For the record, no one "Pays" the FDA for approval. Its a free, but time consuming, process. If a FDA Staffer asked you to pay for anything, other then some specialized lab testing, you just payed a bribe.

CANADA has laser safety rules on a provincial basis and federal basis.

However the Federal ones have vanished off the Federal government web site except for the import restrictions and the pointer rules. I'm sure they have not been repealed, they just are so old they did not mke it onto the web. When i visited, the situation pretty much was, in the past: "Send us a letter telling us you do laser shows, and tell us how to reach you." More paperwork was needed if you audience scanned or went into airspace, but no where near intensive as in the US. I used to help a Canadian laserist friend do pro shows when I was in College. His regulators were very friendly. They once CLOSED 40 square miles of Toronto area airspace for him, no problems. That does not happen so easily in the US.

Steve

Well, i finally took it apart, and to my surprise it says on the housing that it is a 300mW laser. but it is diffused to produce a fat beam, which must lower down the amount of whatever that can get into the eye.. pretty interesting stuff these lasers are. Now too bad I thought I would try upping the power on it a bit and fried it haha. oh well, now it is really a toy for me to start doing my own laser mods to.. thinking maybe a blue laser (and obviously not going to use it in public anymore)

While you have it open can you post a few pictures of the insides ?
I'm always interested in seeing how others have packed the bits & pieces into a housing. Commercial applications can have some interesting solutions to common issues.

I may be able to help out with pics. I to have the same laser and was interested in this project as well, though couldn't get much in terms of wiring help. I don't know why his laser would say 300mw, I have the same model and it says 10mw on mine. PICS! :

Awesome pictures there !
Sure is packed pretty tight alright.
Can't help but think that the airflow for cooling must be terrible. A much bigger and noisier fan would be used to keep everything cool by forcing enough air through all those small openings between pc boards and heatsink fins, etc.
Looks like the mirrors are subjected to a lot of dirt/dust build up too.
To be expected though considering the price point and fabrication methods.
I still like to see how they packed it in there though. Big difference between this and a home made unit.
Helped me with a few ideas towards my eventual home build projector.

Many thanks to you.

so just saw this is there know list of requirements to make projector "legal" in the U.S i plan on eventually making my projector (in progress) "legal" so i must just send them a letter? im a bit confused

Its allot harder than just filling out a piece of paper......It will end up being around 20-30 page report detailing every part of the projector....

Definitely not easy...

I assumed so, but what things are required like shutter, key lock e.tc anywhere I can find a list ?

There isn't really a detailed list provided by the CDRH, at least not that I've seen. You can glean the info you seek by reading the actual regs here: CFR - Code of Federal Regulations Title 21

IIRC for projectors what is needed is:

1) Correct labeling on the projector housing and at the aperture, detailing the hazard level present. Basically a standard "laser warning" label will work, but it needs to include wavelengths and total max power output. There should also be a warning to avoid exposure.

2) A case interlock that kills power to all laser systems when the case is open (unless bypassed by a qualified operator for maintenance).

3) A keylock switch to prevent activation of the laser unless the key is present.

4) A shutter or instant kill switch to prevent output in the event of an emergency or other safety system failure.

5) A front panel emission indicator light, consisting of an LED or other lamp on the front of the projector near the aperture. This serves as a warning that laser emission is occurring or about to occur.

I'm at work right now, so I think that's all that's required, but it's been awhile for me so things might have changed. I'll check over my paperwork and gear when I get home to see if that's all or if I missed something.

so for the interlock to you use a momentary pressure switch like in the cr@pio projector or do you guys have other ways?

Those work perfectly. I harvested a bunch from some Dell computers that also work great.. One thing I found out pretty fast is that how you arrange things isn't crucial as long as the requirements are met. For us we started out with 2 ar/kr laser projectors that had already been varianced and we just gutted the old stuff (tubes were up to air and they lacked scanning systems) and added solid-state or diode lasers and Chinese scan sets, and resubmitted new product reports detailing the changes made. We got variances without issue since these systems already had all of the necessary items already built in and had already been varianced in the past by one of the partners in our company. Since then we've built 2 more single-color projectors from scratch, but we're still waiting on a response to our product report submission (CDRH is VERY unresponsive lately) for those. For those we just covered the points above and submitted detailed descriptions in the proper areas of the product report form. I've got a nice zip file with all the forms in it that I'll put in my dropbox for you later.

Even amongst people in the industry the regs are often a source of considerable debate. All I can suggest is that you do the best you can to meet the obvious requirements and fill out the forms correctly. Then you wait to hear from the CDRH about whether you "passed". You can also try to contact any local FDA/CDRH office you might have for any assistance they might have, but sometimes even their own people disagree on the finer points. There seems to be some room for interpretation in some cases.

Here's a few more good resources I had forgotten about: http://www.lasercompliance.com/us-regs.htm

Both of these are extremely helpful.

http://www.fda.gov/downloads/medical.../ucm095304.pdf

Especially the end of this one:

http://www.fda.gov/MedicalDevices/De.../ucm094352.htm

i have one.... but how can it be big enough(power rating) to shut off everything

You could use it to control a relay if you wanted to use it with high-power circuits, but you shouldn't need to do that with laser projectors. Most show lasers have an interlock connection, and the FlexMod does also. You just route these through the interlock switch.

oh ok it doesn't look like the 4 channel driver (by badpip) has that feature , as far as i can tell. i forgot the shutter what do most people use?