I wish people knew more about lasers

Today I was a outdoor shop looking for hosts, when I saw a 100mW greenie for sale. I picked it up and one of the workers came and took one out of the box to show me. Luckily it was one of those lasers with a diffraction grating because when she turned it on one of the diffracted beams heat me in the eye! Luckily it had a diffraction grating otherwise i would be blind in my right eye, and the weirdest part of of it was that she completely dismissed it!! She didn't even apologize!!! Luckily i don't have any eye damage, I just wished shew knew that it wasn't a toy in her hand!!!!

That's sad but your right. It's really hit or miss with people understanding that lasers can be dangerous and that it's not cool to be hit in the eye with any laser. I've also met people who are so overly afraid of them that they could never enjoy them. All we can do is try to educate people if they are open to it.

My mother is one of those overly afraid people of lasers! :crackup: It is so funny to see her going on about laser safety!!!!!!!:crackup::crackup::crackup::crackup::crackup: I think it is because I scared her with all the stories about people getting hit in the eyes with lasers!!!!

I think in those types of situations you are obligated to give them a lesson

Yep, people are behaving funny when you show them something as cool as a hi-power 445nm. Some are frightened, some are amazed, some are worried.
Just make sure you tell them about safety and explain the basics (hm, educate them?).

So they won't think this is black magic :crackup:

man i would be pissed if someone else shined me in the eye no matter if it were diffracted or not. especially after practicing safety so well.

she could have given you eye damage and you may not even know it yet.

I highly doubt he got eye damage from it

^lets hope not.

I have never heard of an actual physical store selling Class IIIb lasers.....what was it called? As for laser safety, some people are so hilariously over cautious it is funny....I got my mom a 5mW 532nm Laser pointer but she won't use it because "the green ones are more powerful, so I use the red one".

Just to put aside any fears, it WAS NOT an ebay pointer that I got her. It was a rated <5mW pointer I bought her from Fry's. You can't see the beam even at night.

Isaac

^Something like tappers... It's actually a outdoor adventure store and they have only that laser on displayed in front. They don't sell any other lasers. Can someone please correct me if I'm wrong, but to my understanding there are no laws against lasers in South Africa, except that you may not point it at any transport.

I got a diffracted O-like 400mW in the eye once

It had a line generator on it, and it was brutally foggy, so me and a few friends here locally were all lasering outside. A lot of people come by and ask, "Cool brah may I try it", usually followed by 5 minute speech about everything and we usually let people shine the lasers around.

Well, yeah, you can probably guess that one guy didn't may much attention to how wide the beam with line generator actually is and the very edge of it caught my eye. He didn't even notice. All my friends did, and told him to f**kin' watch where he's pointing that around. I also told him that if he does it again, I may or may not break both of his legs. I think that last point kinda reached him.

Anyway, no permanent damage sustained, the spot faded away in about 15 minutes.

Also, to cube777, it's good you're well aware of laser safety but you don't have to be too paranoid - I'm fairly certain that that laser did maybe 20-30 mW max, and that diffracted over 50-100 beams presents incredibly low danger of eye damage.

So don't worry, you got of easy.

Hey, it could've been a 400mW with a line generator

^Don't worry, I'm not paranoid, I'm just mad because if she didn't care if she shone the diffracted beam in my eye, she would also not care if she shone the beam without the diffraction grating on it into my eye. I would have loved to see your 400mW greenie with different diffraction gratings on it when it's foggy!:drool: