This invention relates to eyewear. More particularly, this invention relates to eyeglasses which can easily be connected to auxiliary appliances.
Any eyeglasses designed for one purpose can be added with auxiliary accessories for expanding its usage. For example, it is a well-known and long-time practice that one transforms optical spectacles into sunglasses by placing a clip-on (a kind of accessories) in front of the optical frame. Initially these clip-ons were attached to the optical frames mechanically by little hooks that were clinging around the rims. Further improvement had been made by using little magnets which enabled the clip-ons to attach to the optical frame magnetically (see U.S. Pat. No. 6,170,949). The eyepiece in U.S. Pat. No. 6,412,942 was later disclosed to use discrete heat-treated magnetic alloy as the sunglass frame and magnetizable material as the optical frame. In doing so, both frames must be configured to magnetically couple to each other. The difference between U.S. Pat. No. 6,170,949 and U.S. Pat. No. 6,412,942 is that the former requires clip-on action so that there are some points of contacts between the frames, whereas the latter gives up the idea of clip-on and shows that the two frames seamlessly stick to each other.
In U.S. Pat. No. 6,412,942, expensive magnetic alloy must be used and complicated technique needs to be adopted to strengthen the frame for holding the lens. Since magnetic connection is made between two wholly fitted frames, the aesthetic appearance is not good. One can clearly tell that the eyeglasses user is wearing two different pairs of frames. Besides, the total weight of two pairs of eyeglasses is rather heavy, even if most of the prior art use light-weighted metallic frames.
Nowadays, plastic frames are popular and the above-mentioned prior art cannot be used when the frames are plastic. Accordingly, a new, cheaper and simpler method should be developed for plastic frames.
An object of this invention is to provide magnetic connection method for eyeglasses using plastic frames. This new method is compatible to all prior arts such as U.S. Pat. No. 6,170,949 and U.S. Pat. No. 6,412,942. That is to say, all accessories used in said prior arts, no matter whether they are clip-on type or wholly-fit-frame type, can use this invention. Furthermore, this invention also enables the accessories to magnetically connect to the eyeglasses without frames.
In order to achieve the said object, this invention may include the following steps:
Firstly, to prepare a primary plastic spectacle frame with thermo-plastically moldable and magnetizable materials injected in designed locations to form plurality of areas integral into the frame by double injection molding;
Secondly, to prepare mating accessories with magnetizable material sections which at least can partially touch said areas;
Thirdly, to optionally permanently magnetize said areas or said sections or both.