405nm AR glass lenses - fit AixiZ FEELER

[FrancoRob]

Re: 405nm AR glass lenses - fit AixiZ *FEELER

Updated: 2009-08-28: added the new lenses definition

Hi Igor,
well, after a careful reading of all your messages, let me reassume all main data available till now. With the exception of the physical lenses data, the percent *measured parameter are relevant to blue diodes only. (Update 06/11)

NA
Lens #1: 0.40
Lens #2: 0.55
Lens #3: 0.60

FL
Lens #1: 6.30 mm
Lens #2: 4.56 mm
Lens #3: 4.02 mm

Coating
Lens#1: *405nm and 660nm
Lens #2: 405nm and 660nm
Lens #3: 408nm

Power Output Improvement (Based on a 6x diode and Aixiz acrylic lens)
Lens #1: +16.6 %
Lens #2: +24.2 %
Lens #3: * No Data

Power Output Improvement (Based on a high wavelength PHR diode and Aixiz acrylic lens)
Lens #1: +17.5 %
Lens #2: +26.0 %
Lens #3: +26.0 %

Focusing and Burning (Data still to be properly valuated)
Lens #1: *Good?
Lens #2: *Some focusing and burning - less than a long FL?

Concerning these last data, I believe could be useful to know the Divergence values (like the minimum dot diameter measured at a constant distance, 5 or 10 meters), as follows:

Divergence
Aixiz acrylic lens:
Lens #1:
Lens #2:
Lens #3:

LENSES DEFINITION:
- v1 is what i now call the "Medium Custom Lens". It has a FL in between AixiZ and the Meredith and is made of a high 405nm transmittance glass with a broadband AR coating. It's a bi-aspheric lens (bi-convex). It has the maximum diameter possible (7mm), and as a result, even at the medium FL a reasonably high NA of 0.4...
- v2 is basically a broadband AR coated Meredith but with a larger diameter, possibly capable of capturing a bit more light than a regular sized Meredith, but not yet sure on this point. It has a NA of 0.55 and a FL identical to Meredith. Like the Meredith, it is a Plano-Convex lens (only one face has an aspheric curvature).
- v3 or the "Nichia Lens" is a lens designed to perfectly match specifications provided by Nichia, specifically for 405nm diodes, and is made to capture the maximum possible diode output, and waste as little of it as possible, using a wavelength specific coating, centered at 408nm. However this lens - in the same quality as the first two - cost almost twice as much. The one i have is a "low performance version", which means "refractometer rejects" or lenses that have failed the test of being capable of writing disks. I am not yet sure if this means it causes any abberations we could detect by naked eye or not, i will need it perfectly mounted by Jayrob first... It does however have the highest 405nm throughput of any lens anyone ever saw so far (or at least will, once properly mounted). It has a NA of 0.6 and a FL shorter than Meredith.

Could be nice that Gain and divergence data would be taken for a red diode too. Thank you for all your exceptional work for now.

 

[IgorT]

Re: 405nm AR glass lenses - fit AixiZ  FEELER

You don't understand what i said, and they were two completely different questions :
What if we just put an 8mm o-ring IN the focusing ring. Would it work then? You don't need to do it. I can do that myself. I just want to see if it works.

OR, what if you glue the FOXUSING RING to the top thread on the LENS NUTS?

Actually you are still not reading.

The lens nut is UNDER FLUSH for parallel focus with the two short FL lenses. There is no way to attach anything to it! I had to make an extension to the lens nut, just to attach the fousing ring, to get an idea how well focusing will work.

There is no way to use the short FL lenses in AixiZ lens nuts. Cos nothing sticks out of the module! There is nothing to hold, nothing to grab on to.


But that's not the biggest problem. The biggest problem is me hand mounting lenses. I damaged most of the lenses i hand mounted so far. I was EXTRA super careful with the last three, and yet it's possible there is some damage to one.

Making them dirty is another problem. The manufacturer washes them in acetone. Once in a plastic lens nut, you can't really do that. So it's a bitch to get them clean. Most methods just push dirt around.

And last of all, how much or rather how little do you think my time is worth? Today i spent hours just mounting and trying to center them. Because the short FL lenses have a smaller diameter than the AixiZ lens nut has room inside. There is no way to mount them perfectly straight without at least an adaptor. And if an adaptor is made, the whole lens nut can be made for the same price. I already mentioned this in another post, which brings me back to "read".

