I don't think we'll need to explain what a heatsink is, unless we get a lot of 8-year olds visiting.
What does OD mean? OD means Optical Density. Basically, the higher the OD rating on the goggles, the less light will be allowed to pass through. OD3+ goggles are fine for lasers up to 125mWs. Further than that, you'll need goggles with progressively higher OD ratings.
Why laser goggles are colored the way they are Looking at the color wheel, you can see what colors are opposites of each other - IE, green is the opposite of red, and orange is the opposite of blue. If your laser is green, the opposite color (Red) will absorb more of the laser's light than any other color. Since the object is to reduce the amount of light reaching your eyes, the laser's light needs to be absorbed by the goggles. So, protective goggles for green lasers are red, goggles for blue lasers are usually orange (Because the wavelengths for green and blue are so similar, many goggles are simply orange - these serve very well at protecting from both wavelengths) and goggles for red lasers are either blue or dark green.
Box lasers What the crap? all this refers to is the shape of the laser. No need to get excited about that. :-?
CNI In answer to the question posed before, there's no real answer to that. It all lies in the manufacturer. CNI makes lasers, tests them, and sends them out to the various companies - THEY, in turn, decide how to market the lasers. I've seen CNI's that have been just as crappy as stuff from DX and WL. See above paragraph.
Different stuff from DX Again, does this matter? They remain essentially the same. And I actually haven't seen this asked at all before, let alone frequently.
If there are any messed up parts in there, I'm terribly sorry. :-/ It's all straight from Chad's-Brain-Ipedia. I haven't really read about these in a few years.
