Heres what I've come down to...

[bobobob121]

they are still light waves, you just cant see them. and heres a few diagrams ive made recently that should help you understand what IR is a little more.

 

[L4sers]

Ahhh.. so the farther it goes, the less IR. SO basically if you're like 15-20 ft, not much IR will be radiating. And if the IR reflects off something, it probably wont cause harm to me, because 50mW is probably not enuff power to actually "damage" your eyes off a reflection. Am I correct?

 

[Razako]

Ahhh.. so the farther it goes, the less IR. SO basically if you're like 15-20 ft, not much IR will be radiating. And if the IR reflects off something, it probably wont cause harm to me, because 50mW is probably not enuff power to actually "damage" your eyes off a reflection. Am I correct?

50mw will damage your eyes if it is a direct reflection off something like a mirror or shiny chrome. As long as you point it at non reflective objects you don't need to worry much.

 

[bobobob121]

dont forget to mention, the more light in color your wall is, the more light that is reflected back at you. A white wall will reflect MUCH more light back than a black one. That is why black surfaces are easier to burn. They absorb the light. Try this experiment on a sunny day. Go outside wearing a white shirt. Then go back inside and swap that shirt for a black one. Do the same thing and come back inside. You will become MUCH hotter outside wearing a black shirt than the white one.

 

[styropyro]

This is to prove to everybody that not all unfiltered laser's IR output comes out like a flashlight.

For this test I used a NewWish pointer, it looks like this:

I folded over some film negative and I got out my IR camera to take some pictures of the dot. Here is a picture of the dot from up close:

As you can see the dot is about 5mm.

Here is the dot from 30 feet

It is about an inch wide, that makes the divergence around 2.4mRad. This is nothing like a flashlight like everybody thinks. Now this could be different for some lasers, but this proves that some have a well collimated IR dot. This is a good thing that the IR stays with the green because you will only get exposed to real IR if you shine the green laser in your eye, which shouldn't happen.

 

[bobobob121]

THANK YOU. that cleared things up for me. So IR isnt really that bad

 

[L4sers]

Sorry to break it to you.. but those aren't IR dots in your room... those are ghosts!!