I took off the head of my FW3A to change the optic and in the process slightly touched the lens. I took some windex with a microfiber cloth and wiped it but now I’m wondering if I might have affected the AR coating somehow in the process. What techniques do you guys use to clean your AR coated lenses?
I use my glasses cleaning fluid and a microfibre cloth.
I reason that if it doesn’t mess up the AR coating on my glasses - so far, so good - then it shouldn’t mess up the AR coating on my flashlight lenses.
One thing that occurs to me: make sure the lens is bone dry before assembling it into a light, or you may end up with corrosion from humidity on places like aluminium reflector coatings.
I clean my AR lenses the same way you did blind-eye, never noticed any issues. I think they are pretty durable.
An optician once told me that all glasses with AR coatings come with anti-scratch coatings as standard, because the AR coating is relatively fragile. If flashlight lenses are the same, then the coating should be pretty durable in reasonable use.
Use eye glass cleaner works great drys fast and doesn’t leave and streaks are resident
One of my other hobbies is bird watching, which requires binoculars with all kinds of lens coatings. Zeiss makes cleaning wipes that are designed not to damage coated lenses. A box of wipes (don’t remember if its 25 or 50 one time use to a box) is under $5 at Walmart.