Focusing

[dlipford370]

So I have this setup here:


This laser is an 18650 host, with a monster heatsink (aluminum) The finish is black, and the beam is blue (445nm).

The diode is the xj-a140 (I purchased it from dtr) and the diode is housed in an aixiz focusable housing+a 445nm glass AR-coated lense.

Another note is that this is my first, fairly high powered laser, I'd say approaching closer to the 1W mark.

When I focus, I feel like there is a lot of blurry blue around the dot, and the dot gets exponentially bigger when its further...yeah I know that is normal, but it just seems so much bigger than any of my other setups. Is this common, or do you think this is just as good as the axiz glass gets.

At about fifteen feet away there is the solid dot, already a couple inches in diameter, but then theres fuzzies a good 10 inches away. Just a bad focuser? What can I do to make this better?

See attached picture for exploded view of laser parts.

 

[Sigurthr]

Hard to tell without a picture of the output, but yes, high power blues have horrible divergence. As for a lot of blue "mush" around the dot, it could be a dirty lens.

 

[dlipford370]

When you say a pic of the output, do you mean the milliwatt on a laserbee? Or do you mean, just a pic of the beam/dot , any good ideas on how to get the dot to show up ok on camera? It would just wash out the entire image with the brightness.

 

[InfinitusEquitas]

He meant of the dot itself.

You might have a dirty lens... but aside from that what you're describing is normal.