Even if they would have a 7mm diameter, like the longest FL lens, i would still have to open 250 lens nuts, cut the back plate off in a way that it would not look messy, and then mount the lens in, supported by three o-rings, and closed off with the opened up plate.


When i still thought this would be a small thing and the lenses cost less than now in 1/10 the quantity, i was considering that option.


But at this point, there is no point in doing it badly by hand, when it's about such perfect lenses.. If the lens is perfect, so should be the lens nut.

 

[19875]

Re: 405nm AR glass lenses - fit AixiZ  FEELER

Thanks Franco nice summary there

Good to have it all in one place.

 

[IgorT]

Re: 405nm AR glass lenses - fit AixiZ  FEELER

Franco: I am getting either the same or a tiny bit higher numbers with lens #3. So small a difference, that it's hard to determine it accuratelly. It's hard to say if it was because of the coating or the 1°C temperature difference...

If you look at the picture of the PHR and 6x side by side, i wrote 209mW next to the PHR. That's what i measured before taking the pictures. If you read one of the posts before that, you will notice, that lens #2 also did 209mW.

Unfortunatelly the cooler i was using to equalise the temperatures before each measurement, ran out of coolness before i could test lens #3. So i'll need to redo the lens #3 tests tomorrow. I did not want to post inaccurate numbers..


As for the voting.. I have not even done all the measurements yet. I still need to post the exact beam diameters and so on, and hopefully power measurements with clean and centered lenses. And then the range of increase depending on diode and wavelength and such.. Then we can make the final decisions..


I was reporting the results as the testing proceeded. After i'm all done, i will post a summary of them all, just like you outlined, Franco..

 

[Jimmymcjimthejim]

Re: 405nm AR glass lenses - fit AixiZ  FEELER

Results are looking good! I cast my vote to lens #2.

 

[pullbangdead]

Re: 405nm AR glass lenses - fit AixiZ  FEELER

IgorT: Cost estimate for lens 2, pre-built into a nut by the manufacturer, in the 250 quantity you mentioned? No rush, and thanks for your great work.

 

[Lasercrazy]

Re: 405nm AR glass lenses - fit AixiZ  FEELER

I vote lens 2 and custom nuts. I can't wait to put these in my Kryton Grooves.

 

[Spyderz20x6]

Re: 405nm AR glass lenses - fit AixiZ  FEELER

[quote author=Spyderz20x6 link=1212842385/540#558 date=1225925061]
You don't understand what i said, and they were two completely different questions :
What if we just put an 8mm o-ring IN the focusing ring. Would it work then? You don't need to do it. I can do that myself. I just want to see if it works.

OR, what if you glue the FOXUSING RING to the top thread on the LENS NUTS?

Actually you are still not reading.

The lens nut is UNDER FLUSH for parallel focus with the two short FL lenses. There is no way to attach anything to it! I had to make an extension to the lens nut, just to attach the fousing ring, to get an idea how well focusing will work.

There is no way to use the short FL lenses in AixiZ lens nuts. Cos nothing sticks out of the module! There is nothing to hold, nothing to grab on to.


But that's not the biggest problem. The biggest problem is me hand mounting lenses. I damaged most of the lenses i hand mounted so far. I was EXTRA super careful with the last three, and yet it's possible there is some damage to one.

Making them dirty is another problem. The manufacturer washes them in acetone. Once in a plastic lens nut, you can't really do that. So it's a bitch to get them clean. Most methods just push dirt around.

And last of all, how much or rather how little do you think my time is worth? Today i spent hours just mounting and trying to center them. Because the short FL lenses have a smaller diameter than the AixiZ lens nut has room inside. There is no way to mount them perfectly straight without at least an adaptor. And if an adaptor is made, the whole lens nut can be made for the same price. I already mentioned this in another post, which brings me back to "read".

Even if they would have a 7mm diameter, like the longest FL lens, i would still have to open 250 lens nuts, cut the back plate off in a way that it would not look messy, and then mount the lens in, supported by three o-rings, and closed off with the opened up plate.


When i still thought this would be a small thing and the lenses cost less than now in 1/10 the quantity, i was considering that option.


