UV Laser Safety Goggles Question

I am building a <150mw 405nm Blu-ray laser. I have also read that goggles can tend to totally block out the light so you can no longer see what you are doing anyways. So...

400-532nm Hobby and Education Protective Eyewear [NOR-AL2-00000H-700] - $47.93

AL2 - KTP, Argon, Blu Ray Protection AL2 Laser Protective Eyewear [NOR-AL2-00000] - $73.23

AL3 - KTP, Argon, Blu Ray Protection AL3 Laser Protective Eyewear [NOR-AL3-EN207] - $76.85

Out of these 3, which would give me the best protection while still allowing me to see the laser fairly well?

Also if you could reccomend any others that may be cheaper but still perform the same, that'd be wonderful.

Nearly everything will glow a little in the 405 nm light, (fluorescence), so I don't worry about blocking all the 405 nm light. OEM systems goggles for green lasers will effectively block 405 link: Low OD Hobby/Education : OEM Laser Systems, Inc., Precision Laser Equipment

I know of others that I believe work, but these are near the only certified ones I know of that are relatively low cost. -Glenn

Just in case you want more support, I too believe the ones scopeguy linked are the best for you to get (if you want certified). There are others which work, to me, quite well... but are NOT certified. In case you want them, here's a link: Professional Anti Green Laser Glassess $7.99 - Free Shipping

Thanks alot for that link. These will protect my eyes fully from 150mw violet and potentionally even 500mw green? If so I will definately get these, because I really don't want to spent a lot on goggles.
I don't think those will fit around my glasses though...
Will these by any chance protect from UV? It doesn't say, but they would fit around my glasses better...
Anti-Green Laser Glasses $9.45 - Free Shipping

I highly doubt they will protect against 500mW of green

They're alignment goggles. They will protect from the light of a 500mW dot reflecting off a surface - that's their purpose. They will protect, for a while, from a beam hitting the glasses directly. Alexizupinhea has done a test with the glasses he referred to. The plastic will start melting nearly immediately even with much lower power, but will continue to block the beam for extended periods.

None of the goggles offered around here (including the OEM ones) are meant to allow you to look into the beam, just like a motorcycle helmet isn't meant to protect you from routinely and intentionally crashing into walls.

Mrcrouse said:

Thanks alot for that link. These will protect my eyes fully from 150mw violet and potentionally even 500mw green? If so I will definately get these, because I really don't want to spent a lot on goggles.
I don't think those will fit around my glasses though...
Will these by any chance protect from UV? It doesn't say, but they would fit around my glasses better...
Anti-Green Laser Glasses $9.45 - Free Shipping

Click to expand...

500mW may be pushing it, but I still believe they should work fine (However I don't want to be held responsible in case anything happens). I mean, according to my observations, the cheap goggles block more 532nm light than the OEM System Laser goggles (I have both).

Also, the link you have of the $9.45 goggles... that's the one I actually ordered. However, they sent me the $7.99 ones. So, I don't know if they just don't carry them anymore or what, but that's the ones I received, and they work great to me. I can check though how they fit with glasses on (I wear contacts, but I'm sure I can find a pair of my dad's reading glasses or something).

Edit: I just checked both my goggles while wearing glasses. Now, the glasses I was wearing were reading glasses, and were not too big. So, the OEM Laser System Goggles fit pretty well, and the cheap goggles kind of fit, but were a little loose, like almost falling off. If you want a second opinion, I'm pretty sure these are the EXACT same goggles as the Wicked LaserShades, which I know many people on the Forums have. So, some of them may be able to give you better opinions (if they are eyeglass wearers).

2nd Edit: Actually, I tried it again, but tried adjusting the cheap goggles. Basically, the length of the frame can be adjusted. So, after I put them on over the reading glasses, I just adjusted the frame to be more tight (not TIGHT... just tight enough so it stays without having to rest on my nose too much)... Bottomline, yes... I think the cheap $8 goggles should be fine.

