Very nice. It does show a noticeable increase on the lux meter after taking it out. It's quite slight, maybe 10% at most. It's not like LEDs which is much more stable.
If yours doesn't focus to infinity after taking it out, just make sure that center silver thingy holding the lens is not completely screwed in, probably just half or 1 full turn would do it. So the lens is actually closer to the diode than before.
I am not going to do any close-up burning with this (that belongs to the 445 league), so no issue with the IR.
The original lens is not an IR filter anyway....i just viewed it with the camera with a IR remote. I broke my O-like 100mW with beam expander, i mean i dropped it and the brass "pill" with the crystal dropped out. Purchased some silicone based thermal glue from dealextreme and so i need to stick it back in. I guess it's a blessing because it's built in such a way that it can easily break.... so that i can easily glue it back in. If it were a solid contraption/module with no way to access the front lens/crystal assembly, i am sure the laser would be a straight toss into a the bin.
Alignment shouldn't be an issue, just need some patience and steady hands. Should be 100% new (originally it was just a wee bit crooked so with the expander lens defocused, i get some "coma". So i get to collimate it now, like in astronomy in telescope.
The broken laser is cool, it is pretty bright on the camera with 1064nm radiation, even though it is unfocused.