But at this point, there is no point in doing it badly by hand, when it's about such perfect lenses.. If the lens is perfect, so should be the lens nut.[/quote]
Oooooooooh...
Now i see what you mean...

 

[IgorT]

Re: 405nm AR glass lenses - fit AixiZ  FEELER

PullBangDead: I asked, and i'll have to supply a drawing, before they quote me a price on the lens nuts...

 

[FrancoRob]

Re: 405nm AR glass lenses - fit AixiZ  FEELER

Franco: I am getting either the same or a tiny bit higher numbers with lens #3. So small a difference, that it's hard to determine it accuratelly. It's hard to say if it was because of the coating or the 1°C temperature difference...

If you look at the picture of the PHR and 6x side by side, i wrote 209mW next to the PHR. That's what i measured before taking the pictures. If you read one of the posts before that, you will notice, that lens #2 also did 209mW.

I was reporting the results as the testing proceeded. After i'm all done, i will post a summary of them all, just like you outlined, Franco..

Ok Igor, you are right, for the moment I have updated my schema introducing this datum for Lens #3, just to give to the other members a general overview, till to the arrive of your summary!
If there are not particular improvements (still not yet discovered) for the lens #3, I agree completely with you, the lens #2 is the best choice, with better prices as, working perfectly with both blue and red diodes, the quantity to order will consider only one lens+nut....

 

[IgorT]

Re: 405nm AR glass lenses - fit AixiZ  FEELER

Franco: The summary above should say "Power improovement based on a high wavelength PHR"....


I still need to do the low wavelength PHR test, where the power increase will be higher. For example, if that PHR would be the highest possible PHR wavelength, that would be the lowest possible PHR increase.


Anyway, i have a lot of work today, so there won't be any testing till late in the evening.

 

[IgorT]

Re: 405nm AR glass lenses - fit AixiZ  FEELER

Oh, one last thing... Lens #3 is otherwise the most expensive lens, while #1 and #2 cost the same.

But they told me they will include the special blu lens for free, and that if it works for us, we can have it for the price of the other two.

What confused me was that the invoice said "low performance lens" for this one.. And i saw some gaps in the beam before, thinking it was dirt. But it's the lens. It has distortions in the beam itself.

I was surprised they offered this lens for the cost of the other two. Now i know why. These are probably rejects, and they were hoping we could find use for them.

Obviously our quality requirements are not as low as i thought!

So there is a lens that is a tiny bit better than Lens #2 in power and has the same nice beam, but this one is not it. That one costs more. This one just has the tiny bit of power increase of it's high quality equivalent, but the beam profile is not good enough.

I tried measuring the power difference, but after i equalised the temperature, it was almost gone. So small it's hard to measure exactly.

So this just simplified the decision a lot. Lens #2 brings out all there is. If there was more, Lens #3 would show it, but it's barelly worth mentioning. Lens #3 is not good enough for our needs, and the high quality version of it costs much more and doesn't work for reds.

So what we have available are lens #1 and lens #2...

Lens #1 clips the beam to a nicer shape, so the spot is nicer, but at the cost of some power. Works both for reds and blu's... May be just as good with reds as lens #2, due to a "rounder" beam distribution profile of red diodes....
Lens #2 brings it all out, and the spot shape depends on the diode alone. Higher power for blu's than lens #1. Also works for reds.


I think it just became a very simple decision.

 

[Zom-B]

This is nuts! as I see it, the lens #2 is going to win, otherwise you'd have to sell two different lenses (red/violet) [edit] you beat me with a post 15 minutes ago, my post took about 30min to write). I like to know the divergence though. With acrylic, the divergence of violet is better than I could ever wish for, and with the red it's still very good.

I just measured the divergences again, because I have different lenses now (real AixiZ brand)

Red: 0.106 mRad
Violet: As far as I can see (<9m), the beam is the same diameter as at the aperture. No noticeable divergence

Now, I'll try with an improvized aperture of a round hole of 2.25mm, to simulate a smaller beam. Actually this is wrong, as a disk shaped aperture creates a spot with rings, wheras an 'aperture' with a gaussian distribution creates a gaussian spot (Foerier theory)

Red: 0.302 mRad
Violet: 0.035 mRad

All these measurements were made with as small a spot as possible, so the waist of the beam intersects with the spot, which is at 9m.

