Dropped Laser now messy beam

Hi,

I've got a 80mw green laser from Wicked Lasers that I've had for some time and it's stood up to abuse pretty well until recently. It fell out of my pocket and landed in a shallow puddle of mud / chalk. The laser didn't sub merge but got a bit of muck in the end so I later carefully cleaned it up but the beam is pretty awful now. The once small spot is much bigger and there are a lot of speckles and rings around it. If you unscrew the end you can see that the beam now exits the laser at a slight angle.

It still serves its purpose but I wondered if it would be possible to realign the laser or is it damaged for good now?

sounds like a shifted optic...

get a qtip and keep polishing the crap out of your lense until it gets clean. after a few sweeps get a new qtip. get in a dark room and shine the laser and keep at it ( cirlces make it worse so circles, then lines across then circles again ) until all the scatter is gone. also check the focus and makre sure it's not crooked. hope you have goggles.

If you can remove the lens then do so. Next hold the lens with tweezers. Rinse the lens in either lens cleaning fluid or 100% Isopropyl alcohol. Set aside on a clean soft surface to dry do not wipe with a cotton swab until you have removed all grit.
If the lens is damaged you'll need to buy a new one. They can be bought from here http://www.edmundoptics.com/ . You'll be looking for a Tech Spec Plano convex lens VIS 0 . Focal length probably around 20 mm, to check the focal length of the original lens you'll need a metric ruler. Hold the lens above a surface until the image is as large as possible without going out of focus, measure the height ,that will give the approximate focal length.

This is what I use to clean collimators and filters.



From here:

(bottom of page)

http://www.mbelectronics.com/view.aspx?id=217&name=MG Specialty Chemicals

Leaves no residue and smells good too!