Ok, thanks alot for your help. I ordered a few pairs for me and anyone of my friends who might be with me when we use it.

Hi all,

This is my first post to this forum and the reason I signed up to this forum is because I was shocked at people's attitudes to laser safety in general. Lasers are by their very nature dangerous and selecting appropriate eyewear isn't as simple as saying you need a certain filter for a certain wavelength. I could write essay after essay on this topic...

For the moment I’ll give a brief overview on laser protective eyewear. There are two main standards people around the world use when it comes to laser protective eyewear:
In the USA (and some other countries) they use the ANSIZ136 standard that requires laser protective eyewear to be specified based only on the eyewears optical densities (OD).

The standards that Europe, Australia and many other countries use are EN207/208 and 60825 (or standards copied from these – in Australia AS/NZS 1337.4 and AS/NZS 1337.5 are copies of EN207 and EN208).

These standards take a more complete approach compared to the US standards. The European standards take into consideration the power and energy density not just the theoretical attenuation the eyewear will provide. I will explain why this is important in a moment. EN207 takes into account a direct hit from the laser and requires the eyewear to protect against this direct exposure for 10s (for cw lasers) or 100 pulses (for pulsed lasers).

The reason these standards take into account the power or energy densities of the laser is that optical density alone is not sufficient when the material of the eyewear cannot withstand direct hits from the laser (melts, cracks etc).

To properly calculate the ratings that eyewear requires for a given wavelength you need to know the following parameters:
- Operating Wavelength
- CW or Pulsed or Ultrafast
- Pulse length if appropriate for your laser type
- Repetition rate if appropriate for your laser type
- Beam diameter
- Beam dimensions if not circular
- Divergence of each axis
- Pulse energy
- Power

Once you have these parameters there are some formula and tables you can use to determine the correct ratings the eyewear should have.

When it comes to laser safety and selecting safety eyewear for use with a laser it is simply not worth trying to save money by getting the cheapest eyewear around if they don’t protect your eyes.

Believe me when I say your eyes are definitely worth a small investment of time in determining the correct eyewear and the cost of proper laser safety eyewear may at first appear to be excessive, but consider a life time of having damaged eyes simply for the sake of $50-100…. Is it worth it?

I am a professional laser service engineer and I regularly do laser safety consultancy work.

If you want help in determining what rating eyewear you require for your laser please don’t hesitate to contact me with your laser parameters and I’ll let you know what ratings you would require based on the information you provide me with.

It's not the point of a forum to have everyone write to you individually. I guess >95% of all lasers in use around here are these:

LPC-815, ~250mW, 660nm
PHR-803T, ~100mW, 405nm
GGW-H20L, ~250mW, 405nm
BDR-203, ~400mW, 405nm
various green pens & modules, 5...150mW, 532nm

Beam diameter, ~1..3mm (few people will have the possibility to determine this with any accuracy); divergence 0.5...1.5 mrad.

So, what's your recommendation for these?

Yes I would also like to now the answers to the question the Dr. has asked, could I get them sent to me individully :evil: hahaha

dr-ebert said:

It's not the point of a forum to have everyone write to you individually. I guess >95% of all lasers in use around here are these:

LPC-815, ~250mW, 660nm
PHR-803T, ~100mW, 405nm
GGW-H20L, ~250mW, 405nm
BDR-203, ~400mW, 405nm
various green pens & modules, 5...150mW, 532nm

Beam diameter, ~1..3mm (few people will have the possibility to determine this with any accuracy); divergence 0.5...1.5 mrad.

So, what's your recommendation for these?

Click to expand...

I understand AndrewGW that there is a lot to take into account on laser safety glasses. However, I may not know everything about how they make them or test them, but the way I test them is by exposing it to a direct hit in the same spot for 2 (maybe 5, i don't remember) minutes to see how much is going through, and they held up fine for my 100mW+ greens and my 100mW+ Blu-rays. They were melting the glasses, but the glasses still blocked the whole time, and it didn't burn a hole through. And, they were only $8 shipped from China.

