First time laser buyer

[Driftking2k]

Well I had about 12 extra bucks to spend on something, so I decided to buy a laser, because my friend had a little mini red laser playing around with it.

I decided to buy a 5mW green laser 532nm from hong kong(lol), but now im having a few regrets.

First..this is the laser I bought
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=170372638106


My main question is IR filtering:
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I dont really know too much about it, but from research its bad not to have one.
What problems can arise from now having one in a laser? Specifically this 5mW green laser? Should I not use it or what? Im not going to be pointing it in anyones eyes, just going to be messing around with it in the dark or when im bored.

im not going to be modding this laser either.
But, are 5mW lasers visible, like cool looking beams and stuff? Can they burn anything?

What is acceptable to do with this laser and unacceptable?





Just wanted to know some info before messing with the laser...better to be safe than sorry.

Thanks

 

[Deleted member 8382]

Everything is acceptable to do with this laser except pointing at people eyes. IR is not a problem even with way higher powers (I have 200mW green lasers that aren't filtered), 5mW is no way dangerous if you don't directly point to someone eyes.

If you want to read a bit more about IR here I paste you an explanation I made to another member some days ago

IR light is combined with the green one, IR may diverge more than the green one, so the only chance you get damaged by it and not by the green one could be for example if the green beam goes near your eye, maybe some IR came in, but then I think it would be very dispersed and you wouldn't get damaged anyway.

Not only it's not really dangerous but it might help you a lot if you try to burn with a laser. It's the total amount of power that burns, so having a 50mW green laser with 50mW of green light and no filter means that there are 20mW~ of IR. This means that you are burning with a 70mW laser at the end. And moreover, IR burns some things better than green light, so IR might allow you to burn things you couldn't without it.

And as a last thing, an IR filter will block most of the IR light and some of the green light, just some mWs, but some. So at the end it will reduce it's burning abilities and it's brightness.

The question then is, why have you read somewhere that IR is going to kill you? Easy. An IR filter is very cheap, a small piece like the one inside a laser pointer is 5$ or less if you buy it alone, and if you get a big piece and cut it to small pieces you have a piece under a dollar.

Taking profit of this, Dragonlasers, Wickedlasers, and many other companies justify their prices saying that their lasers are safe and that others are going to kill you to gain buyers. It's just like when banks give you a present for using any of their services because they know people won't look at the really important things if they give you this kind of things.

Yours,
Hallucynogenyc

Yours,
hallucynogenyc

 

[Sk8freak315]

Thanks Hallucynogenyc I did not know all that.
[Edit] Oh and DriftKing2k it's good you aren't going to mod it because if you do, it may only last a couple of minutes. 5mW does not really have a visible beam, in pitch black you can see the beam but not the best, but it still looks cool. 5mW can not burn anything, I think when you get to 50> then it might, depends.

 

[Deleted member 8382]

Thanks Hallucynogenyc I did not know all that.

Np