Hello, all :wave:
First time poster here who values that a board like this can be found on the net. So naturally I have a question(s) about laser safety and hope that someone more knowledgeable about these matters could answer it.
Recently my roommate (who is a douche and downright always immature) has bought a 5 mW green laser and has not shown to date any responsibility with it. He has been waving it around when he plays with it, on a few occasions coming very close to shining the beam into my eyes.
Now, from I understand about this matter, even a 5 mW can cause retinal damage, right? For one, I am utterly terrified of having any damage done to my eyes because I want to be a pilot and this would cause a huge setback to my career to have any retinal damage.
So here comes my question. How much of the beam must go into the eye before damage can occur? If the beam is shined--say, 4 feet away onto a point near to a person, and someone glanced over at the emitting source, would this cause any damage? Also to boot, would starring at the point source of the beam in a darkened room do anything to someone's vision?
I'm asking this because this is what happened to me the earlier tonight and the beam was so bright, it left an afterimage in my vision, which got me worrying. I apologize for coming across as paranoid, but I fear that this immature douche could hurt me or someone else, and that would...make me have to kick his ass. Lasers aren't a toy IHMO.
First time poster here who values that a board like this can be found on the net. So naturally I have a question(s) about laser safety and hope that someone more knowledgeable about these matters could answer it.
Recently my roommate (who is a douche and downright always immature) has bought a 5 mW green laser and has not shown to date any responsibility with it. He has been waving it around when he plays with it, on a few occasions coming very close to shining the beam into my eyes.
Now, from I understand about this matter, even a 5 mW can cause retinal damage, right? For one, I am utterly terrified of having any damage done to my eyes because I want to be a pilot and this would cause a huge setback to my career to have any retinal damage.
So here comes my question. How much of the beam must go into the eye before damage can occur? If the beam is shined--say, 4 feet away onto a point near to a person, and someone glanced over at the emitting source, would this cause any damage? Also to boot, would starring at the point source of the beam in a darkened room do anything to someone's vision?
I'm asking this because this is what happened to me the earlier tonight and the beam was so bright, it left an afterimage in my vision, which got me worrying. I apologize for coming across as paranoid, but I fear that this immature douche could hurt me or someone else, and that would...make me have to kick his ass. Lasers aren't a toy IHMO.
good luck with the pilot thing, its loads of awesome, I still may become a pilot though, just not a commercial one, as a kid I wanted to be a bush pilot in AK.
