Can I put Optrel on blast here for a second? They're still selling a hood with a known lens issue.
Here are my previous posts about this brand and the experience I've had with their Pure Air Helix Quattro:
So. I had to warranty it AGAIN in December (before the 3rd post.) I received the new hood with the new design like the 15th of January, and have been using it every day since. Lens hasn't failed again (yet.)
Instead, this one's lens doesn't like to darken at all for like half a second when it sees an arc for the first time in a while, yet again blinding the fuck out of me. I guess that's just how it is with this brand.
(yes it's charged, the light is green, and yes charged with the included USB cable plugged into a known good Samsung 15w wall adapter plugged into a known good 110v wall outlet.)
Here's the email they sent me, preceding me getting the new version of the helix. Note the "There has now been a confirmed fault" wording?
Anywho, the reason behind me making this post is that I was told (over the phone) that they're going to have this new fixed version of the Helix available for sale "soon."
Well, it's been 4 months. I still can't buy the updated clear lens design that is just plain better than the old ones. I ran out, and I realized this when I wanted to buy more.
If you want one of these hoods, you're going to have to buy the non improved version, with the known fault.
For the people who don't want to read 5 thousand words of me bitching, the short and sweet of it is that the lens will fail as such: The lens darkens, but not down to the selected shade, not even down to shade 8, it's something like 6.
It starts as intermittent, and then does nothing but that. It doesn't matter if you use the shadetronic/fadetronic, it just happens. I know because I never once switched the lens in the 3rd hood I got to shadetronic, and kept it on manual the entire time I used it, but the defect still showed itself, and I had to request another replacement.
Obviously, that's a problem. Tenfold for people like me who stare at ~300a all day running large wire spray MIG. When that lens doesn't darken down to shade 12.5 or 13, you know about it, and you're left temporarily blind with a big ass spot in your vision.
Now I'm not an optometrist, but I don't think extremely bright light exposure like that is good for your eyes at all. Even with the shade 3 light state of the hood blocking the UV and IR.
Now, you cannot buy the iteration of the hood that I posses, with the additional lens flipper on the right side, and the updated clear lens design. (The new clear lens is thicker, has a better seal around the perimeter of the shell, and has an angled portion that clicks into the "nose" looking part on the front)
They are still selling a welding hood that has a known lens defect that will fail to darken and blind the fuck out of you while using it.
The best part? It costs $1400 dollars! Plus tax! Even the non-PAPR hood is $800 minimum.
Darkening when the lens sees an arc is like THE job of this piece of PPE.
What kind of PPE company continues to sell a known defective product? What kind of operation are they running?