Lens holder is not plumb

Hi, I am needing to see if someone can point me in the right direction to fix a lens holder. I have determined that my lens holder is not plumb and I do not know how to fix it or if it is even fixable. Thanks for any suggestions

This may not be a problem:

We went round & round on this a while ago and the conclusion seems to be that if the beam:

  • Goes into the center of the Mirror 3 opening
  • Doesn’t hit anything inside
  • Comes out through the center of the nozzle
  • Remains perpendicular to the platform

Then there’s nothing to worry about.

Now, if you do have one of those problems, there should some screws holding the laser head to the X axis carrier in slotted holes that allow some angular adjustment. Two of them appear in the top photo on my blog post and there’s another on the far side; yours may be similar.

Three out of four isn’t bad… :rofl:


My factory head did not hit the center. The factory head hole was offset in it’s design to accommodate the mirror adjustment hardware.

If you start with m1 off center, it will be difficult to impossible to align the machine. M2 should be as close as possible to center of mirror…

I like to look at it as m3 has to catch the beam from m2.

This pretty much ensures it won’t be in the middle of m3, at least it isn’t in the center on mine for either head.

If it’s offset in the tube to the right or left, the only adjustment is with a Z axes change. If it’s off forwards or back, you have to adjust that via m2 along it’s Y axes.


I had a few issues during alignment and Russ Sadler advised me not to worry about the strike point of m3, focus on the beam going down the center of the lens tube. If it strikes the lens off center, the resulting beam leaving the lens will strike the material at an angle…


Throwing out the factory head, was a good step on how to avoid difficulties in alignment.

My 2¢ worth …

:smiley_cat:

Yeah, that head is a sterling example of why one should never assume anything about these machines, from their initial configuration to the final results.

Like it must hit m3 in the center? :rofl:

:smiley_cat:

Like all lasers have exactly three mirrors?