the first mounting portion and the bending section, The wall thickness of the bending section is thinner than the wall thickness of the cavity to match the recessed section to help the cavity to deform and reflex in a second direction opposite to the first direction; the second mold includes a The round protrusion protruding from the mold cavity, and a second mounting portion adjacent to the round protrusion, an assembly structure is formed between the second mounting portion and the first mounting portion.

The present invention further provides a method for demolding contact lenses by using the mold, which includes:

(S1) Provide a mold that includes a first mold and a second mold that cooperates with the first mold. The first mold includes a cavity recessed in a first direction, and a circumference from the cavity The bending section with the edge extending outward, a first mounting portion adjacent to the bending section, and a recessed section formed between the first mounting portion and the bending section, the wall thickness of the bending section is larger than the The wall thickness of the cavity is thin to match the recessed section to help the cavity to deform and reflex in a second direction opposite to the first direction; the second mold includes a round protrusion protruding toward the cavity, a and The second mounting portion adjacent to the round protrusion forms an assembly structure between the second mounting portion and the first mounting portion;

(S2) Place a liquid contact lens material in the mold cavity, and align the round protrusion of the second mold with the mold cavity and press down;

(S3) Separating the first mold and the second mold, so that the liquid contact lens material is adhered to the first mold and presents a curved film shape; and

(S4) Folding makes the cavity deformed and folded to complete demolding.

Accordingly, with the feature that the wall thickness (D1) of the bending section in the first mold is thinner than the wall thickness (D2) of the cavity (D2), the mold can be easily folded during the process of demolding the contact lens. The mold cavity is deformed to complete demolding, so the manufacturing efficiency of contact lenses can be effectively improved.

The detailed description and technical content of the present invention are described as follows in conjunction with the drawings:

"Figure 1" is a schematic diagram of a mold for releasing contact lenses according to an embodiment of the present invention, which mainly includes a first mold 10 and a second mold 20 that can cooperate with each other. Generally speaking, in the process of manufacturing contact lenses , The liquid contact lens raw material monomer is placed between the first mold 10 and the second mold 20, and the liquid contact lens raw material monomer is polymerized and cured by pressing and illuminating or heating each other. Afterwards, demoulding is carried out, followed by edging, polishing, and then soaking the lens in warm water to soften the lens to complete the manufacturing of contact lenses. In this embodiment, the material of the first mold 10 and the second mold 20 may be transparent or opaque, with a somewhat permitted flexibility, such as plastic, but the present invention is not limited to this, and other suitable materials Materials can also be used.

Please continue to refer to "Figure 1", "Figure 2" and "Figure 4". The first mold 10 includes a mold cavity 11 recessed in a first direction. A bending section 12 extends outward from the peripheral edge of the mold cavity 11, and an inclined surface is formed between the mold cavity 11 and the bending section 12 15. The bending section 12 is adjacent to and extends outward to form a first mounting portion 13. At this time, an angle between the bending section 12 and the first mounting portion 13 is between 10 and 80.

In this embodiment, the wall thickness D1 of the bending section 12 is thinner than the wall thickness D2 of the cavity 11 to match a recessed section 14 formed between the first mounting portion 13 and the bending section 12. This structure It is helpful for the cavity 11 to deform and reflex in a second direction opposite to the first direction.

The cavity 11 can be subjected to hydrophilic treatments such as plasma, flame treatment, or short-wave ultraviolet irradiation. Therefore, when the first mold 10 is separated from the second mold 20 in a subsequent step, the contact lens can adhere to the mold Point 11 on.

Regarding the second mold 20, please refer to "FIG. 1", "FIG. 3" and "FIG. 4", which mainly includes a round protrusion 21 and a second mounting portion 22. Wherein, the round protrusion 21 protrudes toward the cavity 11 of the first mold 10, and includes a neck and a curved surface. The neck is surrounded by a plurality of bumps 24, and each bump 24 is formed with a notch. The groove 25 divides the bump 24 into upper and lower parts. The method of forming the notch groove 25, for example, a disk-shaped cutter can be used to rotate the protrusions 24 to produce the notch groove 25, in this embodiment Each of the notch grooves 25 is formed as a V-shaped notch groove. This design helps in the manufacturing process of contact lenses, the excess liquid contact lens raw material monomer can overflow between the score grooves 25 and the bumps 24. After polymerization and curing, the remaining material can be Glue tightly between grooves and bumps.

