Benm
0
- Joined
- Aug 16, 2007
- Messages
- 7,896
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There is general legislation that covers it though. If a pair of goggles is, for example, sold as OD4 with a damage treshold of 1mw/mm2 lasting at least one minute, that exactly defines what it should do.
If it doesn't meet one of those criteria, the product is defective and the vendor may be liable for any damage sustained when using it within the given specifications.
As a user, i think there are 2 things to look for: OD, and failure time given a realistic power density. First of all, OD should be 3 to reduce the risk from lasers up to 1 watt to almost harmless. It also reduces the risk to the level of 3B where the protection is reliant on the blink reflex (which still triggers perfectly well for 445 nm lasers).
Once that requirement is met, it is important to know how long it will take the laser to burn through the goggles. At 1 to 5 watt power levels this usually takes several seconds to minutes, realistically allowing you to get out of harms way well before the beam burns its away through.
One exception to that rule would be something with extremely high OD (like 6+) when you would not be uncomfortable anymore when the laser hits you in the eye and continue doing what you were doing. Since most of these goggles have plastic lenses, the plume of smoke in front if your eyes may still be a very good indication to get out of harms way though.
