Distant early warning... 445nm to be banned soon?

[pullbangdead]

The visibility of a color has nothing to do with how much damage it can do. Only the power, and how well the substrate on which it is being shined absorb at that wavelength matter.

5mW was chosen as the safe limit because they decided that that was the maximum power at which the eye could sustain a .25 second exposure without suffering permanent damage. .25 second comes from the average human blink reflex, so as long as the laser is decently visible, the numbers should apply. And I, personally, would consider 405nm violet sufficiently visible to produce the blink reflex at 5mW.

And that's for the United States. I don't know where the 1mW thing came from

He's talking about in Australia, where (at least in parts of the country, maybe not all), all portable lasers over 1mW have been banned because of people shining them at airplanes. That's where the visibility arguments that he mentions come into play, that green beams were the apparent problem but the government banned everything over 1mW.

Or something like that.

 

[Darrel]

I never visited that forum mentioned in the OP, but I think that closing the (this) forum would do exactly the opposite of making people safer and better informed.

I agree wholeheartedly. I am new here at the forum and came here to learn. i hoped to buy an arctic but wanted to understand them better. Crud if there going to sell them you should help us learn about the risks and safe handleing.

 

[maxh]

He's talking about in Australia, where (at least in parts of the country, maybe not all), all portable lasers over 1mW have been banned because of people shining them at airplanes. That's where the visibility arguments that he mentions come into play, that green beams were the apparent problem but the government banned everything over 1mW.

Or something like that.

Oooohhhh, I gotcha. Airplanes and dumasses.

 

[oic0]

Oooohhhh, I gotcha. Airplanes and dumasses.

They also had one mentally ill nut with an assault rifle and essentially banned guns. Their government also censors certain web pages and is trying to get access to information about individuals search queries. Not somewhere you want to live if you value freedom these days.

 

[heruursciences]

I took a power measurement of the projector's output at close range amd it WILL cause serious eye injury and likely blindness if you look into it, but then again so can higher power LED flashlights and movie projectors. I do know for a fact, Casio isn't thrilled with people making class IV laser toys with their projector guts.

 

[Xplorer877]

I took a power measurement of the projector's output at close range amd it WILL cause serious eye injury and likely blindness if you look into it, but then again so can higher power LED flashlights and movie projectors. I do know for a fact, Casio isn't thrilled with people making class IV laser toys with their projector guts.

Really! How did you find that out? Any links?

I seriously doubt that they, or any company for that matter, will stop developing laser based projectors. I'd bet we'll soon see RGB laser projectors and we'll get our hands on some green diodes.

If they are unhappy about it it'll be because of Wicked and NOVA for making the problem mainstream. They'll never stop the individual hobbyist, nor can they do anything about it. It's the same deal with Sony's blu-ray players/burners, and the countless DVD burner manufacturers.

-Tony

 

[goninanbl00d]

Well, common sense really.

Generally, looking into any extremely bright light source will result in eye damage.

Also, the Australian government didn't care about laser power levels when they imposed a blanket ban.

All they cared about was 'supposed' visibility. 5mW green pointers were used, and they though 5mW of anything else would be much the same.

 

[liveforphysics]

I do know for a fact, Casio isn't thrilled with people making class IV laser toys with their projector guts.

Loads of free publicity (and ANY publicity is good publicity in product marketing), bringing awareness of a unique light-engine technology to people who never otherwise would have cared to read a tech article, but do read news articles.

It's basically like the best product marketing plan you could ever launch from a cost/exposure perspective, and everyone leaves knowing your product has a unique benifit of an ultra-long-life light engine.

Least important, due to laser enthusiasts being such a small group, they are making perhaps a half a percent higher sales of the product than would otherwise happen due to folks buying them to re-purpose the light engine.

From a product marketing/exposure perspective, it's gotta be the single greatest blessing to ever wind-fall any projector OEM in the history of digital projectors.

 

[liveforphysics]

They are selling a product as safe as any other in the projector market.


There are always ways to take some reasonably harmless product and make it dangerous if you take it apart and re-purpose components in it.

A normal project can have it's HV supply for the Xenon bulb strike used to make a stun-gun. It could swap locations around on it's various caps to make them explode like little bombs.

Or hell, of course even products like a plastic butter knife can always be mis-used to blind or slash a throat if re-purposed by someone with a lot less skill than it take to make a laser from this projector.

The whole concept is absurd that anything will discontinue over safety concerns of what people re-purpose internal components to do. The only thing that would discontinue this projector technology is if they don't sell well enough to make it worth the expense to produce vs alternative light source options.

 

[BShanahan14rulz]

The whole concept is absurd that anything will discontinue over safety concerns of what people re-purpose internal components to do. The only thing that would discontinue this projector technology is if they don't sell well enough to make it worth the expense to produce vs alternative light source options.

This. but the companies who sell pre-made pointers with these Casio diodes straight-up say "hey, we hacked these out of a Casio projector!"

IMO, it would have been better marketing to reference the diode price a few months back as a few thousand dollars. Then, lie about how the company has such a good relationship with the diode manufacturer, and how you got them to agree to sell you a large number of diodes at a discount. Heck, most of these laser pointer makers lie about stuff all the time, another little lie can't hurt.

