Home Made Monster Beam Expander !

[Accutronitis]

I think we're both beginning to get a handle on what is really possible without breaking the bank !

 

[RedCowboy]

Yes, we know what it will cut at 3 inches away with a G2 lens and when we can make it cut at ______ number of feet at even 4 times that beam size we have to ask, how much more is it worth to focus this any tighter, what's needed is better beam quality and a lot more horsepower.

 

[Accutronitis]

For sure the 44 is pretty impressive with a little bit of work when i can point the hammer at the Las Vegas asphalt street and instantly make it smoke !

 

[RedCowboy]

Yes, charging batteries and making work happen at a distance is very enjoyable, like many here I am hopelessly addicted to direct energy technology.

For me it's not enough to enjoy driving a car, I have to know how it works and understand every part of it. But that's part of the fun as well and when I can have a 1000 dollars worth of fun for 150 bucks I feel like I win.

Even when I understand something that I can't have I feel like I have a part of it anyway, knowledge is life, without it what would we be?

But I digress, yes lasers are very cool, well hot

 

[Accutronitis]

+1 I couldn't have said it better ! :thanks:

We'll have to wait for EP to get back before we can put these lenses to good use, It should be about a week give or take....

 

[RedCowboy]

I may mount one in a cardstock tube and test it fully before having something made, I may want to change out the concave lens as well, I tried adjusting a G2 with a 44 diode and the 3.25 aspheric and at the right G2 setting the wings went away that I was having with that attempt, I expect correcting divergence 1st is still the way to go, then maybe a smaller set, something like a 2 inch aspheric or PCX, I want to do more testing before just having a slider printed, I also have a lot of lenses, but 2 - 2.5 inches wide is about my target.

 

[Accutronitis]

My relatively small jetlasers exit lens home brew work amazingly well for it's size but after the crude testing i did i'm sure the 2 incher with it's longer focal length will be even better but correcting divergence is still a must.

The 2 incher has a much greater exit lens fill which seems to help as well ?

 

[RedCowboy]

Testing looked good but alignment must be kept squared up so I am going to make some cardstock lens holders, it's what business cards are printed on, but I'm sure you know that, I do have the heavy weight smooth paper so it shouldn't make loose fibers, so far I have used it with good results making zoom lens for M-140 and 7875's.

I'm really ready for more power, I want to cube a corrected pair of 44 beams and maybe I can find the perfect lens of 40mm or so that I could adapt to the 3X so I keep the threaded adjustment, small distance adjustments can make a big difference at the target and a threaded adjuster is sure nice.

 

[Accutronitis]

What is the threaded adjustment part of it ?

 

[RedCowboy]

The sanwu 3X is 2 parts that screw together, each houses 1 lens and you have a dozen or more rotations to move it's lenses apart 3/4 of an inch, so you can make small adjustments that hold, now if the sliding ratio has a longer " stroke " then it may be easy to focus to a point at distance, but the longer the distance the more fine the adjustment needs to be.

That is a 1/64 rotation has more effect at 80 feet than 16 feet, you may want 1/128 of a rotation at longer distances to fine tune the spot size.

 

[Accutronitis]

The sanwu 3X is 2 parts that screw together, each houses 1 lens and you have a dozen or more rotations to move it's lenses apart 3/4 of an inch, so you can make small adjustments that hold, now if the sliding ratio has a longer " stroke " then it may be easy to focus to a point at distance, but the longer the distance the more fine the adjustment needs to be.

That is a 1/64 rotation has more effect at 80 feet than 16 feet, you may want 1/128 of a rotation at longer distances to fine tune the spot size.

Oh i get it, How are you going to use a bigger lens with it ?

 

[RedCowboy]

I'm not right now, not with threads that is, I am going to test 2-3.5 inch PCX and aspheric lenses with a nubm44 and a G2 and work with the G2's focus, then with a 44 and G2 with 6X correction and the larger lenses, I will use card stock sliders for testing, once I have found what works best I will decide if it can be finished as a slider or if I need to have a threaded adjuster lens holder made.

But I have to at least use the card stock sliders, just holding the lenses by hand is very difficult to align at 80 feet.

I may also test the 4 inch aspheric with the raw diode output, but again I must make at least a cardstock holder/slider to keep the diode window clean and maintain alignment.

 

[steve001]

I'm not right now, not with threads that is, I am going to test 2-3.5 inch PCX and aspheric lenses with a nubm44 and a G2 and work with the G2's focus, then with a 44 and G2 with 6X correction and the larger lenses, I will use card stock sliders for testing, once I have found what works best I will decide if it can be finished as a slider or if I need to have a threaded adjuster lens holder made.

But I have to at least use the card stock sliders, just holding the lenses by hand is very difficult to align at 80 feet.

I may also test the 4 inch aspheric with the raw diode output, but again I must make at least a cardstock holder/slider to keep the diode window clean and maintain alignment.

You might want use the Galilean type expander instead of the Keplerian type you use now.

 

[Accutronitis]

We both are using a Galilean type beam expander ?

 

[steve001]

We both are using a Galilean type beam expander ?

Redcowboy is using a Keplarian expander or will be.

 

[Accutronitis]

Redcowboy is using a Keplarian expander or will be.

I don't think so but i'll let him speak to that ?