FDA wants to restrict green & blue laser pointers as "defective"

Alaskan · Oct 27, 2016

Why do I have so little faith anything they receive from the public will make absolutely no difference to them at all, they have already made up their mind and short of the law causing deaths, I don't see how they would back off on this. Perhaps that attitude and point of view is exactly what they want, just shut up and do what we say...

steve001 · Oct 27, 2016

joeyss said:
That's about what low powered green would look like from a few miles away.

These are probably a 1-2 watt with a wide beam since they can be seen during the day and 25 at night. Also the Army uses 532s to signal at checkpoints. My nebhior shined it in the window one time and even though it has a flashlight spread it still looked like 300-500mw.

RedCowboy said:
Lasers are used to warn pilots away from the Capitol airspace. Wow they sure are blinding.

drunk pilot arrested - Bing

joeyss said:
Dosen't our fucking own government us a Red green laser system to warn pilots they're too close to a certain area. I seen a video of it. Hypocrites.

Those lasers use fat beams to avoid the problems caused potentially by narrow beams. Fat beam technology is also used in night clubs etc.

Crazlaser · Oct 27, 2016

RedCowboy said:
Can't pilots wear a pair of amber/orange laser safety glasses when starting their decent?

It actually helps visual contrast, even a fairly light pair of high visibility OD+3 would eliminate virtually all but the end of the runway actual dedicated terrorist with some modified industrial lightshow equipment, god forbid they really build something "tactical" as it could.......

Agreed. If they're really terrorists and at that range with real malice, they would be using a rifle, not a light.

steve001 · Oct 27, 2016

Alaskan said:
Why do I have so little faith anything they receive from the public will make absolutely no difference to them at all, they have already made up their mind and short of the law causing deaths, I don't see how they would back off on this. Perhaps that attitude and point of view is exactly what they want, just shut up and do what we say...

The squeaky wheel gets the grease. Pilots are the squeaky wheel. There needs to be a louder squeaky wheel. Being a pilot yourself, your input would be valuable. If you do write a letter to the FDA, I would leave out this word "nuisance" that you used in your previous post.

steve001 · Oct 27, 2016

Razako said:
Have any pilots even gotten documented eye damage? Far as I know there have been no laser related crashes, and very few if any cases of actual harm. Not that the pilots are all full of crap, but I suspect the vast majority of these cases involve a pilot just seeing a laser in use and freaking out. The whole thing just seems like another big 'scare issue'.

Pilots up in the air are usually at the wrong angle, or too far away to suffer serious harm from lasers. After reading that article it seems that deliberate attacks near/around airports are the biggest threat. You'd think it would be easy to catch a few of the bastards doing it and punish them severely to set an example. As always though, the government would rather just implement an ineffective ban which punishes the 99.9% of responsible users. Actually catching the criminals is hard work:thinking:

The FDA perceives this as a potential threat to public safety. That's all that matters. Their minds have to be changed by a new perspective by and from folks that know lasers and whom use their lasers in a responsible manner.

Crazlaser · Oct 27, 2016

steve001 said:
The FDA perceives this as a potential threat to public safety. That's all that matters. Their minds have to be changed by a new perspective by and from folks that know lasers and whom use their lasers in a responsible manner.

I doubt that the FDA even realizes that a laser hobbyist community exists, rather than just people getting laser pens as "toys". This whole ordeal is similar to what the FAA is doing to regulate model aircraft usage, which they offensively refer to as UAS or drones.

steve001 · Oct 27, 2016

Crazlaser said:
I doubt that the FDA even realizes that a laser hobbyist community exists, rather than just people getting laser pens as "toys". This whole ordeal is similar to what the FAA is doing to regulate model aircraft usage, which they offensively refer to as UAS or drones.

Don't tell me, inform them.

Benm · Oct 28, 2016

steve001 said:
Those lasers use fat beams to avoid the problems caused potentially by narrow beams. Fat beam technology is also used in night clubs etc.

Fat beams are safer at a given power level at short distances, such as within a club or concert venue.

By the time the beam travels the distance to an airplane (lets assume at least a kilometer or so here) it doesn't really matter. In fact, if the beam is widened at the soure using a beam expander, it's energy density will be higher at long range compared to the thin beam before the expander.

IF you want to make rules about laser safety for aircraft that ensures they do no harm in practice, just make -practical- regulations that actually make sense. For example, you could regulate that a laser should not be able to illuminate something at over 1 mW/cm2 at 1 kilometer distance.

This may seem like a pretty low limit, and it is eye-safe. It does not mean the laser has to be low power by any means though - i doubt even the most powerful 445 nm lasers on the market today can exceed that limit without a beam expander or large lens assembly (i.e. something far larger than a centimeter diameter or so).

steve001 · Oct 28, 2016

Benm said:
Fat beams are safer at a given power level at short distances, such as within a club or concert venue.

