After reading someone’s mirror alignment procedure and reading that to move beam in one axis, two knobs on the mirror mounts must be turned equally, I’m kind of shocked. Real kinematic mounts have two adjusting knobs and a fixed pivot point. These three points define a plane and the two adjustments provide for precise X and Y adjustments with no crossover.
Has anyone replaced the stock, Chinese mirror mounts with real kinematic mounts like the Newport MM-2A? They’re not that expensive. The Chinese clone mounts would be even less.
I haven’t received my K40 yet but this seems like a potential major improvement in the alignment process.
Well it is a very cheap machine and be prepared for many more surprises. Check the electronic ground. Wait till you see the chinese software. someone mentioned that this looks like a project put together by chinese students.
@Lance_Ward I want to upgrade but have not found suitably priced and sized mounts. Do you have a source?
Aren’t these mounts like 2" with a large hole?
@donkjr Yes, MM-2A is 2"x2" mount with a 30mm hole for mounting optic. I have a couple here and will see what it takes to make it work when the machine gets here. There’s quite a few US made mounts on ebay for $30.-50. each. I’ve checked out a few on Alibaba that look dirt cheap but not sure about buying from them. https://www.alibaba.com/product-detail/High-Stability-Kinematic-Mount-lens-mount_929381198.html
The translation mount could be eliminated I think. I’m thinking that the mirror is big enough that you could fix the mirror in optimal position and just adjust beam to translate across the mirror face as needed. But that price is awesome! I’ll have a good look when the machine gets here.
I have one MM-2A mount that at some point, I intend to experiment with. Currently, I’m using the stock mounts and they work nominally as-is and by adjusting only 2 of 3 knobs. I guess I’m not sure of reasoning behind the three adjustments per mirror as the adjustment at the apex only seems to facilitate translating the plane of mirror slightly in Z-axis when adjusted equally with knobs at the other vertices. This would put beam in a slightly different position on mirror face but not sure why that would be desirable if the beam geometry is intended to be fixed at 90 degree angles?
Yea, I don’t get it either, when I first started I jacked ask three around making it a huge PITA to get right again. How could the MM-2As help with alignment? I never used kinematics before.
someone mentioned that this looks like a project put together by chinese students.