Whats the best way to stop your goggles from Fogging?

[MrCheesman94]

I have been looking round and alot of people say

 

put fairy liquid on your goggles wait for it to dry and then Buff out and it will last 2 games day roughly.

 

is this true and if not any other ways?

[Esoterick]

There's a load of anti fog liquids you can get, i've seen a lot of people recommend cat crap but I haven't used it myself. It definitely helps trying to avoid touching the inside surface of the goggles though, as it seems to attract moisture.

[NickM]

Just to point out CatCrap is a type of antifogging you can buy not actual cat faeces.

 

As for the things that work/don't work, pretty much everyone on the forums that uses goggles will have tried many of the stuff on the list, between us all they have probably been tested extensively and the main point is that as far as I can tell nothing actually stops it from happening it simply delays how long till it happens. That includes using fans like those chromatosphere ( ugh cant use the p word) guys use.

 

Or just go for mesh, if you wear glasses maybe try contacts just for game days perhaps. It cuts out that issue altogether.

 

If you solve the problem let us know so we can all do it!

[M_P]

Just to point out CatCrap is a type of antifogging you can buy not actual cat faeces.

Shhhhhhhhhhh, don't tell people!

[Russe11]

If you have a spare pair of goggles in the safe zone your goggles won't mist up

 

The basic principle is that water vapour will condense on lenses faster if there is any dirt, oil etc to act as a seed for the water droplet. So spotlessly clean lenses will fog less. Then you can use anti fog treatments which work by breaking the surface tension of the water droplets so they spread out, this will result in an initial weird rainbow effect and eventually distortion as water builds up rather than total blindness. The more ventilation your goggles have the better as this means the water vapour doesn't build up inside your goggles as fast. In fact if you have a powerful enough fan you can even reverse the fogging as it will pull dry air in and the water on your lenses can evaporate.

 

So what you need is 2 pairs of goggles, a pair with good ventilation, very clean lenses and treated with an antifogging treatment (cat crap or washing up liquid) and a spare pair of mesh goggles in the safe zone just in case.

[jcheeseright]

I can vouch for ESS turbo fan goggles and the ESS no fog cloth (costs about £2.50), as long as the fan stays on you'll stay fog free.

[armysurplusandtoys]

i can vouch for the ess no fog cloth

[Guest PT247]

I wear ESS shooting glasses and like has been said before, ensure the inside lens is clean and try not to touch it once treated. I swear by washing up liquid smeared on neat the night before and buffed off with a dry lens cloth, they have never fogged on me except for when the lens get a fingerprint on the inside. I ride motorcycles and have tried most anti fog treatments sold in my local bike shops in the past on my visors and washing up liquid is by far the best treatment I have used except for the Pinlock double glazing, which wouldn't work in airsoft I don't believe

[MrCheesman94]

i will have to give washing up liquid a go and if not i will try Anti-fog clothes

[ak2m4]

Problem is with most anti-fogging stuff is that come the summer I always found sweat caused more problems than anything - moved over to mesh but prefer glasses. What they need to invent is see-through mesh glass :-)

[NickM]

How about clear polycarbonate mesh, like the hero shark stuff but polycarbonate. Hmmm, need a good designer to give it a go.

[M_P]

What would be the point? it couldn't be clear if it was that thin, so it'd be just the same as metal mesh only a lighter colour.

[NickM]

Well the main problem with mesh is that it seriously cuts down the light entering your eyes, it also means that most of the light enters from directly infront of your eyes in fairly parallel rays with big gaps that your brain will need to fill in for you. This may cause your eyes to fatigue quicker than without them.

 

Letting more light through will mean you will have more light for the rods and cones to deal with. Your brain is pretty good at filtering bits and filling in the gaps elsewhere so any additional light may help even if it is just vague shapes.

 

It could be worth investigating although the holes might cause the polycarbonate to be weak or may cause too much distortion to be useful. The alternative could be a way of putting the goggles together so there is more air flow, or perhaps even two layers, a warm inner layer close to your skin and a cold outer layer with an air gap, this may reduce the likelihood of condensation occurring.

[jcheeseright]

holes drilled in polycarbonate would be awful I expect, while there would be more light coming in it would be refracted so badly it'd be like looking through the bottom of a thousand pint glasses!

 

dual pane goggles have been done and are very effective, google 'thermal lens goggles' and it'll point you in the right direction.

[Airsoft_Mr B]

I know Heroshark did drill holes into some ballistic polycarbonate material but I don't think he ever did a follow up video on them.

As far as I know he never went into producing any more so I can infer it didn't work out.

A shame because it would be great if it did!

[Russe11]

Anyone tried sticking those silly silica sachets that come packed with everything inside your goggles?

[Guest PT247]

holes drilled in polycarbonate would be awful I expect, while there would be more light coming in it would be refracted so badly it'd be like looking through the bottom of a thousand pint glasses!

 

dual pane goggles have been done and are very effective, google 'thermal lens goggles' and it'll point you in the right direction.

on your recommendation, I have ordered some. Will review them when they turn up and I get to skirmish them :-)

[Lozart]

I used to use an old JT Sport paintball mask. I sweated so much even the double glazed thermal lenses fogged. Which was nice.