By the time the beam travels the distance to an airplane (lets assume at least a kilometer or so here) it doesn't really matter. In fact, if the beam is widened at the soure using a beam expander, it's energy density will be higher at long range compared to the thin beam before the expander.

IF you want to make rules about laser safety for aircraft that ensures they do no harm in practice, just make -practical- regulations that actually make sense. For example, you could regulate that a laser should not be able to illuminate something at over 1 mW/cm2 at 1 kilometer distance.

This may seem like a pretty low limit, and it is eye-safe. It does not mean the laser has to be low power by any means though - i doubt even the most powerful 445 nm lasers on the market today can exceed that limit without a beam expander or large lens assembly (i.e. something far larger than a centimeter diameter or so).

Good, now go write a letter to the FDA. I doubt foreign distributors would comply though.

Alaskan · Oct 28, 2016

If you live in Michigan, according to Wikipedia, just owning a laser pointer is illegal if you have built it to "incapacitate" someone. I am betting this law would be applied if someone maliciously used their laser pointer to cause temporary flash blindness:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laser_pointer

Michigan:

Public act 328 of 1931 makes it a felony for a person to "sell, offer for sale, or possess" a "portable device or weapon from which an electric current, impulse, wave, or beam may be directed" and is designed "to incapacitate temporarily, injure, or kill".

joeyss · Oct 28, 2016

Alaskan said:
If you live in Michigan, according to Wikipedia, just owning a laser pointer is illegal if you have built it to "incapacitate" someone. I am betting this law would be applied if someone maliciously used their laser pointer to cause temporary flash blindness:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laser_pointer

I'm aware off this law and how absurdly broad it is. That means bright flashlights with a strobe or sos feature are illegal too.

Benm · Oct 29, 2016

steve001 said:
Good, now go write a letter to the FDA. I doubt foreign distributors would comply though.

I'm not american nor live in the US, so whatever the FDA does is technically none of my business.

Foreign suppliers will probably not comply but just mis-label products leading to dangerous situations. We've seen the powerful lasers with '1 mW' stickers attached just to pass customs. This can be very dangerous if someone assumes the label to be correct and starts waving the thing around for a presentation etc.

In Europe things often work a bit differently. A high power laser is not allowed to be sold a consumer device since it would be dangerous in that application. Selling it labeled for it's actual purpose is no problem though, it would be something like a subcomponent for a laser cutter, or high-energy light source for research. This is all fine as long as it's perfectly clear it is NOT a product to be used as a presentation pointer or in other applications where you would shine people in the face with it.

Then again european legislation is more based on intent than on what means you use. It would be very illegal do, for example, throw baking flour from an overpass to blind drivers, and it would be illegal to use a laser pointer to do the same thing.

The solution here is not to ban flour or lasers, but to prosecute the people using them to endanger others.

There have been a few cases of idiots throwing bricks from overpasses onto traffic below. The response was not to ban bricks, but to indentify these people and convict them of attempted manslaughter - rightfully so i think.

Crazlaser · Oct 29, 2016

Guys, as steve001 has said, let's everyone petition the fda. You can do this at https://www.regulations.gov/
The fda says they receive about 200 petitions per year. Let's be one of them.

Emialias · Oct 29, 2016

this kinda reminds me of a book i read in middle school
the giver
everyone was perfectly equal
they all wore the same thing
everyone saw in black and white

my imagination is going too far i know but hey maybe one day we will only be allowed to see in black and white and people who can see in color are considered defective

Alaskan · Oct 29, 2016

LOL, humanity has many problems which will never end, it is part of our human condition of being individuals and having freedom of choice, until that ends by more law, then any freedom will be illegal.

steve001 · Oct 29, 2016

Benm said:
I'm not american nor live in the US, so whatever the FDA does is technically none of my business.

Foreign suppliers will probably not comply but just mis-label products leading to dangerous situations. We've seen the powerful lasers with '1 mW' stickers attached just to pass customs. This can be very dangerous if someone assumes the label to be correct and starts waving the thing around for a presentation etc.

In Europe things often work a bit differently. A high power laser is not allowed to be sold a consumer device since it would be dangerous in that application. Selling it labeled for it's actual purpose is no problem though, it would be something like a subcomponent for a laser cutter, or high-energy light source for research. This is all fine as long as it's perfectly clear it is NOT a product to be used as a presentation pointer or in other applications where you would shine people in the face with it.

Then again european legislation is more based on intent than on what means you use. It would be very illegal do, for example, throw baking flour from an overpass to blind drivers, and it would be illegal to use a laser pointer to do the same thing.

The solution here is not to ban flour or lasers, but to prosecute the people using them to endanger others.

There have been a few cases of idiots throwing bricks from overpasses onto traffic below. The response was not to ban bricks, but to indentify these people and convict them of attempted manslaughter - rightfully so i think.

There are laws against improper laser uses, however, I think the problem belies that fact that few know such laws exist.

FDA wants to restrict green & blue laser pointers as "defective"

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