How often do laser-related eye accidents occur?

[Townes]

I ask this because I got one of those 10mW DPSS (?IR filter?) pens a few weeks ago and I'm quite concerned one of these days I'll catch an incidental beam. I use it with mirrors sometimes because the beam looks awesome. I'm still quite careful with other specular surfaces though.

So is it a rare occurence with the members of these boards?

 

[bugattidude]

Re: How often do laser-related eye accidents occur

i dont have any safty glasses for my lasers... bad for me because all my lasers are over 50mw...

you might need some... but im not sure what 10mw of that would do... gotta wait til someone else replies

 

[potatorage]

Re: How often do laser-related eye accidents occur

Accidents happen all the time. But most of the time, they're nothing at all... 10mW is safe without goggles, even for a direct hit. usually...

 

[Benm]

Re: How often do laser-related eye accidents occur

I'm not sure anyone keeps good track really. Perhaps there are some numbers on people that seek medical attention, but we'd need to know how many people actually play with lasers to get any sort of percentage.

10 mW isnt safe to shine directly into the eye, but just a glare of a shiny surface isnt quite the same thing. Be careful though.

 

[Deleted member 8382]

Re: How often do laser-related eye accidents occur

the problem is that when they happen people usually dont know they have permanent damage. Brain cover the blind area with the other eye information or the info around the blind point, so it's quite difficult to detect most of the laser damge without an expert review.

 

[rocketparrotlet]

Re: How often do laser-related eye accidents occur

Test to see if it is really 10mW like it claims. Try to pop a black balloon and light a match. If you can do these things, consider eye protection.

-Mark

 

[Townes]

Re: How often do laser-related eye accidents occur

10mW seems about right. I pointed it at some foam material which scatters the light around the spot as it gets absorbed. The bright area seems to be 3 or 4 times bigger than with my 5mW red laser; also the fact that green is brighter to us than red (forgot the ratio).