[NickM]

Sorry I wasn't thinking drilled you're right the refraction and diffusion from the drilled surfaces would be really bad but maybe a purpose made moulded set with rows of holes. I was mostly thinking out loud as I have neither the time or ability to make anything like this, maybe in the hopes of someone who has the tech to make it work might give it a go and test it.

[Gunman]

Abbey Anti Fog spray www.abbeysupply.com/product45.html does what it says. Good in all weathers.

[Suzuki Yamamoto]

Buy a pair of these from Proairsoftsupplies as they don't fog, apparently. Can't go wrong for £9.99 either.

[Ian_Gere]

^^They are not appropriate eyepro for airsoft. You will see people wearing all sorts of stuff, some of it that could withstand buckshot - that doesn't make it appropriate for airsoft. The only eyepro you should consider are types which seal against your face, so that no matter what angle a ricochet can come from, it cannot get between the frame and your face, because once a BB is inside your eyepro, even if it is not initially heading towards your eye, it could bounce off the interior. It has happened recently at Skirmish Airsoft Mansfield.

 

Compare that risk with the risk that a fragment of BB could make it through mesh to hit your eye with sufficient energy to harm it -

 

bear in mind that if a 0.2g BB has 1 Joule of energy and has Volume or 1.333 x 3.142 x (2.975mm)³ = 110.3mm³

 

then so long as the speed remains constant, the energy retained by a fragment is the same fraction as its volume compared to the whole BB, thus half the BB has 0.5J, a quarter 0.25J and so on...

 

Most mesh has holes around 1.5-2mm, but Hero Sharks (strangely enough, in this topsy turvy world of risk assessment done by emotion rather than logic, considered some of the safest mesh goggles) have holes 2.97mm across - but of course you can't end up with a BB fragment shaped like a sphere of 2.97mm diameter / approx 1/2 a BB in volume...

 

...actually this is where it gets much more complex, so maybe I'll start a new thread at some point to get to the bottom of it, but basically you need to imagine the BB 1st in the horizontal plane, then the vertical - if no part can be longer than 2.97mm, then discounting the infinitesimally unlikely possibility that fragments could be shattered off the outside all over, leaving a central chunk of approx 2.97mm diameter, then the biggest piece will have part of the original BB surface will be an equilateral triangle -ish shape, from above and also from the side, with each side of length 2.97mm where one side of the triangle is the shortest line between 2 points on the arc of the BB circumference, like this:

...which works out roughly at 18 tetrahedrons:

...or 1/18th of the Volume and Energy = 0.056J

(If you're wondering about the volume, you may be interested to know that you're not the only one feeling slightly...

...challenged, shall we say?

The centre of a tetrahedron is called the Mong[e] Point!

The curved face which would be present on a BB fragment is missing anyway and that would be proper calculus so fuck it, it's about 6.11mm³.)

But as I said above, that is to assume that the pieces continue to travel at the same speed as the whole, but of course they don't. When the BB hits whatever it shatters against, some energy is transferred to the object and some, although conserved as heat and sound, is lost from momentum (Mass x Velocity), so actually the amount of energy left able to hit your eye is even less than the Volume proportion, and this remember is the largest piece that could theoretically fit through the biggest holed mesh in airsoft: no wonder then that the one time I had a fragment of BB hit me in the eye through my Hero Shark Daggernose, it felt just like a bit of sand blown into my eye from a beach - irritating, but not damaging (because I didn't rub it).

 

But if you can't be doing with 100% fog proof mesh, Revision Bullet Ant goggles are appropriately safe and, once you remove the foam dust filter, perform well at resisting fogging (but you will need anti-fog wipes as well).

[NickM]

Well Ian someone certainly had their weetabix this morning.

 

As for the glasses simply read the article that turned up in Airsoft Action this month (MAY 2014 issue) page 71, "READ AND TAKE NOTE" if you haven't seen it or can't then the main thrust of the article describes a player from the Shadow Stalkers who was shot with an AEG from 15 to 20ft away, a round hit the rim of his mask and ricocheted up under his glasses hitting the underside of his eye and then eyebrow, his eyebrow was bruised by the impact. The impact to the eye caused a bleed into his vitreous humour (liquid filling they eye) and damage to his retina, this led to being completely blind in that eye almost instantly. With proper medical care (luckily his nearest hospital had a specialist eye casualty unit, he is regaining sight but it has taken over a year and he cannot do any physical activity at the moment because he may detach the retina. He will require yearly eye tests as there is now an increased risk of eye damage.

 

Moral for me, I will probably invest in some better eye pro, I have a set of ESS V12 goggles but they fog badly on me, my main set are cheap goggles from Hong Kong and realistically I'm now not convinced they are up to the job.

[BrightCandle]

My very first Airsoft game I was renting a full face mesh mask. At some point in the second game of the night a small broken particle of a BB got lodge right in front my one of my eyes. I noticed once I got back to the safe zone and what was concerning is that it was small enough to be pushed right through. I got lucky because it must have hit at an angle that stopped it heading towards my eye, but right there within 45 minutes of my first airsoft game I had seen all the evidence I needed that a mesh mask is a bit of a risky proposition.

 

I combined that knowledge with an eye consultant telling me about exploding eyes from BB impacts and well I have since spent a small fortune on high quality googles. They are going to fog and that is a given problem, but not seeing temporarily in the middle of a game is better than never seeing again.

[cropzy]

I can vouch for cat crap as I tried it today and it worked a treat.