Fringes, just as predicted. Also, notice how much closer the fringes are with the violet. (use pen thickness as reference, the zoom levels differs)

the violet does have more radial pollution though. it lights an area about twice the diameter as the red does, despite it's better divergence.

This is my 'aperture'. I'm sure some of you will recognize this part

 

[FrancoRob]

Re: 405nm AR glass lenses - fit AixiZ  FEELER

Franco: The summary above should say "Power improovement based on a high wavelength PHR"....


I still need to do the low wavelength PHR test, where the power increase will be higher. For example, if that PHR would be the highest possible PHR wavelength, that would be the lowest possible PHR increase.


Anyway, i have a lot of work today, so there won't be any testing till late in the evening.

Ok, done!

 

[IgorT]

Re: 405nm AR glass lenses - fit AixiZ  FEELER

Ok, i don't have much time today, but i was really anxious to do a short wavelength PHR power measurement...

I don't have the time right now to make a short wavelength laser, but i actually have one with a very short wavelength. It's this diode, which degraded from >100mW to <60mW.
This diode has been a LED in between and came back to life! Several times! I know it's impossible, but that's what it did! It gave a whole new meaning to the concept of a "zombie blu ray".

So it might not be a good representation of your average short wavelength PHR, as i can clearly see a different beam distribution profile.
But i just wanted to get an idea. So i popped in lens #2 and did the measurements.

Here are my numbers:
- AixiZ acrylic = 50.6mW
- Lens #2 = 71.4mW

On first glance it didn't seem special, and i wasn't really thinking, until i put the numbers in a calculator and got 41.1%!

Ok, obviously i'm doing something wrong. I was expecting 31-33%, but not more. So i redid the measurement, this time with a more carefully equalised temperature:

- AixiZ acrylic = 51.3mW
- Lens #2 = 73mW

That's 42.3%!


This is with my meter in low range, where i have a 10 times higher resolution, but also lower stability of the reading. But i did do the measurements right, and i averaged them to the most stable number and then checked that the meter returns to zero after power-down.


Long ago, at the very beginning, when i still thought 405nm diodes are 405nm and not 408 +/-5mW, i said that theoretically, the power increase could be somewhere between 30-40%, due to the sharp cut-off of transmittance in acrylics, just around 405nm.

I later changed that to 20-30%, and soon after that, i was just hoping it would get close to 20%.

But now we're at ~24% with 6x's, 26% with VERY long wavelength PHRs, and at >40% with VERY short wavelength PHRs!


I still need to repeat the short wavelength measurement with a "fresh" PHR, to see what it looks like with normal beam distribution. But i honestly wasn't expecting more than 31-33%.

So another interesting test will be, how much do "normal" wavelengh PHRs get increased..  ;D


And yeah, i AM sure about the above numbers. If a fresh PHR of the same short wavelength measures differently, it will only be from a different beam distribution. And it could actually go either way, because this particular zombie PHR has a really funky beam profile. Or it could be the same.... It's hard to tell.


But i do know one thing for sure...

Lens #2 is amazing!  ;D

 

[IgorT]

Re: 405nm AR glass lenses - fit AixiZ  FEELER

This is my 'aperture'. I'm sure some of you will recognize this part

Did you turn this plate around to lower the NA even more?


Anyway, when you reported a 29% inrease with the objective lens, i couldn't believe it, but you were obviously spot on!
A power increase of >30% could actually be the AVERAGE increase for PHRs!

Man, i would so love to make a low and a medium wl PHR right now, but it's gonna have to wait.



Otherwise, i will do a divergence measurement for lens #2 with both reds and blu's.. I hope i can find some time for this soon.


Heh, i just realised one thing. When i measured PHRs for efficiency, to sort them i threw the high wavelength and low wavelength ones into the same efficiency group, if they measured the same after an acrylic lens.

But with high wavelengths, there is only 26% more behind the acrylic, with low wavelengths, there is up to 42% more. So the low wavelength PHRs of the "same" efficiency actually had a WAY higher efficiency, but way more was lost in the acrylic lens!


EDIT: The same could hold true for the GBW 4x's.. They measure as a lower power at same currents, but i heard they have a lower wavelength than PHRs! They could actually be putting out MORE than PHRs, but more is getting lost in the acrylics? It's possible. I need to test some 4x's with these lenses ASAP.

It could explain why they are dying at powers that seem too low!