Buy the special glasses like the ones from NOVA lasers. Sunglasses actually make it worse you would be better off not wearing anything than wearing sunglasses because they make your pupils bigger to take in more light so more of the laser would get into your eyes. Wear the safety glasses for up close work, but it your shinning it further away don't worry about glasses.
A dot from a 125mW greenie may be harmful! When I shine my DX 200mw (which is actually putting out around 90-120mw) on a wall that is in the same or adjacent room, it is painfully bright! But I found an incredibly cheap pair of protective red lens goggles at www .ScopeStuff. com -- now I can burn things and do experiments, you won't fully enjoy your high-power laser w/o some goggles !
I sold my Wicked goggles specifically to purchase the goggles from Nova I wanted hte NOVA logo hehehehe I know that is silly, since they are assumedly the exact same goggles, but anywho. Also, I got in the goggles from Scopestuff testerday - have not had the opportunity to put them to the test yet, but hopefully will be doing some testing this evening with them...I will post my results. In the words of Psuedo - if you cannot afford the goggles, then you cannot afford the laser either....or something very close to that ! I agree - you only get one set of eyes, guys - protect them, and hte eyes of your loved ones, too - I don;t want my daughter walking down the aisle with a white cane on her wedding day...I want her to see how dang good looking her old man is in a tux ! LOL !!!
So do the scope stuff 11$ goggles hold up to the test? If only I had a meter it should only take a sec to blast a beam through and measure how much mW is lost ?
David - in case you didn't see the other thread asking about those goggles - no...they do NOT work well for protecting your eyes ! It blocks maybe 5% of the light, and that is WAY too much !