A friend of mine is experimenting with one of the inexpensive Chinese laser cutters, the beam of which passes through a lense that focuses the beam to a point.
We'd like to convert the beam of that cutter from a converging beam to a parallel beam at a selectable point.
Information found on the net indicates that placing a cylindrical lense in the beam path will alter a converging beam to a parallel beam as we'd like but we don't know enough about lenses to know we correctly understand this solution.
We've found a "25mm focal length cylindrical lense" on eBay -New Edmund Optics Cylindrical Lens 12 5mm Dia 25mm FL BK7 P N 46194 | eBay - but we don't know what a "25mm focal length" is in such an lense, or if the lense we found would suit our purpose.
Any thoughts would be greatly appreciated.
TIA