Hey guys, my first laser

[Snilton]

Ive been browsing this forum for some time now and I just bought my first laser and i thought it was time to say hi.

I bought a 50mW green labstyle from aixiz.com.
The plan is to build a 20k scanner with it but for now I connected it up in an old lunchbox.

In this picture youll see Ive got a lot of scatter of the beam.

The up and down ones cant be seen by eye but the right and left can.

Is there anything I can do to prevent this or will it solve itself once i point it at the scanners?

[daedal]

Hiya Snilton, and welcome to the forum.

That line to the left seems like it's misaligned internally and reflecting off something. Did you cover the front in any way?

Nice setup... but I'd be cautious of heat melting the plastic box into the wrong places...

Good luck on your build

--DDL

[Snilton]

Its shining through a hole in the box.
I dont plan to keep it on for any long period of time

[absolom7691]

That plastic looks to me like it doesn't drill very easily. Make sure there are no residual pieces of plastic remaining in the hole. Also, if it is not permanently mounted, I would try powering the laser on outside of the encolsure. If it still does the same thing, some debris may have gotten inside the aperture and is obscurring the beam. Maybe get some canned air and **GENTLY**, can't stress that enough, blow it out.

[Carl B]

Welcome to PL Snilton. Great to see another new member to this forum. If there is anything you need to know about lasers, someone here should be able to answer your questions.

Regards your 50mW green laser and the line's and speckle around the beam. Is there any glass optics in front of the laser as it looks to me that the beam is passing though a smeared optic.

Carl

[buffo]

If it's a 50 mw laser, heat shouldn't be a big problem. Keep your eye on it all the same, but you'll probably be fine.

As for the beam artifacts, there's not much you can do about that. Probably an internal reflection, or possibly flaw in the output lens (or IR filter even). I assume you already cleaned the lens at the aperture?

Still, even if you can't get rid of the artifacting, you can mask it fairly easily. Just drill a hole in a piece of metal that is slightly larger than the beam. Send the beam through the hole, and the artifacts will be masked. (Depending on the size of the scanner mirrors you have, they may be small enough to mask most of this for you already.)

Adam

PS: Welcome to the forums!

[Snilton]

Its definatly bouncing inside:



Should i talk to Aixiz about this or is this what you should expect of a $65 laser?

[mliptack]

omg, thats really terrible looking. It looks like they dropped it out of the delivery truck and ran it over.

[absolom7691]

The alignment is way way off. It looks like the optic assembly shifted in the housing. You can see the beam reflecting off the side of the aperture. I would email Axziz and find out about a replacement maybe. I know they are slow to ship sometimes, but it would be worth it to get a better laser. You're probably losing about 25% of your power right there. Or maybe take that aperture ring off and see if it can be drilled larger. That is the only thing I can suggest.

[Snilton]

I dont wanna take it apart and start drilling on it.
I sent an email to aixiz and we'll see what happens.