Beam Expander mounted on an RPL

[electron]

You would fabricate a sleeve of sort and attach it with plastic screws.

As for the Beam Expander, your correct it's not from DL; it's a Melles Griot BE.

 

[Justin]

Electron: The reason for the 3-screw system is that it allows for fine 2 axis adjustment of the lens position. This was deemed necessary because in many handheld lasers the beam will be a few mm this way or that, and you need to center the beam in the input lens to be sure of getting the right focus. Does your beam expander have any mechanism to adjust the lens positioning or does it just lock on to the laser?

If there is an easier way to have a mounting system with 2 axis adjustment I'd be interested to see it!

Bayad: The main reason that you have to use AR lenses is that you will lose a lot of power to reflection if there is no AR coating. There is no point in constructing a device to focus the laser for more power, only to have the 3 lenses in the system reflect 30% of your output power back into the laser. It's also important to use high quality glass lenses becuase even a tiny imperfection will be very noticeable at long range.

 

[electron]

Justin: The adapter for the RPL just locks onto the Laser and has been machined and threaded exactly in the center, so yes if the Laser's optics varied 2mm that could be an issue; but I would hope that QC in manufacturing the Laser itself would be better than that.  I also thought the BE LG uses has a large diameter Input Aperture? size is? output diameter aperture? size is?

DL also does it that way, and as far as I know it works well for them too. An adjustable axis certainly is not a bad idea, but the Laser's beam ought to be centered; I could be wrong on that, maybe it's not always centered, I probably haven't seen enough Lasers to really know though.  It does appear to be fine on both RPL's I own and Nova Lasers & Dragon Lasers tells me their units work fine with their screw on adapters & BE.

 

[FrancoRob]

Electron: The reason for the 3-screw system is that it allows for fine 2 axis adjustment of the lens position. This was deemed necessary because in many handheld lasers the beam will be a few mm this way or that, and you need to center the beam in the input lens to be sure of getting the right focus. Does your beam expander have any mechanism to adjust the lens positioning or does it just lock on to the laser?

If there is an easier way to have a mounting system with 2 axis adjustment I'd be interested to see it!

Bayad: The main reason that you have to use AR lenses is that you will lose a lot of power to reflection if there is no AR coating. There is no point in constructing a device to focus the laser for more power, only to have the 3 lenses in the system reflect 30% of your output power back into the laser. It's also important to use high quality glass lenses becuase even a tiny imperfection will be very noticeable at long range.

Hi Justin, I feel perplexed about your statement: what do you means with "few mm this way or that"? Do you intend "out of center" or "diverging" beam? (ref. my annexed sketch)? This means that the front diaphragm (the on - off one) equipping your Aries or Hercules lasers has a central hole, the diameter of which takes into account the maximum alignment error that it is possible to find? (Example: if you foresee a maximum misalignment of + or - 2 mm  respect the laser body construction line, the minimum hole dia will be 2 + 2 + 1.5 (beam thickness) = 5.5 mm.)
I don't know the inner dimensions of your BE adapter, anyway I can suppose that the internal hole (which fit on the cooler of the laser) is cylindrical. In this case I agree with you that the three screws of the shorter adapter can, in some way, help to reduce a misalignment, also if the prospective picture of your gallery shows a max gap of 1 mm. Different is the case of the longer adapter, because in this case you need two series of screws (one in the bottom and one in the top of the adapter cylindrical part) to obtain a parallel corrective displacement....
This, obviously, without taking into account that we are speaking of a technological product pricing up to 2989 US$ (I totally agree with electron note about the QC). Thanking in advance for more additional info about the positive use of the fitting screws (I'm an enthusiast supporter of the threaded adapter), I apologise for every eventual misunderstanding by my side (it's difficult to speak about something which is not in our hands). What I can confirm, because I have in my hands, is that DL BE and relevant adapter fit and work perfectly on my Viper 95 mW .

 

[electron]

Justin:
Another thought just came to mind, since your Lasers Beam can be off centered by a couple of mm's you say, are you then saying that the aperture plate is custom made / hand fitted for each individual Laser? Because the exit aperture looks like it is about the exact same size of the beam that is exiting from it, and it doesn't look like it would be wide enough to accommodate a beam exiting that is a couple of mm's off center........I haven't seen that on other Laser brands, Can you please provide more information then on LaserGlow Lasers then; maybe I'm misunderstanding, IF the beam is off center, then the exit aperture must be much wider than needed or hand fit.

