Saturday, May 25, 2019

Life-hack: Anti-Fog Visor

Ever gone riding in the rain where you should not to open your visor but yet you need to else you cannot see anything to save your life? What about riding in the cool morning enjoying the coldness but cannot open the visor unless you want to freeze your eyes out? I have a simple solution.

What causes fog in the visor?
Fog / mist appearing on the visor
Fog happens is because of difference in air temperature. The temperature in the helmet is warm because of the heat and hot air from your breath and the temperature outside is cooler when it is raining, snowing or during the morning. This difference in temperature causes the warm air to condense on the surface of the visor and causes it to fog up. This is the same concept as putting ice into a cup and the condensation will happen on the outside. In order to solve this, I will try a simple and cheap method using shaving cream.


How does shaving cream prevent fog?
Gillette shaving cream
In actuality the shaving cream does not prevent fog. According to The naked scientists, fog "is lots of little droplets of water. When the light hits it, the light gets bent and so you get a very distorted image which, when you move away from it, just looks like a kind of mist. What the shaving foam does: there are lots of detergents in it and those detergents reduce the surface tension of the film of water so it doesn't form lots of little droplets. It just forms a big flat sheet that you can see through much better, so you can see through it even though the water is still condensing."

Method:
Step 1: Rinse the visor before starting. This gets rid of unwanted microscopic dust and dirt which may scratch the visor while buffing.

Step 2: Prepare some rags or paper towel and use them to wipe dry the visor

Step 3: Spray some shaving cream onto the visor. You can spray it both sides but since I only require one side to be fog free

Step 4: Use either your fingers or the paper towel to buff the shaving cream until visor is clear again
Leave the visor out for until the foam is dry then buff until clear
Fog free visor after the buff.
 
So far this method works only for a couple of weeks. This is more time consuming and there might be a chance where you can cause minor scratches  For a more permanent solution, you can get your hands on the Pinlock visor insert or a third party anti-fog visor insert.

Remember to ride safe, be vigilant and keep the rubber side down

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