Can't win, today: Now, it's alignment

[ednisley]

@FabMan63

Like the laser is in two different places at once, and at two different intensities

Most likely, the beam will be:

• Splashing off the inside of the nozzle or
• Hitting the edge of a mirror or
• Going through a cracked lens

To rule those out, a thorough check of the beam path is in order.

The nightmare scenario, though, is a tube failure, where it is no longer resonating in TEM00 mode. While you’re checking the beam alignment, take a close look at the beam shape at Mirror 1: if it’s not a nice round disk, that’s a Bad Sign™. This discussion covers the details:

RDC6445 Install Question

This should be a round burn the size of the output beam… The Gaussian power distribution should is represented like this… [The-distribution-Gaussian-of-laser-beam-profile-nb] Since we are looking at in from the Z direction… this is more like what you should be getting… [power-distrution-2d] Dark in the center getting lighter as the beam power decreases. It should be round or it can’t have this power distribution. Is this a new tube?