The second mounting portion 22 is formed adjacent to the outer edge of the round protrusion 21. When the first mold 10 is mated with the second mold 20, the second mounting portion 22 and the first mounting portion 13 can be formed together. Assembly structure. In this embodiment, an angle between 85° and 95° is sandwiched between the second mounting portion 22 and the round protrusion 21. In a specific embodiment, for example, 90°.

The second mounting portion 22 extends in a direction opposite to the round protrusion 21 to form a ring wall 27. The ring wall 27 can further be provided with a plurality of positioning members 28, and there may be a fixed interval between two adjacent positioning members 28. the distance. In this way, when the first mold 10 and the second mold 20 cooperate with each other, a stronger engagement effect can be provided through the ring wall 27.

In this embodiment, when the first mold 10 and the second mold 20 are overlapped and pressed together, in order to prevent the contact lens set therein from being damaged due to excessive extrusion, the first mounting portion 13 is further provided with a plurality of There are two first stop protrusions 16, and the second mounting portion 22 is also correspondingly provided with a plurality of second stop protrusions 26, so that a partial area of each second stop protrusion 26 can match the first The stop protrusion 16 is in contact; or, the size and position of the second stop protrusion 26 can also be exactly corresponding to the first stop protrusion 16 so that the second stop protrusion 26 is in contact with the first stop protrusion The blocks 16 can be completely overlapped and contacted, effectively avoiding the problem of contact lens damage during the manufacturing process. The first stop protrusions 16 and the second stop protrusions 26 are respectively disposed on the first mounting portion 13 and the second mounting portion 22 at a fixed interval. In this embodiment, it can be designed The second stop protrusions 26 are arranged corresponding to the positioning members 28 surrounding the ring wall 27, but the invention is not limited to this.

In addition, even if the first mold 10 and the second mold 20 include a design of many parts, in implementation, the first mold 10 and the second mold 20 described above can be obtained separately by methods such as injection molding. The first mold 10 and the second mold 20 are integrally formed.

In this way, when using the mold to demold the contact lens, through the following steps S1 to S4, the mold cavity can be easily deformed by folding to complete the demolding:

In step (S1), first, a mold having the structure as described above for releasing contact lenses is provided.

In step (S2), a liquid contact lens material is placed in the cavity 11 of the first mold 10, and the round protrusion 21 of the second mold 20 is aligned with the cavity 11 and pressed down. Until a part or all of the second stop protrusion 26 provided on the second mounting portion 22 contacts the first stop protrusion 16 provided on the first mounting portion 13. At this time, the excess liquid contact lens raw material monomer can overflow between the scoring grooves 25 and the bumps 24 to prevent the subsequent manufacturing process from being disturbed by the remaining material.

In step (S3), the first mold 10 and the second mold 20 are separated. After being extruded, the liquid contact lens material will be adhered to the cavity 11 of the first mold 10 that has been treated with a hydrophilic surface. On top and presents a curved film shape.

Finally, in the step (S4), the mold cavity 11 is turned over to deform the mold cavity 11 and fold in the opposite direction, and the contact lens can be simply released from the mold cavity 11 to complete demolding. The specific folding method in this step, for example, because the wall thickness D1 of the bending section 12 of the mold used in this embodiment is thinner than the wall thickness D2 of the cavity 11, it can be easily operated by The protruding end of the back side of the cavity 11 exerts force to cause the cavity 11 to be folded and deformed.

A curing step can be further performed after step (S2) or step (S3) to cure the liquid contact lens material into a contact lens. The above-mentioned curing step may be a light curing process, such as irradiating the liquid contact lens material with light; or a heating curing process, such as blowing hot air to the liquid contact lens material.