Thanks

 

[electron]

FrancoRob: Really nice drawing you did there and I also like the pictures you shared with us on the DL BE on your Viper, looks Great!

I'm going to see about adapting that BE to the RPL since it's 10x, 2 adapters and 1 lens that will work on 2 different brand Lasers seems like something to pursue.  I'm short on time because of work obligation right now, but this is a project I want to do as soon as I can.

 

[FrancoRob]

FrancoRob: Really nice drawing you did there and I also like the pictures you shared with us on the DL BE on your Viper, looks Great!

I'm going to see about adapting that BE to the RPL since it's 10x, 2 adapters and 1 lens that will work on 2 different brand Lasers seems like something to pursue.  I'm short on time because of work obligation right now, but this is a project I want to do as soon as I can.

Hi Electron,
thank you for your appreciation; you have made a really good work too, with your adapter. I know, more years pass and more busy is our life....; take your time, our hobbies are gratifying when we can work on them for pleasure, not for necessity. Anyway I'm really willing to know your results when you'll have manufactured the new adapter. I agree totally with you, a good BE is more than sufficient, when you have all the adapters you need for your lasers. Under a QC point of view, here in Italy it's possible to buy a good lathe having the capability to manufacture threads, with a little more than half the price of the most expensive Hercules, and with a traditional rule it is easy to obtain a precision of 0.05 mm (0.0019 in.), so I'm a little bit sceptical when I read about misalignment of millimeters....

 

[FrancoRob]

Justin:
Another thought just came to mind, since your Lasers Beam can be off centered by a couple of mm's you say, are you then saying that the aperture plate is custom made / hand fitted for each individual Laser? Because the exit aperture looks like it is about the exact same size of the beam that is exiting from it, and it doesn't look like it would be wide enough to accommodate a beam exiting that is a couple of mm's off center........I haven't seen that on other Laser brands, Can you please provide more information then on LaserGlow Lasers then; maybe I'm misunderstanding, IF the beam is off center, then the exit aperture must be much wider than needed or hand fit.

Thanks

Hi Electron, just to clarify: justin didn't quantify how many mm. the beam is "in this way or that". I have made the hypothesis of a pair of mm.
We'll have to wait for some more info from him.

 

[electron]

FrancoRob:
I know he didn't say exactly how many, but he did say a few mm's "the beam will be a few mm this way or that".  I would like to see more info from Justin too.

 

[steve001]

If you've not seen this topic other beam expander companies

http://www.laserpointerforums.com/forums/YaBB.pl?num=1218059988

 

[electron]

Wow, guess what? Dragon Lasers contacted me, they are offering to build the custom adapters like they have done for their Viper, etc.  

 

[FrancoRob]

Wow, guess what? Dragon Lasers contacted me, they are offering to build the custom adapters like they have done for their Viper, etc.  

Oh, well, this will surely reduce the time needed to test the DL BE on your RPL 400.... :

 

[electron]

Well that idea was short lived, I replied back to DL and asked for the price, etc and their reply back was they'd be more than happy to make the adapters for me.

They only want an order for 100 pieces @ US $10.00 each, since I would only have a need for 1 adapter, perhaps 2 (1 as a spare) I don't think I'll be spending USD $1,000.00 on adapters, they are out of their freaking minds!!

I replied back and told them I'll give them $1.00 each for them in quantities of 100 take a look at DX, prices are extremely cheap and they are selling @ retail prices with shipping, it's Made in China NOT in the USA. I doubt I'll ever hear back from them again, what a rip off!

 

[FrancoRob]

electron:
sometimes I don't understand people, or better, it's difficult to enter in some minds: it looks that someone do not understand the difference between "wholesale" and "detail"....; anyway, you know, right or wrong some news fly.....
Well, in the meanwhile it looks that the right "move" (for testing purposes) is again up to you ;D

 

[electron]

Here's the Melles Griot 20x, it lights a match INSTANTLY @ 25 feet, Lights a match @ 50 feet taking about 4-5 seconds
Destroys a balloon @ 150 feet INSTANTLY.

 

[electron]

Another view of the MG BE 20x;