Collimating the Laser - A Right Pain!

[astronymonkey]

Hi all,

I have this type of laser and found it only took about 10mins to collimate. The longest bit was digging the silicone out of the grub screws.

What i noticed was hat one of the screws was much deeper than the rest and they all turned really easily with quite a bit of free play.

My set up was similar but used some crossed nails in a bit of wood but i found that it was important to have something to stop the laser sliding back or forth as even a minor change in the contact points could through the reproducability of the results out. When you think about it a even a 0.5mm difference in the height of the contact points for  a 10cm long laser will change the position of the laser point by 35mm by the time its travelled 7 metres !

So once you have the laser in a static position where it can only rotate, and not slide back and forth in any way then you can rotate it through 120 degrees . Number the screws 1,2 ad 3 with a pencil (as this can write on the black tube) and then as you rotate mark the position of the spot when screw 1 is up, then 2 , then 3. Numbering the dots will help you work out which to adjust and which to slacken.

Next joint the dots to form a triangle and then put a spot in the middle of this. Now adjust the screws to move the laser spot onto this. Once again rotate the laser to make the triangle, draw another centre spot and readjust again.

By doing this I managed to get a single spot when rotated within  about 10 mins and three "triangle" cycles.

This worked for me so may help give you a through ideas.

Cheers

[ScottS]

If it's any use to anyone (probably with kids), I found a very efficient/sturdy V block type rig can be made from lego blocks, and it can be built to suit any collimator.

[Jason D]

If it's any use to anyone (probably with kids), I found a very efficient/sturdy V block type rig can be made from lego blocks, and it can be built to suit any collimator.

Others have used lego blocks successfully.

http://www.cloudynights.com/ubbthreads/showflat.php/Cat/0/Number/5216461/page/0/view/collapsed/sb/5/o/all/fpart/1

https://sites.google.com/site/squif3/equipment/-laser-collimator

[SnakeyJ]

The lego stand is true genius!

Astromonkey, well described procedure, technical author?

typed on my mobile with Tapatalk

[astronymonkey]

Forgot to add the final step...

as the grub screws were so loose you need to fix them in position but in a way that you can readjust them if needed. For this I stuffed a little ball of blu tack into the holes so there was just enough to fill them and be a bit proud of the tube. I then secured these by wrapping some black electicians tape around the tube, over the holes.

cheers

[twintin]

just used the lego idea to test my collimator and as i suspected it's way out ! I'll be adjusting it later tonight. Did get some strange looks from my wife this morning rifling through my boys lego draw. She now thinks fridays at work are take your favourite toy in !!!

[twintin]

Well after 15 mins the laser is much much better. It was way out. Dropped it in the scope and that was way out aswell. So collimated the scope and now just need to test it on the stars.

[michaeldurban]

Gentlemen..

I hear your pain..I had the Orion laser delux..After three

times of collimating effort I renamed it to Orion laser DisSucks.

I also found that one of the grub-screws doesn't do anything for

collimating the laser.

So..I left it...fairly collimated, but certainly not accurate.

I only use the cheshire combo now...as this reduces introduced errors.

The laser colli i only use to roughly align the primary (barlowed), and

then I still go back to the cheshire.

Even in the dark, I use a red light, shine it on the 45 degr. angle plate in the

cheshire and voila..easy to collimate and very very accurate.

[wookie1965]

Well i tried and tried then took the three screws out two long ones one short put them back in no luck so it is now in the bin i am going to stick with my Cheshire.

[michaeldurban]

Good on you Wookie..

I had a great viewing session last night..

And, my collimation was still spot on..

(I don't collapse my flextube when I store it).