Re: 405nm AR glass lenses - fit AixiZ FEELER
kernelpanic said:
p.s. Can't wait for this GB to go live. Igor sent me one of the series I lenses to play with and I've been having some fun... I can't wait to see how the third generation of these looks! It can't be said too much- Igor, thanks for all of your work on this!
Indeed.. You offered to buy a spherical lens, to help out a bit, and i appreciate that. Thank you!
Otherwise, there won't be any "third generation" lenses..
It's been like this..
Manufacturer 1:
- v1 - the original custom lens, 30 pieces - FAIL - spherical abberations
Manufacturer 2:
- Doesn't even pick up the phone anymore unless caught off guard, in which case they say "next week".
"Manufacturer" 3:
- v2 - first custom lens rescue attempt, 2 samples - FAIL - bubble gum lens?
- v3 - second rescue attempt, 2 samples - WORKS! Oh wait, no it doesn't? Wait, now it does? - FAIL - astigmatic lens/low quality
At this point i realized i was relying too much on too few manufacturers, and went nuts, and started searching for other options, by writing and calling more than ten new manufacturers.
I found:
"Manufacturer" 3's actual manufacturer:
- v4 - third resue attempt, one sample - FAIL - this is a lens? :-/
- v5 - fourth rescue attempt, one sample - FAIL - this was the first lens that was scratched before i got my hands on it, seems like it was made like this :-?
- v6 - fifth rescue attempt, one sample - FAIL - could almost work, has holes in the beam, quality too low
From the whole bunch v3 and v6 were the best, and yet they were horrible... :'(
v1 was and still is the highest quality lens (precision machined lens), but it's spherical, and as such useless for us.
Here end the cheap lenses.
Luckily i also found:
Manufacturer 4:
- wanted to send representatives from France and Germany for a tour of my company, and to convince me to buy quality lenses at 68 EURO each for one piece and 40 EURO each for up to 500 pieces. They said we could talk about the price, once we get to larger quantities. They just didn't seem to understand that 250 pieces is a HUGE quantity for us... But i did get some usefull info.
Manufacturer 5:
- Lens #1 - WORKS!
- Lens #2 - WORKS even better!
- Lens #3 - increases the power the most, but has gaps in the beam - probably rejects from the high quality version. Not suitable for our needs, luckily this one was free. They were probably hoping that we don't need quality and that they could sell their rejects. The quality version costs twice as much as the first two of their lenses.
So we are now actually at lens 7-9, and v7 (Lens #1) & v8 (Lens #2) are the best so far.... The latter increasing the power the most.
We will go with the 8th custom lens attempt, for max power and thinnest beam. But i am hoping i can also order some of the first lens, because it makes a "cleaner" spot, due to the medium NA clipping the ugly edges of the fast axis, and creates a "fatter" beam..
Lens #2 will bring out all there is, so the spot shape will depend ONLY on the diode output shape. It's the only way to get all the power out, and means, that diodes with a weird shape output will create weird shape spots... As diodes get better, so will the spots..
It is usual in pointers to go for a lossy option, such as clipping the output with a low NA of the lens, to make the spot rounder, cleaner and prettier.
- An AixiZ lens for example actually makes a pretty nice, rounded off spot, due to the low NA of 0.3...
- Lens #1 creates a flatter spot, but still with a slightly rounded off fast axis, because the NA is 0.4.
- Lens #2 has a NA of 0.55 and brings out the entire output and creates a spot in the same shape.