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**Mark Gulbrandsen** · 03-27-2021, 08:20 PM

The Kinoton laser alignment tool is the best. It's all I used. I ended up realigning all my customers lamp houses with it, some 300 over a 5 year period. Everyone ended up with more light and more even light. There is also the Align-O-Tron, but the person that made those seems to have disappeared.

**Andrew Maddison** · 03-30-2021, 04:02 PM

Yes, we've been looking to buy either model for a long time, and have always heard great things, but they're rarer than anything.

Thought I'd give the forums a try as there must be one or two in the UK somewhere.

**David Ferguson** · 03-31-2021, 07:43 AM

Hopefully someone can come forward with one you can borrow. But if not... there is the option of doing a DIY laser alignment. I just did this with my lamphouse, but keep in mind that it's the first and only lamphouse I've ever aligned, so I could be doing something very wrong! But the output looks to me very nice and even. It'll take a bit longer than using an Align-O-Tron or the Kinoton tool, but it's a lot cheaper and since the special tools are hard to get these days, might be worth it.

Note - I'm not trying to make money or devalue the Kinoton tool or Align-O-Tron. They both look and sound like fantastic tools, and if I was able to get either, I would have. I'm only posting the following instructions because I wasn't able to get one of the proper tools.

As far as I understand it, the align-o-tron basically shines a laser light straight down the middle of the lens barrel, making sure that it's perfectly parallel. But you can achieve this without the tool, all you need is:
- a laser pointer (any £10 one off ebay/amazon will be fine)
- a lens where the actual lens bit with the glass can be unscrewed - I think most of the Isco/Schneider ones do this
- a small mirror
- some cardboard and paper
- scissors
- some tape
- a pen/pencil

The basic idea is to put bits of cardboard on either end of the lens holder, with a small hole in the middle of each. Then, a laser can be shined through them, and you can be sure that the alignment of the laser is correct. The lamphouse alignment can then be carried out as described in the Align-O-Tron instructions.

1. First, unscrew the actual glass lens part from the rest of the lens barrel. Put the glass lens part aside, as we don't need that for this process. (image 01-lens-barrel.jpg)

2. Placing the lens barrel on a piece of cardboard and using this as a guide, draw a circle out that is the exact size of the lens barrel. Then cut this circle out - carefully, as the precision here matters for the alignment. Repeat this step with the other end of the lens barrel, so at the end you have two cardboard circles, one that fits in the front of the lens barrel, and one that fits in the back.

3. Repeat step 2, except this time making the circles out of paper rather than cardboard. (image 02-drawing-circle.jpg)

4. For each of the paper circles, fold them in half, and then into quarters. The intersection of these folds is therefore the centre of each of the circles. Do this carefully, as finding the exact centre is crucial to proper alignment.

5. Using the paper circles as a guide, use the end of scissors to poke a small hole in the centre of the cardboard circles. This hole should only be a millimeter in diameter - just big enough for the laser to shine through. Ensure that the hole isn't being blocked by debris from the cardboard. (image 03-circles.jpg)

6. Place each cardboard circle on it's respective end of the lens barrel. (images 04-lens-back.jpg and 05-lens-front.jpg) With the cardboard circles in place, if you hold it up to the light, you should be able to see through the two holes only when it is perfectly aligned. (image 06-lens-hole.jpg)

7. Put the lens barrel in the holder of the projector.

8. Using some tape, stick the "laser" button down on the laser pointer so that it is on without being held down.

9. Now for the trickiest part. We need to position the laser so that it shines through the lens, through the two holes cut in the cardboard circles. It may be worth putting a post-it-note or taping a small piece of paper to the gate/trap of the projector so you can easily see when the laser is shining through it. This can take some time to get right - it took me about 10 minutes to get the perfect alignment. But once it is done, you can be sure that the laser is shining through in perfect alignment. (images 07-laser.jpg and 08-laser.jpg)

10. Perform the alignment according to the instructions in the Align-O-Tron manual. Note that if the lens holder needs realigning, then you will obviously need to reposition the laser too to stay in alignment with the holder. The only other difference you'll have to make is that since you don't have the "tapered plug" to insert into the back of the lamphouse, you'll have to replace this with a piece of cardboard with a hole cut in the centre. If you've taken the reflector out to clean/polish it, then you can use the same procedure as we did for the lens (drawing round it on a piece of cardboard and paper, and folding the paper to find the centre).