Therefore, under the premise of not affecting the yield of contact lenses, the present invention can be completed by deforming the cavity easily by turning the wall thickness of the bending section in the mold smaller than that of the cavity. The demolding step achieves the purpose of improving the manufacturing efficiency of contact lenses.

The present invention has been described in detail above, but what is described above is only a preferred embodiment of the present invention, and should not limit the scope of implementation of the present invention. That is, all equal changes and modifications made according to the scope of application of the present invention should still fall within the scope of the patent of the present invention.

10: The first mold 11: Mould cavity 12: bending section 13: The first installation part 14: Depressed section 15: Incline 16: First gear stop bump 20: The second mold 21: Round protrusion 22: The second installation part 23: reach the top segment 24: bump 25: Notch groove 26: Second gear stop bump 27: Ring Wall 28: positioning parts D1, D2: thickness

"Figure 1" is a schematic diagram of a mold for releasing contact lenses according to an embodiment of the present invention. "Figure 2" is a schematic diagram of the first mold in the mold of "Figure 1". "Figure 3" is a schematic diagram of the second mold in the mold of "Figure 1". "Figure 4" is a schematic cross-sectional view of the first mold and the second mold in cooperation with each other according to an embodiment of the present invention.

10: The first mold

11: Mould cavity

13: The first installation part

16: First gear stop bump

20: The second mold

Claims (10)

A mold for releasing contact lenses, including: A first mold, the first mold including a mold cavity recessed in a first direction, a bending section extending outward from the peripheral edge of the mold cavity, a first mounting portion adjacent to the bending section, and a A concave section formed between the first mounting portion and the bending section, the wall thickness of the bending section is thinner than the wall thickness of the mold cavity to match the concave section and help the mold cavity to move toward the first direction Deformation and reflex in the opposite second direction; and A second mold that cooperates with the first mold. The second mold includes a round protrusion protruding toward the cavity, a second mounting portion adjacent to the round protrusion, the second mounting portion and the first An assembly structure is formed between a mounting part. The mold described in item 1 of the scope of patent application, wherein a slope is formed between the mold cavity and the bending section. According to the mold described in item 1 of the scope of the patent application, the second mold further includes an abutting section which is arranged between the round protrusion and the second mounting section and presses against the bending section. According to the mold described in item 1 of the scope of patent application, an angle between 85° and 95° is sandwiched between the round protrusion and the second mounting portion. According to the mold described in item 1 of the scope of patent application, an angle between 10° and 80° is sandwiched between the bending section and the first mounting portion. As described in the first item of the scope of patent application, wherein a plurality of bumps are provided on the round protrusion, and each bump is formed with a notch groove to divide the bump into two parts. As described in the first item of the scope of patent application, wherein the first mounting portion 13 is provided with a plurality of first stop bumps. For the mold described in item 7 of the scope of patent application, wherein the second mounting portion is provided with a plurality of second stop protrusions, so that when the first mold and the second mold are matched, each second A partial area of the stop bump contacts the first stop bump. According to the mold described in item 1 of the scope of patent application, wherein the second mounting portion extends in a direction opposite to the round protrusion to form a ring wall, and a plurality of positioning members are ringed on the ring wall. A method for demolding contact lenses by using the mold includes: A mold is provided. The mold includes a first mold and a second mold that cooperates with the first mold. The first mold includes a cavity recessed in a first direction and a peripheral edge of the cavity facing outward. The extended bending section, a first mounting portion adjacent to the bending section, and a recessed section formed between the first mounting portion and the bending section, the wall thickness of the bending section is larger than that of the mold cavity The wall thickness is thin to match the recessed section to help the mold cavity to deform and reflex in a second direction opposite to the first direction; the second mold includes a round protrusion protruding toward the mold cavity, and a circle A second mounting portion adjacent to the protrusion, an assembly structure is formed between the second mounting portion and the first mounting portion; Place a liquid contact lens material in the mold cavity, and align the round protrusion of the second mold with the mold cavity and press down; Separate the first mold and the second mold, so that the liquid contact lens material is adhered to the first mold and presents an arc-shaped film shape; and Folding causes the cavity to deform and reflex to complete demolding.

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