My View On Mirror Mounts

[andy_con]

this is just my view only, other maybe/probably do have a different view

so the brass flex mount, very common and very popular, but is it any good?!

the part where you glue/mount the mirror is adjusted by two screws ones to push, one to pull. so that front part is always under a lot of stress/tension.

ive done many many builds using these mirror mounts so i know how to use them. i always do the screws up as tight as possible yet sometimes when they arrive to customers the beams are out of alignment. it has to be the mirror mounts as the diode has 4 screws holding it in firm, the lens is glues in place, the mirror is glue to the mirror mount and the flex mount is bolted down mega tight with a m3 allen key bolt.

now the last set of fs 10 by 10 mirrors i purchased were thin, very thin, 0.5mm to be exact. focused the diode, glue the mirrors on the flex mount and adjusted the two screws. when looking at the beam at distance it was badly disfigured. removed the mirror mounts and looked at the raw beam at distance and perfect.

took the mirror off, not touching the screws in the mirror mount i glued another one on. at distance the beam was perfect. after doing a bit more testing turns out where the front part of the flex mount is pushed and pulled it must flexing the brass a fraction causing the thin mirror to also flex slightly. never had this issue on the previous mirrors they they were 1.5mm thick.

so are the flex mounts that good in my view, no!

RGBlasersystems dont have this issue but then again they use these mounts -



it would seem kvant have stopped using flex mounts and now use these -




kvants and rgbs mounts use the exact same method one bolt locking the head in place so its not under any tension or stress. so its much more stable than the flex mount.

thats all i bid you good day

[White-Light]

I have to say Andy the Kvant mounts are near impossible to adjust.

The official advice is you don't slack them off, rather you put a tool into the hole on the top or side and use brute force to try to make it slip round. The thing is, they don't slip they tend to release and re-grab in small "jumps" and the force required is so great all the time you're afraid of breakage.

Just as bad is when you apply force in one direction, you also unwittingly apply force in the other, so adjusting in 1 direction tends to throw the other direction out. So it becomes a constant battle to get both planes in alignment and with no precise adjustment, ball park is the order of the day.

Needless to say, I'm extremely unhappy with this mount.

Now why Thor Labs can't make a miniature version of their ordinary mounts given the nature of precision engineering these days, with thumb screw adjusters (even if these have to be slotted or otherwise adapted for tool as well as finger turning) is beyond me as that it seems to me is the real answer for accurate adjustments.

I'd personally happily pay £40 for a miniature Thor mount of the design used for the full size mounts.

[andy_con]

the first person to respond is someone who has never done a build in their life lol

i have 50 of the kvant style mirror mounts, they were made about a year ago, so well before this kavnt photo got released onto the forum. i also have about 100 rgb style mirror mounts and both are excellent and very stable.

the little hole you refer to is so you can insert and allen key to adjust the head, fingers are to big. so you loosen the bolt a tad insert and allen key adjust and tighten back up. simple

[White-Light]

the first person to respond is someone who has never done a build in their life lol

i have 50 of the kvant style mirror mounts, they were made about a year ago, so well before this kavnt photo got released onto the forum. i also have about 100 rgb style mirror mounts and both are excellent and very stable.

the little hole you refer to is so you can insert and allen key to adjust the head, fingers are to big. so you loosen the bolt a tad insert and allen key adjust and tighten back up. simple

Only my findings when I adjusted my mounts using the advice from Kvant.

I was told by Kvant not to loosen the mount but to force it around with adjustment through the resulting slippage. I still have the email somewhere.

My assumption on being told that, was that by loosening the mount, the mount would shift slightly on re-tightening as you nipped it up the final part, and misalign, hence the advice to use force.

Maybe the advice was the problem.

EDIT: BTW from memory, I seem to remember you can't access the adjustment screw anyway to slacken the mount, as its down the side below the edge of the casing wall and there's no room to get a tool in at least in Kvant modules such as mine pictured.

[andy_con]

mine are slightly different as the screw sticks out the back so its easy to loosen and adjust.

if you force/loosen the wrong way you will undo the screw slightly making the head loose.

[dave]

RGBlasersystems dont have this issue but then again they use these mounts -

LOL, no they dont

[andy_con]

ok that one is yours, but i didnt have any made up and that was made up lol

[dave]

And it looks nothing like what RGB uses.......

ok that one is yours, but i didnt have any made up and that was made up lol

[planters]

Andy,

If the brass flex mounts you were having trouble with are Dave's, I disagree that they are "no good". They are not perfectly stable and immune to shifting, but they are pretty good. What I have found in my builds is that these need to be adjusted and then revisited a couple days later and tweaked at that time. This delay seems to be necessary and leads to much longer stability. The super thin mirrors you are using are very vulnerable to flexing. I am surprised that such mirrors can be figured to high accuracy, but whatever. You should mount each of these mirrors with a single point of adhesive near its back center.

White-Light,

I have built small, approx 12mm square tip/tilt mounts ( not to the precision of a typical Thor Labs mount ) and I use them when the tip/tilt AND AXIAL TRANSLATION are needed. They work and so a pro level mount of these dimensions is certainly practical.

[absolom7691]

I was also thinking that maybe the thin mirrors might be suspect. I notice that a lot of the multi-diode builders use right angle dichros. I am not a builder but if I were, I would probably also use those.