Attached Files

**Mark Gulbrandsen** · 03-31-2021, 07:50 AM

With the Konoton alignment tool it reflects an image of the mirror back on to the front of the tool itself.

**Andrew Maddison** · 04-01-2021, 04:27 PM

David thanks so much for your response!

Whilst being ever optimistic about buying or finding one, I was also considering making my own as I have a lathe, but my main concern (like yours) was making sure the laser line is perfectly parallel to the lens barrel and this is an ingenious way of achieving it.

I might mill a small hole directly down the center of a lens barrel sized slug of aluminum and see if I can achieve something similar.

I was thinking of milling a tube in a lens sized piece and trying to fit a gun laser sight inside to create my own "align-o-tron", but again worried about it being perfectly parallel.
I do wonder how the align-o-tron achieved this, but I imagine they had a sophisticated alignment jig in the factory, having seen yours it definitely seems worth a go now though.

Surely nothing can be worse than the piece of string supplied with the lamp house. I'll have a go and report back!

**Andrew Maddison** · 04-01-2021, 04:29 PM

Originally posted by Mark Gulbrandsen View Post

With the Konoton alignment tool it reflects an image of the mirror back on to the front of the tool itself.

Mark I've never been able to find much information on the Kinoton tool online, do you have any pictures they'd be interesting to see, especially if the tool is glass fronted?

**Mark Gulbrandsen** · 04-01-2021, 04:38 PM

Here's a video I shot some years ago. Not the best quality, but it should give you a good idea.

**David Ferguson** · 04-01-2021, 05:56 PM

If you have a lathe, then that would be a good way of making sure the hole is in the centre. I went for cardboard because I no longer have access to the laser cutter at my school - which would have made the process a bit easier!

One thing I also did that I seem to have neglected to mention is that I actually cut three cardboard circles, and put them in the lens - one in the front, one the middle, and one the back. Having three means that if you've not cut the circles or put the hole perfectly, then you won't be able to shine the laser through it. I did this to ensure I had cut things properly.

**Andrew Maddison** · 04-01-2021, 06:19 PM

Such a simple but smart way of aligning the laser parallel to the lens, gives me lots of ideas to work with so thanks.

**Mark Gulbrandsen** · 04-01-2021, 08:59 PM

Originally posted by David Ferguson View Post

If you have a lathe, then that would be a good way of making sure the hole is in the centre. I went for cardboard because I no longer have access to the laser cutter at my school - which would have made the process a bit easier!

One thing I also did that I seem to have neglected to mention is that I actually cut three cardboard circles, and put them in the lens - one in the front, one the middle, and one the back. Having three means that if you've not cut the circles or put the hole perfectly, then you won't be able to shine the laser through it. I did this to ensure I had cut things properly.

Not quite that simple actually. The laser diode has to shoot exactly straight ahead. And there are variances in the lasers themselves, so some form of adjustment has to be given to the laser to align it exactly. This was the problem with the Align-O-Tron. If you turned it around and shot the laser at the screen you could draw a fairly large circle by rotating the thing in the lens mount.

**Gordon McLeod** · 04-02-2021, 09:57 AM

I removed the diode from my alignotran and bored the mounting hole out slightly oversized and but 4 grup screws in at 90 degrees apart. Then mounted it in a 4 jaw lathe chuck ensureing the outer diameter was true then aligned the laser to the center of the tail stock in the 6' postion on the lathe bed

**Stefan Scholz** · 04-05-2021, 05:29 AM

I might still have a couple of 70.65 mm castings to fit into a lens holder, and the stepped target for the mirror. It requires a green 20 mm dia body laser to be inserted.
Eventually I know, where to look for it.
They are grey anodized, and we had a small batch made a couple of decades ago by CNC production, as a single or two was too expensive.
I do have a complete kit, working, but that's not for loaning, as it is in use quite often.

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