I'll post the required ratings for the different lasers you mentioned one by one

I assumed the smallest beam size you mentioned and the smallest divergence as this would be 'worst case':

Laser Beam Wavelength .......... 660 nm
Exposure to Beam Time Frame .... 10 s
Laser Output Power ............. 250 mW
Axis 1 Laser Beam Diameter ..... 1 mm
Axis 2 Laser Beam Diameter ..... 1 mm
Axis 1 Beam Divergence ......... 0.5 mr
Axis 2 Beam Divergence ......... 0.5 mr
Laser to Target Distance ....... 0.1 m

Calculation Results:

Limiting M.P.E. ........ 10 W/m²
Accessible Emission .... 6.5 kW/m²
M.P.E. Excess .......... 650
Class 1 AEL Excess ..... 641
N.O.H.D. ............... 355 m
Extended NOHD .......... 2.55 km
Nominal O.D. ........... 2.8 3.1
MPE Limit Aperture ..... 7 mm
ExNOHD Aperture ........ 50 mm
Test Class ............. 3B
Spot Major Axis ........ 1.05 mm
Spot Minor Axis ........ 1.05 mm
Beam Irradiance ........ 6.5 kW/m²
Radiant Exposure ....... 65 kJ/m²
EN207 L Number ........ DL5
Class Time Base ........ 100 s

So you want eyewear with a rating of D L5 @ 660nm.

Laser Beam Wavelength .......... 405 nm
Exposure to Beam Time Frame .... 10 s
Laser Output Power ............. 100 mW
Axis 1 Laser Beam Diameter ..... 1 mm
Axis 2 Laser Beam Diameter ..... 1 mm
Axis 1 Beam Divergence ......... 0.5 mr
Axis 2 Beam Divergence ......... 0.5 mr
Laser to Target Distance ....... 0.1 m

Calculation Results:

Limiting M.P.E. ........ 100 J/m²
Accessible Emission .... 26 kJ/m²
M.P.E. Excess .......... 260
Class 1 AEL Excess ..... 2560
N.O.H.D. ............... 224 m
Extended NOHD .......... 1.61 km
Nominal O.D. ........... 2.4 2.7
MPE Limit Aperture ..... 7 mm
ExNOHD Aperture ........ 50 mm
Test Class ............. 3B
Spot Major Axis ........ 1.05 mm
Spot Minor Axis ........ 1.05 mm
Beam Irradiance ........ 2.6 kW/m²
Radiant Exposure ....... 26 kJ/m²
EN207 L Number ........ DL5
Class Time Base ........ 100 s

So you want eyewear with a rating of D L5 @ 405nm

Input Parameters:

Laser Beam Wavelength .......... 405 nm
Exposure to Beam Time Frame .... 10 s
Laser Output Power ............. 250 mW
Axis 1 Laser Beam Diameter ..... 1 mm
Axis 2 Laser Beam Diameter ..... 1 mm
Axis 1 Beam Divergence ......... 0.5 mr
Axis 2 Beam Divergence ......... 0.5 mr
Laser to Target Distance ....... 0.1 m

Calculation Results:

Limiting M.P.E. ........ 100 J/m²
Accessible Emission .... 65 kJ/m²
M.P.E. Excess .......... 650
Class 1 AEL Excess ..... 6410
N.O.H.D. ............... 355 m
Extended NOHD .......... 2.55 km
Nominal O.D. ........... 2.8 3.1
MPE Limit Aperture ..... 7 mm
ExNOHD Aperture ........ 50 mm
Test Class ............. 3B
Spot Major Axis ........ 1.05 mm
Spot Minor Axis ........ 1.05 mm
Beam Irradiance ........ 6.5 kW/m²
Radiant Exposure ....... 65 kJ/m²
EN207 L Number ........ DL5
Class Time Base ........ 100 s

Again for this one you would still only need D L5 @ 405nm