Powering A140 Diode in 18650 Kit with Alternate Battery

Ash said:

Turn the lens so you get the smallest possible dot at the furthest distance possible.
And, to (possibly) fix your lens-out-of focus "quickly" problem, use a little pipe-thread (teflon) tape on the threads for a tighter fit so you can't knock it out of focus.

Click to expand...

Ah. I tried doing that, but at long distances the dot is very, VERY large. And the beam distribution is not very Gaussian, it looks alot like the picture of the 445 laser through the 405 lens, the picture is in a thread entitled something like 405-G-1 vs 445 AixiZ (I can't find it!)

Also, great idea on the plumbing tape, I'll do that.


EDIT: Found it! Looks like this

http://www.sonic.net/~jayrob/445 lens 1.jpg

But with a circular dot in the middle, the left and right scattering is similar to that photo.

Taken from http://laserpointerforums.com/f65/445nm-a130-lens-comparisons-51456.html, posted by jayrob

ShaOwned said:

...
it looks alot like the picture of the 445 laser through the 405 lens,
...
like this

http://www.sonic.net/~jayrob/445 lens 1.jpg

But with a circular dot in the middle, the left and right scattering is similar to that photo.

Click to expand...

Are you sure the lens isn't installed backwards? You sometimes see that kind of "bow-tie" effect when the lens is in backwards. :yabbem:

I have a lens that looks like this
------...........|
....lens.-->.....|
------...........|

The lens sits at the end of a cylindrical module with threads. I then thread it into the EzFocus adaptor represented by the vertical line in the direction of the arrow. Is that backwards?

EDIT: Crap, I already put teflon tape on the lens threads, and now I can't unscrew it from the EzFocus adaptor to switch it around...

Can't really tell from your diagram if it is backwards or not. :thinking:
But, if you put the lens in the other way, does it make a cleaner (and smaller) dot?

There is a cylindrical module. At one end of this module there is a lens. The side with the lens is screwed into the EzFocus adaptor so that the lens is closest to the adaptor (The lens side faces out of the laser, rather than towards the diode.

As I said right now I can't unscrew it. trying to take off the tape.

Ah okay, I've figured everything out. I had the lens in backwards. Then I fixed my focus issue by just slowly adjusting the module in the heatsink. We now have a nice round dot. I bet this will fix my power issues (I was only getting 500-600mw) as well.

Ash, I'm forever indebted to you.

Seriously though, as I mentioned on another thread, we should compile all this advice into one thread - so many issues I have had some different person knows the answer to some peculiar problem.

Glad I could help :friend: