Eye damage

Hey guys,
I owned a 200 mW 532nm green laser a few days ago and of course, I tried it out. I use the eagle-pair safety goggles and never watched directly into the beam or a beam reflection! However, after trying to burn something for maybe 2 minutes today (with the goggles on) I noticed, that my eyes kinda hurt. I don't really have blind spots, maybe my view is a little bit "foggy" (but this could be due to my imagination). I've white walls, so they could reflect some light.

Is it likely that my eyes are slightly damaged?

lightlock said:

Hey guys,
I owned a 200 mW 532nm green laser a few days ago and of course, I tried it out. I use the eagle-pair safety goggles and never watched directly into the beam or a beam reflection! However, after trying to burn something for maybe 2 minutes today (with the goggles on) I noticed, that my eyes kinda hurt. I don't really have blind spots, maybe my view is a little bit "foggy" (but this could be due to my imagination). I've white walls, so they could reflect some light.

Is it likely that my eyes are slightly damaged?

Click to expand...

No it is your imagination. It is impossible if you had the goggles on, if there was any danger of damage then you would have seen bright after images for sometime after turning off the laser. If you look at a dot directly without glasses for too long or up too close then you will see bright after images in your vision, if they last more than a few seconds I would say you are probably at risk but I am no expert but I have done this myself and there was no damage but I am very careful now when it comes to viewing the dot or burning anything.

Alan

Doubtful unless you accidentally wore the wrong glasses which I did once (but didn't damage my eyes luckily). It's possible your glasses are really poor and didn't quite block enough also. Give it some time and try not to freak out. Honestly doubt you did permanent damage.

Okay, thank you.

I double checked my goggles, they seem to work.

Picture of the goggles: http://www.myimg.de/?img=2015010611362883a57.jpg

Beam without goggles: http://www.myimg.de/?img=20150106114035a0ffa.jpg

Beam, if goggles are in front of the laser (not existing): http://www.myimg.de/?img=20150106114053a4285.jpg


Maybe I was just tired. This feeling of pressure was propaply my imagination. However I'll be even mor carefull in future!

Sometimes, if your eyes were more night adapted, merely looking at a bright light source can make them hurt, even if there's no damage per se.

Extreme example; if you woke up at 3 am to use the loo at the campsite, and accidentally turned on your flashlight on high at your face, your eyes would undergo a rapid reaction that can actually be painful.

The pupils slam shut, hard, the chemistry for night adapted vision is overloaded, and, must transition to daylight light levels, etc....its a mess.

So, if it was otherwise dark, especially for ~ 20-45 minutes prior, and, your 200 mw 532 was bright enough, your eyes would be reeling from the change in dynamic range they were hit with, and, that can ache later.

Or, OD 4 is not enough....maybe OD 5 would be better, etc.

Or, that 532 nm laser (Vis) is out putting IR too (NOT VIS), and, those goggles are not rated to protect from the IR.

Do you really think OD 4 is not enough for 200 mw? Look at the pictures, it seems like no light comes through.

It is IR-filtered, so there shouldn't be much IR-light

lightlock said:

Do you really think OD 4 is not enough for 200 mw? Look at the pictures, it seems like no light comes through.

It is IR-filtered, so there shouldn't be much IR-light

Click to expand...

OD 4 is good enough and you said you were using Eagle Pair, those are supposed to be enough for up to a 10W laser, although they are Chinese made so those claims may be exaggerated. Your test of the glasses that you photographed clearly show they work well.

Alan

I tried to inform myself about safety. That was how I found this forum. There were cheaper goggles, but I thought I should spend more money in them, because a damaged eye is beyond money in my opinion...

Maybe I was just tired, my eyes seem to work perfectly well.

Thank you very much!

DID you see any green through the goggles if not your more than likely fine.
The only other think I can think of is if that laser is not IR filtered those goggles would not block the IR but that should not be enough to do damage just by the scatter.

If your really worried you could always have a reputable member take a look at it for you.