Is my PL-E Mini 520nm defective?

[anthonybsd]

Hi there,

Long time lurker here. Just received my PL-E Mini 512 nm 1W from Jet Lasers. Turned it on, and on the tightest lens focus settings the beam looks very unfocused (see pics below). Tried lighting a match and no luck after about 2 minutes. Did I get a busted one?

 

[Gryphon]

Perhaps the lens is screwed in too far, have you tried back it out? As the lens gets closer to the laser diode the beam waist moves away from the aperture until you get it focused to infinity. Moving it closer still after that and you will get a big unfocused dot.

Try backing the lens out as you watch the dot size, if it gets smaller and then bigger again as you continue to unscrew it then you know you have full control over its focusing. If it only gets bigger than you will need to find a way to get the lens closer to the diode.

 

[anthonybsd]

This is the tightest beam setting after which the lens wont rotate anymore . Going the other way makes it way more spread out.

 

[Gryphon]

Screwing the lens in makes the dot smaller and screwing the lens out makes it bigger-> lens is too far away from the diode.

The good news is that at some point along the beam you will have a beam waist (smallest point of convergence) which will be great for burning. But if you want the projected dot to focus down to a dot the lens will need to be moved closer to the diode. Here's greatly exaggerated example of the lens being backed out too far. You can see the beam being focused to a tiny point just a couple inches in front of the laser.

Does the front of that laser unscrew completely? I imagine it does, in which case you could unscrew the lens from the focusing ring a little bit to uncover a few more threads so that when it is threaded back into the laser is can travel farther down in towards the diode.

 

[anthonybsd]

Does the front of that laser unscrew completely? I imagine it does, in which case you could unscrew the lens from the focusing ring a little bit to uncover a few more threads so that when it is threaded back into the laser is can travel farther down in towards the diode.

Unfortunately the front doesn't unscrew. There's some threading near the lens presumably for the IR filter, but other than that It seems to be built as a solid piece. The manual isn't much help either

 

[Unown (WILD)]

looks like they installed the lens in backwards

 

[Encap]

Contact/email Gray at JetLasers >> put "Attention Gray" in the subject line
Tell him and he will get it sorted out for you

Nothing anyone can do about it here and if you mess with it you void the warranty

 

[anthonybsd]

Thanks for the helpful responses everyone!