Low Power Laser with Precision Beam?

[jbohland]

I just bought and received a red, blue, and green 5 mW set of "Duet" lasers from Z-Bolt today. These are for an instrument I am building for a solar cell project and in this case I need a precision spot size.

The green Z-Bolt pointer has a nice round, focused and small spot.

The red and blue pointers are elliptical and way over the 1.1 mm beam diameter specification.

Can I please get some recommendations on where I get a relatively inexpensive lasers like these but with a true round and small (1.2 mm or less) spot size?

The features i really like about the Z-Bolt are:

- Reasonable cost (all three with accessories were less than $300)
- Remote switch cord accessory
- Constant on switch
- All three lasers are the same design and the same power

Where else can I find something with these features?

Thanks,

John

 

[scumbagatheist]

AFAIK you're problem is with the nature of the red and blue diodes themselves. The green is a DPSS laser, not a diode, and it provides a smaller beam. Unless you drop a fortune on some appropriate lenses, you're out of luck.

 

[jbohland]

Thanks for the quick reply SBA but these lasers are sold with a specification of 1.1 mm beam diameter.

They did not meet this specification.

 

[jbohland]

Does anyone have a recommendation for an optic that would reduce the spot size of these lasers?

 

[scumbagatheist]

Yeah...that's the thing about cheap lasers...they RARELY are up to spec in many ways.

 

[Speedy78]

You will need an anomorphic prism pair. Not sure if a cylinder lens would help any but that may work. Either way you're looking at expensive prisms or hard to align and properly attatch lenses. For such a cheap pointer. Do you need specific wavelengths. Or just colors? A 473 will have a really nice been like that 532 and is also dpss.

 

[jbohland]

Thanks speedy,

What about this?

Optotronics Product Details

 

[Speedy78]

Doesn't really say much about the lens itself. I don't think it will correct one axis of the ouput while onl slightly affecting the other.

 

[lasersbee]

If you want a TRUE ROUND beam profile I would
suggest you get some HeNe Gas Lasers...
Then you can use optics to change the beam profile
diameters.

It all depends on your beam requirements versus $$$$


Jerry

 

[chipdouglas]

or buy dpss red, and blue???

I'm sure he can find good cheap used ones on ebay

edit. Op, you also need to state the distance at which the beam needs to be your desired size because you need to take into account the divergence of the beams as well.

Michael.