Wings around laser dot...

Today I received my 10440 batteries and charger. I popped them into my eBay greenie thats overspec, and I notice now that there are wings that appear around the dot. It makes the shape of a cross kinda. I know a little glare isnt uncommon with low quality lenses, but I just didnt expect this much....

This picture was taken of the dot on a wall at about 10-12 feet distance. My camera is a 7.2MP sony cybershot, so it doesnt take the best pictures, so you cant see the beam or anything, but thats not what I am worried about. Also, now that I have put a 10440 battery in this thing, it will pop black balloons at about 6 inches away. I didnt think this laser was very high in power, so I ordered a 50mw O-like module a week or two ago, but now that I see what this is really running at I am worried the new one isn't going to be a noticable increase in power.... can anyone speculate on whether it was a waste of money (have about $110 invested into this 50mw at this point)....

These days, this is not uncommon. however it is a problem. it could be a dirty lens and if the laser has a glass window for the aperture it could also be dirty. you have to be very careful cleaning these things. in fact its recommended you don't so you will have to do your own research on how to clean laser aperture lenses and windows.

if those are clean then this could just be an artifact of the laser itself. the beam quality, if you will, had gone down hill for 532nm DPSS lasers because everyone simply wants more power. they dont look at the beam specs. so the manufacturers are tending to widen the beam, not put too much work into divergence and strange optical artifacts and/or mode hopping and thermal noise are all things they can increase to increase power output. people still buy these lasers and wonder why they look like crap. so keep that in mind. it used to be DPSS lasers had incredibly thin, real TEM00 and low low divergence. i have a wicked lasers green from back in 2009 that does 600mw, 1.5mm beam at aperture and 0.57mRad of divergence. thats the way they made them back then. oh and the spot is very circular with little optical junk around it. my 473 DPSS lab is even better than that and the beam is more narrow than my argon ion laser! good lasers these days cost the same amount as back then. in fact this wicked lasers 600mw 532nm was $3500 back then. that is what it costs to get this quality of beam. maybe not so much today, but still i wouldn't be surprised to see ~$2000 for a 532nm labby with these characteristics.

check out ultralasers.com as an example. look at the beam diameters and the price and the divergence and compare to the 532's sold by the consumer chinese companies (eg olike, rayfoss etc). thats the difference.

I used a can of air to clean the lens and its mostly gone now... I feel dumb for not trying that before opening a thread... sorry guys...

Don't worry about it. the way we learn is by figuring things out. being wrong even. best way to learn. glad you found the problem and sorted it out. it could have been many things.

plexus said:

Don't worry about it. the way we learn is by figuring things out. being wrong even. best way to learn. glad you found the problem and sorted it out. it could have been many things.

Click to expand...

Better be safe than sorry!

No harm in asking. It could easily have been faulty - you never know.

"There's no such thing as a stupid question".

Had the same problem on a 50 module I installed into an empty pen host. Blew it out with air, then I used a Q-tip and lens cleaner. The Q-tip was a pointed lint free type that comes in a camera kit for lens cleaning. Put a few drops on the Q-tip, wipe the lens a few times, then use the dry side and wipe it again. Then canned air. The lens was still moist and had some artifacts when beamed at a white wall. In and hour or it dried and its a clean crisp dot now!

Some may say that Q-tips are a no no, the camera lens cleaning type are different.