I have felt like my 40w diode laser is not performing at its rated capacity. I took a snapshot of the beam pattern located about 160mm (6.25") below the normal focal point. I also moved a sheet of white paper upwards to see if the beam converged, checking for a possible parallax condition. But it only got smaller overall and did not merge into a single beam.
Question:
For those of you that have multi-diode lasers, is what I am seeing normal or do I have a warranty issue?
With my 20W (4 diode) at 150mm I only see 2 lines but at focus distance is a single point. Lets call @misken to see what he has to say about this.
That pattern looks fine. It uses four phase-coupled diode pairs resulting in that beam shape.
I just checked and it seems that I didn’t upload my pictures yet, I will add them to the wiki tomorrow if I don’t forget it 
You guys have more miles than I do, so I trust your answers.
Thanks!
Mine looks better! 
Actually, I had problems with that module. It was not performing as good as expected. So I got an exchange module, but I didn’t do any updated pictures yet, I didn’t have the time for it.
So that was a picture of one that was bad? Happiness bubble shrinking!
Yes. It was not totally bad, but the beam size was much larger than I expected. And if I compare it to other users, it was indeed a little bigger than normal.
Okay, then I will have to do the Vernier test on mine.
Thanks!
