Beam expander that works with Survival Laser S4X?

[Sta]

Does anyone here know of a beam expander that will work with the Survival Laser S4X? I have looked but haven't found anything that looks like it will work.

 

[Pi R Squared]

I also wouldn't mind one that works with the other Survival Laser hosts. If enough people want one maybe we can get Garoq to have some made. I know it's possible to build your own, am not sure how quick and easy that is or how expensive, maybe Alaskan will comment on this, I think he has several beam expanders. I think he may be on his way to Afghanistan by now.

Alan

 

[Lifetime17]

Hi Sta,
I would buy 2 and 3 if he made them for the smaller type SL's . That would be really a great item. I bet gary would clean house with that one, Home run for sure.!!

Rich

 

[10fenny]

!!!!! YES!!!! this needs to happen.
I have wanted a beam expander for awhile now but have yet to attempt to fab one up

 

[Sta]

Well, it seems everyone is in agreement

This would probably be pretty profitable for Garoq, especially if it were to fit around the standard AixiZ focusing ring (which would make it a 'universal' beam expander.)

 

[Pman]

I'm trying to decide whether to pick a Jet one up now that I have a Ple although it's not so useful for my 473nm. Wouldn't mind picking up another Ple at some point.

 

[Eracoy]

Looking at my X10DR, it looks suspiciously close to the size of an S4X. Checking the specifications, the S4X is 38.1 mm in diameter at the business end. The X10DR from Laserglow (the Aries series one seen here) is built to fit the 37.9mm Aries pointers. I wonder if perhaps one of those would fit on to an S4X. It wouldn't work with the extended and tapered heat sinks, but it might work with a smaller heat sink that it looks like you have. The screw placing would also fit with the six pointy-bits at the end.

 

[Sta]

Looking at my X10DR, it looks suspiciously close to the size of an S4X. Checking the specifications, the S4X is 38.1 mm in diameter at the business end. The X10DR from Laserglow (the Aries series one seen here) is built to fit the 37.9mm Aries pointers. I wonder if perhaps one of those would fit on to an S4X. It wouldn't work with the extended and tapered heat sinks, but it might work with a smaller heat sink that it looks like you have. The screw placing would also fit with the six pointy-bits at the end.

That's certainly a nice beam expander, but for the pricing ($389.00!!) you could probably build a 1W 520. :wtf:

 

[Garoq]

I also wouldn't mind one that works with the other Survival Laser hosts. If enough people want one maybe we can get Garoq to have some made. I know it's possible to build your own, am not sure how quick and easy that is or how expensive, maybe Alaskan will comment on this, I think he has several beam expanders. I think he may be on his way to Afghanistan by now.

Alan

Not being an optical engineer myself, if someone could produce a prototype I would certainly look into having them made and offering a royalty or other compensation for the design.

 

[Alaskan]

Simple beam expander using just one PCX/Plano-Convex lens:

Easiest beam expander setup I know of is to simply adjust your laser pointers collimating lens out of infinity focus so the beam is much wider and then collimating the beam back to infinity focus by using a larger plano-convex lens in front of the de-focused output. For this to work, the lens in the pointer is adjusted so it produces a wide spot which is about 75-90% the diameter of a larger PCX lens, but if you wish you can adjust the spot to much smaller to cover only 1/4 or 1/2 of the larger PCX lens, it works just the same..

This is a kind of cheat so an expander lens is not needed, no math, no fuss.... When using a expander lens you need to have the right negative focal length lens so the beam spreads to just the right amount for the diameter of the positive focal length PCX lens used. Normally, a negative FL lens is chosen so the spot it produces is at least 80% the diameter of the PCX lens it falls upon when at its FL spacing. Having the diameter of the spot adjustable by simply de-focusing your pointers lens removes that issue. Adjust the spot size which falls on the PCX lens and then the spacing between the two lenses closer or further apart to find infinity and you then have a cheap beam expander with less loss than a normal one which uses an additional lens. If using a Galilean beam expander (same as a telescope which works as a BE too) you divide the expander lens negative FL number by the positive plano-convex lens FL number to determine the expansion factor. i.e. -10mm FL expander lens with a +100mm FL PCX lens makes a 10X beam expander and the lenses would be positioned close to 100mm apart.

If your PCX lens is huge like I love to use, it is possible to defocus your laser pointers lens to such a large amount clipping of the beam can occur, but if only using a 1 to 2 inch diameter PCX lens, I don't think you will have clipping, especially if using a PCX lens with a fairly long focal length of 4 inches or more because the beam can spread to become a larger spot than that in just a few inches without having to take the pointer very far out of focus. I have a 6 inch diameter PCX lens with a focal length of about 18 inches and have not had any clipping occur when the G2 lens I use in my pointer is defocused to cover the entire 6 inch aperture.

 

[coletrain211]

Well, actually I think I may have come across something interesting here! So I know it's not the greatest amount of expansion, but I believe it could possibly be a universal expander.

here:
https://sites.google.com/site/hkfew5e22/x3-beam-expander

It is only 3x expansion, but as far as the price point and how universal it may be, it could be our best bets. It's $60 and I have ordered from the website before a couple of times and everything arrives as expected. In fact, I would really recommend their G7 lenses. It even has pretty good shipping for China!

Basically, Podo said that if "your laser fits the star pattern caps, this BE will fit as well." And I purchased an adapter for those pattern caps that fits onto all common lenses like the 3 element, G2, and G7..... So basically, I'm hoping this could work? Thoughts anyone? I have yet to buy one just in case it won't work.

 

[Alaskan]

That expander looks interesting, only thing I don't like is the whole unit is hanging on the small G2 (or what have you) lens which can be wobbly enough without the extra weight. I suppose adding Teflon tape to the lens threads could hold everything together so there wouldn't be wobble.

This kind of expander is a trade-off to allow the expander to fit just about any of our laser pointers using that type of lens thread, but mechanically, not nearly as stable as a expander which somehow mounts to the body of the pointer.

 

[Lifetime17]

Well, actually I think I may have come across something interesting here! So I know it's not the greatest amount of expansion, but I believe it could possibly be a universal expander.

here:
https://sites.google.com/site/hkfew5e22/x3-beam-expander

It is only 3x expansion, but as far as the price point and how universal it may be, it could be our best bets. It's $60 and I have ordered from the website before a couple of times and everything arrives as expected. In fact, I would really recommend their G7 lenses. It even has pretty good shipping for China!

Basically, Podo said that if "your laser fits the star pattern caps, this BE will fit as well." And I purchased an adapter for those pattern caps that fits onto all common lenses like the 3 element, G2, and G7..... So basically, I'm hoping this could work? Thoughts anyone? I have yet to buy one just in case it won't work.

Hi if this works out for you well all we would need to get is the adapter and the BE and it will fit all our lasers with a M9x0.5thread with the adapter let us know . i would buy a couple of them if it's semi universal

Rich

 

[Alaskan]

I'm interested in having one myself. 3X expansion is enough to reduce the divergence of a 1 watt 520nm laser diode to be close to the divergence of a DPSS laser.

 

[VirtueViolater]

Not being an optical engineer myself, if someone could produce a prototype I would certainly look into having them made and offering a royalty or other compensation for the design.

Hi Garoq, sanwus expander fits acessory lens threads. All you need is a heatsink with these threats outside of lens threads

 

[coletrain211]

Oh I'm sure that thing would be wobbly as hell if you didn't somehow secure it more or hold onto the BE the whole time you use it. But that's not to say I'm at least interested :eg: