Originally Posted by
yaddatrance
Curious, why green and why high power? If I were looking for a cavity alignment laser I'd look for beam width and divergence. In that respect none of the "cheap" lasers would suffice without picking the best from a bunch.
That said, the NLC 150mW and the lasever 100mW have very nice beams, through neither are as tight as a hene... If I was working on a larger tube like the 171 or Sabre, then neither laser would suffice as the beams wide enough that even after alignment, once your OC is back ok you'd still have to rock the head to find the sweetspot. The HeNe has a tight enough beam that I usually get close enough to a lasing beam so I just have to walk it home using the screws.
[edit] If spec has 1mm 1mr beams, then that's perfect!
I'll second the suggestion to use a He-Ne laser for aligning large Ion lasers but If you insist on getting a DPSS laser then Lasever can sell to you directly. I have a blue Lasever 100 mW unit and am happy with it so far. I bought it directly from Lasever . Why buy from a distributor when you can buy direct from the manufacturer and save more $$$.
Rick
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