Simple Laser Colimating Kit

[Kenom]

I've run across plans for a simple kit to increase the distance a laser is capable of shooting. I.E. increasing the colimation on the laser. I've inquired from the site that posted the diagram if it's ok for me to post the plans here and I've recieved permission to post it.
http://www.amazing1.com/cgi-bin/hitslog.pl?/download/COLMIN1.zip

You can also purchase this kit from them with all of the optics and everything you need to accomplish this by going here.
http://www.amazing1.com/cgi-bin/mof.cgi?order=1----COLMIN1----Laser+Pointer+Range+Extender+Lens+Kit/Plans----19.95


Since the plans were free and we were having a discussion about laser colimation, I figured it would be nice to post the plans and let people have fun building it.

 

[robk]

Kinda ugly. Oddly enough it's a minus lens followed by a plus lens as discussed in another thread here. Some people claimed it won't work well on a diode, but I guess it will work on a pointer module that already has a plus lens to focus the beam and somewhat re-shape the elliptical output to semi-round. Might be worth a try - Amazing Devices has been around for eons, the guy is a character, I've had some dealings with him in the very distant past. Isn't he the one that blew one hand off with explosives when he was a kid?
Rob
edit: Yup, that's Robert Iannini, good guy.

 

[comozo]

It certainly will work, there's no magic to doing this. BTW that's how your laser produces a narrow beam.

 

[Kenom]

We had a discussion in another thread about exactly how a laser makes that narrow beam and we got into a very long and involved discussion about the nature of light, optics, chromatics, and physics.

 

[Kenom]

The nice thing about this is, you can purchase the kit to add to any existing pointer. Not everyone has the skills necessary to put something like this together without someone putting it together for them. I have no clue where to get lenses like this and would probably purchase ones that would be wrong or too big.

 

[comozo]

The nice thing about this is, you can purchase the kit to add to any existing pointer. Not everyone has the skills necessary to put something like this together without someone putting it together for them. I have no clue where to get lenses like this and would probably purchase ones that would be wrong or too big.

Well here ya go http://www.edmundoptics.com/ Look up beam expander to find out what kind of lenses to use