Decypher555
New member
- Joined
- Feb 3, 2024
- Messages
- 1
- Points
- 1
Hello! I’m new to this forum, and I’m happy to be here.
This is my first time owning a laser, and I just want to make sure that I’m doing everything correctly and safely as I go deeper into this hobby. I plan on building some lasers eventually, but I recently purchased one from a seller on here known as tinkertavern and am currently waiting for delivery.
I’m not sure where to begin with this, so I’ll start with my experiences with lasers.
It’s my 22nd birthday today, and I recently got to experience a laser show when I was dragged to an EDM event with my younger brother. The producer’s name was Excision, and I was blown away by the production and the number of lasers that were coded to his music. Truly a spectacle, I’ve never seen colors so vibrant. I was very weary because I didn’t know how they would have class 4 lasers like that in an enclosed environment without blinding everyone, but I was convinced that it was harmless and that the LSOs took proper precautions for everyone’s safety.
When I was 20, I had an internship at an engineering place producing parts for the hinge of the falcon door of the model X Tesla. (and other stuff) I was good at my job, however my tasks were kind of remedial and the building itself was a very unhealthy environment to be working in. I had no previous knowledge or experience of lasers before this and was eager to learn about the welding process that they were trying to tune because the parts were consistently out of tolerance. (they switched to a chemical process)
During my time, I volunteered to be taught to weld by a worker and was pretty good at it right away. Unfortunately, things kind of took a turn, and I was welding for a little while every day.
Please don’t give me hate for this next bit, it affects me every day and If I could go back I could.
It got to the point where I was showing the workers how to weld better, and on one occasion one accidentally fired the laser with my head like 6” away from the part with no protection on. At this point, I wasn’t too concerned, simply because I didn’t know how powerful the machine was that I was working with at the time.
When I got to my car at the end of the day, I noticed that I had many floaters and cracks in my vision that look opaque. I was having a panic attack and quit that place that day. I never made an injury report, and when I went to 3 different ophthalmologists, they said my retinas and eyes are fine. It took me a while to habituate, but Im at a point now where although I do notice them every second of the day, im not bothered by them simply because I keep telling myself that I’m grateful to not be blind.
I’m sorry that I don’t know the laser specifics, but I do know that it was a 1064nm pulsed welding laser, and if I recall correctly, 60W.
That event made me leave the engineering field altogether, and Im focusing my studies on being a nurse practitioner now.
Anyway, 2 years have gone by and I’m ready to learn more about how they work.
I am familiar with a lot of things now relating to laser safety, and how DPSS lasers function for example. I was already aware of yellow lasers being harder to come by because of their complicated process, and I saw the 573nm laser on tinkers website and decided to go with that one as my first laser. It’s a 20mw laser, and I found these pair of glasses through survival lasers website that are said to work to protect against that wavelength. Ill link it right here,
(cant link but its the "Eagle Pair® 190-400nm & 560-640nm Laser Safety Glasses" )
Could someone please confirm that these glasses will work with that laser and wavelength? Im just looking for confirmation. Is it right to say that OD4+ would be the same across 190-400 & 560-640nm without dips in protection?
My second question is regarding the laser itself, should I be concerned about IR leakage? I assume these lasers have a IR filter, but I have read some things about degradation? Is that something to consider with a unit like this? I know some lasers have duty cycles, is there a general way to use the laser to reduce the chance of damaging my unit?
I want to build a spectrometer using a raspberry Pi, is this a recommended by the community? It doesn’t have to be super accurate, but Im just trying to make use out of the ones I have & to test the beam for my own curiosity.
(oh yeah, one more thing about that pulsed laser I welded with, I found out through my coworker after I left that the laser glasses they supplied were only rated for a flashlamp... I feel so bad for the other employees there.)
This is my first time owning a laser, and I just want to make sure that I’m doing everything correctly and safely as I go deeper into this hobby. I plan on building some lasers eventually, but I recently purchased one from a seller on here known as tinkertavern and am currently waiting for delivery.
I’m not sure where to begin with this, so I’ll start with my experiences with lasers.
It’s my 22nd birthday today, and I recently got to experience a laser show when I was dragged to an EDM event with my younger brother. The producer’s name was Excision, and I was blown away by the production and the number of lasers that were coded to his music. Truly a spectacle, I’ve never seen colors so vibrant. I was very weary because I didn’t know how they would have class 4 lasers like that in an enclosed environment without blinding everyone, but I was convinced that it was harmless and that the LSOs took proper precautions for everyone’s safety.
When I was 20, I had an internship at an engineering place producing parts for the hinge of the falcon door of the model X Tesla. (and other stuff) I was good at my job, however my tasks were kind of remedial and the building itself was a very unhealthy environment to be working in. I had no previous knowledge or experience of lasers before this and was eager to learn about the welding process that they were trying to tune because the parts were consistently out of tolerance. (they switched to a chemical process)
During my time, I volunteered to be taught to weld by a worker and was pretty good at it right away. Unfortunately, things kind of took a turn, and I was welding for a little while every day.
Please don’t give me hate for this next bit, it affects me every day and If I could go back I could.
It got to the point where I was showing the workers how to weld better, and on one occasion one accidentally fired the laser with my head like 6” away from the part with no protection on. At this point, I wasn’t too concerned, simply because I didn’t know how powerful the machine was that I was working with at the time.
When I got to my car at the end of the day, I noticed that I had many floaters and cracks in my vision that look opaque. I was having a panic attack and quit that place that day. I never made an injury report, and when I went to 3 different ophthalmologists, they said my retinas and eyes are fine. It took me a while to habituate, but Im at a point now where although I do notice them every second of the day, im not bothered by them simply because I keep telling myself that I’m grateful to not be blind.
I’m sorry that I don’t know the laser specifics, but I do know that it was a 1064nm pulsed welding laser, and if I recall correctly, 60W.
That event made me leave the engineering field altogether, and Im focusing my studies on being a nurse practitioner now.
Anyway, 2 years have gone by and I’m ready to learn more about how they work.
I am familiar with a lot of things now relating to laser safety, and how DPSS lasers function for example. I was already aware of yellow lasers being harder to come by because of their complicated process, and I saw the 573nm laser on tinkers website and decided to go with that one as my first laser. It’s a 20mw laser, and I found these pair of glasses through survival lasers website that are said to work to protect against that wavelength. Ill link it right here,
(cant link but its the "Eagle Pair® 190-400nm & 560-640nm Laser Safety Glasses" )
Could someone please confirm that these glasses will work with that laser and wavelength? Im just looking for confirmation. Is it right to say that OD4+ would be the same across 190-400 & 560-640nm without dips in protection?
My second question is regarding the laser itself, should I be concerned about IR leakage? I assume these lasers have a IR filter, but I have read some things about degradation? Is that something to consider with a unit like this? I know some lasers have duty cycles, is there a general way to use the laser to reduce the chance of damaging my unit?
I want to build a spectrometer using a raspberry Pi, is this a recommended by the community? It doesn’t have to be super accurate, but Im just trying to make use out of the ones I have & to test the beam for my own curiosity.
(oh yeah, one more thing about that pulsed laser I welded with, I found out through my coworker after I left that the laser glasses they supplied were only rated for a flashlamp... I feel so bad for the other employees there.)
