Infrared lasers are not dangerous as they say?

[Fiddy]

He is a tremendous moron, and is putting people in danger with his nonsense.

Even if that were true (and it's not, according to currently accepted MPE tables),
it's like saying "having a honeymoon at reactor 4 in chernobyl is safer than being mauled by a rabid polar bear"



I haven't hear about any accident involving rocket-propelled chainsaws. That must mean they're safe.

Firstly, MOST of the laser eye damage accidents in history have been from IR.
Secondly, how many people do you know with IR pointers to begin with?



Uh huh :tired: A little bit of knowledge is a dangerous thing.

I can play this game too: Gamma rays are mainly absorbed by lead. The human body has no lead, so gamma rays pass right through. This probably means Cobalt-60 is okay for colorants in condoms, right?

LoL had a giggle at the rocket-propelled chainsaws part!

Totally right, absolutely more dangerous than visible light lasers.

Lately it seems that more and more nub's on the forum want IR diodes without IR glasses..... and i think the low cost and high power of them is outweighing the safety aspects far too easily.

 

[Cyparagon]

An ideal
eye can focus a collimated near-infrared beam by as much as 100,000
times

Not quite that much. Light can ideally only be focused to it's own wavelength. That's why you can't use microscopes to look at protons. so at the very most through a perfect optical system (and the eye isn't), 400nm through an 8mm pupil is 20,000 times.

 

[Benm]

^^ don't nitpick too much i suppose

As long as it focusses down to the size of a single retinal cell, it doesnt matter if it's only 1/10th or 1/1000th of that cells diameter. The core issue is that they eye will focus near infrared (1064, 808) just as well as it will visible light, and the expected damage expected is equal - or worse because the ir light will not trigger the blink reflex or be uncomfortable before it is too late.

 

[lasersbee]

Many of you says that infrared are more dangerous because it's invisible. Yesterday I talked with one guy who is selling lasers from some time and he told me that even 1W infrared laser is not as dangerous as 500mW green laser or blue one. I don't mean laser beaming you from 20cm, but from distance of several meters minimum. He said this is because infrared is mainly absorbed by black structures which our eyes don't have, so eyes reflects mostly of infrared radiation as white color does. However this does not append to visible lasers as they blind you at once forcing you to shut eyes as a normal reaction.
What do you think about that? He may be quite right, I personally haven't heard about any accident with IR laser, have you?, you have sticky topic about a guy hit with a blue laser but that was laser visible one. Any opinion appreciated.

If you believe your Moronic friend (guy) then I have a bridge to
sell you...

I've been working with IR lasers for the past ~5 years and I can
honestly state that your "Guy" is shooting info out of his A$$...

Laser Power is Laser Power. 1 Watt of Blue 445nm will do the the
same damage to an open human eye of the same retinal size over
the same period of time as a 1 Watt of IR 808nm Laser beam of
the same Beam Profile size.

BTW...another reason for posting that question could be for Trolling..
Not sure at this point...:undecided:


Jerry

 

[Seoul_lasers]

Many of you says that infrared are more dangerous because it's invisible. Yesterday I talked with one guy who is selling lasers from some time and he told me that even 1W infrared laser is not as dangerous as 500mW green laser or blue one. I don't mean laser beaming you from 20cm, but from distance of several meters minimum. He said this is because infrared is mainly absorbed by black structures which our eyes don't have, so eyes reflects mostly of infrared radiation as white color does. However this does not append to visible lasers as they blind you at once forcing you to shut eyes as a normal reaction.
What do you think about that? He may be quite right, I personally haven't heard about any accident with IR laser, have you?, you have sticky topic about a guy hit with a blue laser but that was laser visible one. Any opinion appreciated.

Just because you can't see the beam doesn't make it less dangerous. Your eye is sensitive to
~405nm - ~700nm and out of this range, your eye has no ability to tell intensity, no blink reflex. This means a 100W CO2 laser (operation in the 10um bandwidth) will be completely invisible to your eye but even stray reflections can heat your eyeball to point of exploding or burning right through.. (shudder) . This has actually happened to people, Though it is a rare. Most people working around lasers take proper safety courses and are smart enough
to play it safe around them. They also wear the appropriate safety glasses when they are in use.
Most victims of IR laser radiation induced eye trauma, hear a nice audible click or pop, which is the eye ball bursting from the vitreous humor boiling. At this point it's safe to say you're blind.

**Now, anyone who tells you that just because a laser beam is invisible makes it safe really looked or (lok ..missing an eye) like a complete idiot.

 

[omnichrome]

The laser accident database!!! You can filter by lasertype...

Laser Accident Database

 

[Benm]

Hehe... i couldnt resist and looked up the results for 10.6 CO2. Search produced these two results right under eachother:


Case:
Year:
Country:


5411
1991
USA




Drape under pt. set on fire. Laser func.OK. Cause felt due to technique.





Case:
Year:
Country:


5415
1991
USA




Shutter failure allowed accidental laser burn to labia.

 

[Fiddy]

Hehe... i couldnt resist and looked up the results for 10.6 CO2. Search produced these two results right under eachother:


Case:
Year:
Country:


5411
1991
USA




Drape under pt. set on fire. Laser func.OK. Cause felt due to technique.





Case:
Year:
Country:


5415
1991
USA




Shutter failure allowed accidental laser burn to labia.

lol labia reminds me of this:

 

[cgchaser]

But keep in mind that the invisible lasers are also the ones that make effective weapons. The Navy has a new LaWS laser system that shoots down drones. with ease. The beams are completely invisible. The army has a humvee laser for use in mine demolition. 1st a green laser aims to the target and then the destructive invisible laser is fired to destroy the mine. Also check out some of the uber powerd CO2 gas lasers some LPF members have. Iv'e see what those invisible beams do to planks of wood.

 

[Benm]

That is mostly because IR lasers are most cost and energy effective to operate. Visible lasers would be equally effective, just more expensive to build and take more energy to operate.

An added advantage is that the beam isnt visible to the naked eye and harder to pinpoint. It is however visible to infrared camera's. A system like THEL uses 3.8 uM IR (DF chemical laser) to shoot down incoming missiles, and it is possible to pinpoint its position using a mid-IR camera quite easily. Any system that uses 808 or 1064 nm laser could probably be located using even the camera in a cellphone.

 

[Sporelord]

Laser Accident Database
Case:
Year:
Country:
7934
1999
Israel

Woman deliberately stared into a commercial class 2 laser pointer for approximately 10 seconds. The patient's best-corrected visual acuity was 20/40, and she had two small pericentral scotomata, as well as a hypopigmented ring-shaped lesion in the fovea. Within 8 weeks, her visual acuity improved to 20/20 and visual field returned to normal, but a subjective relative decrease in brightness of objects viewed by the right eye was apparent.

Laser Acident Database, my ***.

 

[btc5]

Laser Accident Database
Case:
Year:
Country:
7934
1999
Israel

Woman deliberately stared into a commercial class 2 laser pointer for approximately 10 seconds. The patient's best-corrected visual acuity was 20/40, and she had two small pericentral scotomata, as well as a hypopigmented ring-shaped lesion in the fovea. Within 8 weeks, her visual acuity improved to 20/20 and visual field returned to normal, but a subjective relative decrease in brightness of objects viewed by the right eye was apparent.

Laser Acident Database, my ***.

What it has to do with infrared we are talkin about?