As it is, the media knows: 1) blue lasers are dangerous, more dangerous than green ones! 2) blue lasers are made by Casio and are actually in Casio projectors. 3) Casio projectors have 24 blue laser diodes, and as such, are 24x more dangerous than this single blue pointer that can set skin on fire.

I find myself ranting more and more... I should just stop logging in..

 

[heruursciences]

The problem that may make them change the design isn't the parts or projectors or making pointers from the blue diodes. The problem is the potential for a lawsuit. You see a jury cannot be easily made to realize the lasers as they are used in a projector are just being used as a bright blue lightbulb after one is demonstrated at near COD power burning the crap out of something in a courtroom.

Bottom line about these kinds of lawsuits: they win using FEAR and ignorance to their advantage.

 

[swimminsurfer256]

As it is, the media knows: 1) blue lasers are dangerous, more dangerous than green ones! 2) blue lasers are made by Casio and are actually in Casio projectors. 3) Casio projectors have 24 blue laser diodes, and as such, are 24x more dangerous than this single blue pointer that can set skin on fire.

I'm not entirely sure how the projector works.. but I'm willing to bet that not every single diode is running at a constant 1W each AND that none of them are concentrated as a portable laser is..

So basically I don't really think that it's right to say that the projector is 24x as dangerous as the Arctic ... whether the media will use the same logic..? Beats me.

 

[Hemlock_Mike]

AaHhhhhh -- Ignorance and Fear --
The cornerstone of present American socity.
Socialism will cure that!

HMike

 

[Tech_Junkie]

Socialism will cure that!

HMike

Mike we will never be a Socialist country. Capitalism will never let that happen. The word Socialism is being thrown around to incite the same ignorance and fear you just mentioned to derail the government health plan. C'mon man, I thought you were smarter than this.

 

[Tech_Junkie]

Sorry for the double post, but just in case there are a few more government conspiracies hanging around, and more of why PL pulled the 445nm forum section, this has come to light.

Edited for content...

Hey
If you had been following the goings on in detail and in IRC Chat you would know kinda that PL wants to step back to be seen from promoting 445nm , ONE WATT into the hands of "Joe Public" for a while as there was some "rumors" from the right directions that "things" were being looked at ......the whole 445nm forum was pulled while things were thought about and the mod even stopped selling his own harvest.

Its not a case of a secret rule , as it wouldnt be welcomed as a rule , against the spriit of things over there , more a case of ... lets cool it and if things somehow do "hit the fan" then OTHER places ( mmmm wonder where ?? :thinking: ) will get the HEAT !

Realistically though WTF can be done , hobbyist will always share info , theres a lot more dangerous info out there...

THE REAL WORRY AND ISSUE to "those that need and are paid to worry" is in the mass marketing in large volumes of one watt portable lasers ... and lets face it the worst that will happen is a bit of bad publicity and warnings , which actually fuels the sales in most cases and an import ban which will be ignored and got around by simply using different dispatch address/ account and lying on the export forms !

So anyways dont take whats happened at PL personally , i think the mods just treading carefully at moment.

 

[liveforphysics]

The problem that may make them change the design isn't the parts or projectors or making pointers from the blue diodes. The problem is the potential for a lawsuit. You see a jury cannot be easily made to realize the lasers as they are used in a projector are just being used as a bright blue lightbulb after one is demonstrated at near COD power burning the crap out of something in a courtroom.

Bottom line about these kinds of lawsuits: they win using FEAR and ignorance to their advantage.

No. This is not how it works my friend.

Casio has made a perfectly safe projector when used as a projector. It takes a high level of specialized skills and intent to take a component of this projector and make it into a tool to do malicious things with.

If someone wants to do malicious things, the diodes in this projector wouldn't even be on a list of concerns.

You can do a hell of a lot more dangerous things with zero specialized skills and a lot less money/resources/effort.

Take a childrens super-soaker squirt gun. Fill it with gasoline, and tape a lit candle in the path of the exiting stream. Now you have a 50ft range continous flame thrower. Take a $25 BB-gun from K-mart, aim it at an eye and shoot, instantly destroyed eye from 100+ft away. These are much cheaper, much more accessable, much more dangerous options consumers are able to re-purpose and use as malicious things, but of course you don't see lawsuits against squirt guns being re-purposed...

If a product is safely able to do it's intended purpose when it's sold, the legal risk is over. It's not like you can sue a shotgun shell manufacture because little Jimmy buys a box and cuts them all open for the powder, makes a bomb and blinds or cripples himself. That simply isn't how the world works (thank God.)


Casio can and will publicly posture in whatever position the company publicity department advises them is the best posture to take, likely pretending to be concerned and/or condescending towards people re-purposeing the diodes.
The reality is, they struck the biggest marketing jack-pot in the history of projectors, and are likely at work frantically trying to come up with a more powerful diode for the next model of projector (maybe all ready have?) for a chance to once again get a level of dirt-cheap marketing that no company ad campaign could ever match.