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FrozenGate by Avery

IR filter.....yes or no

T

TooLidge4U

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I am new to the hobby and although i have done much research on the web and also here at the forums, i still cannot really make a judgment call on how dangerous the excess light of random IR wavelengths are. I understand that this excess IR wavelength light comes from how the wavelength for most green lasers comes first from an 808 nm which pumps the 1064 nm and is then halved to produce 532nm. I have yet to get my hands on them but i have made two purchases of two green lasers that are not IR filtered one of them is the 50 mw from
o-like
(http://o-like.com/b2b_cpinfo.asp?id=1021)
and the other is a 200 mw from laserpointerpen.net (★200mW Green Laser Torch - OFF 39% Key Switch TOPLASER Series - Laserpointerpen.net)
(sorry for the long url's i have yet to figure out how to get a hyperlink in one of these bastardous threads)
if anyone has had any experiences with these two lasers a vouch for them would be awesome
i heard about the ir and was curious if these would be at all dangerous if they were pointed in the general vecinity(i suck at spelling) of a person or just their face or what, i completley understand the dangerous nature of there lasers and will not under any circumstances intentionally point it at someones face.
thanks in advance for your help
 





From my experience, the IR leakage is generally about 15-30% of the total output... so if your laser outputs roughly 60mW, you can expect about 10-20mW IR.
I wouldn't worry too much about it.
As long as you use common sense there is no reason anyone should get hurt.
O-like is pretty well liked here, you should be safe there.
 
Dont mean to give conflicting advice but....

I gave a 5mW laser to a 8 year old for her birthday once. It was a DIY- It was a 'new wish true 5mW' module tested at having 20mW IR output with 4mW green!! Before giving it to her I bought a WL IR filter- output dropped to 3mW all green- making me happy.

I think that so long as you don't use it indoors you're fine- I would recommend an IR filter if your going to point it at walls etc as your eyes wont register the IR as being 'bright' and therefore you can damage your eyes without realising.

I'd recommend a $5 filter- its that or risk your eyesight

I mean yes the IR will diverge more than the laser but you cant see it and that has personally always made me very nervous especially as IR leakage can vary from 20% to more than 100% (of the green value).

edit: someone is selling decent IR filters for 99c each!
 
Last edited:
Already posted this many times but quoting again:

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
Click to expand...
 
honestly I still think personally that if you cant see it you dont know what amount your eyes are taking- and as some produce a lot more IR than others and most members don't have an LPM

BE SAFE AND JUST BUY A 99c IR FILTER!

just my $0.02

smidsy.
 
Well, you actually can see them using any digital camera, mobile cameras work too. I've tested this with many greenies and it's always the same. The IR is just a superposed beam to the green one with 0.2-0.5 mRad more.

You can ofc buy a 99 cent filter if you are still paranoid, what I meant is that having IR filter or not shouldn't lead you to buy a certain laser before than another, you get me?

Yours,
Albert
 
One thing you have not taken into account Albert, is that safety goggles for 532nm will not block IR (usually!)
This means that a person using a 150mW greenie may feel safe shining it at some mirrors and other shiny surfaces - he might eventually get hit by a powerful reflection, but be saved from the 532nm by the goggles, as they reduce it to around 3mW (even less when it's a reflection). However, this laser could have 40mW of IR, and even more if the laser is more powerful or the crystals are badly aligned. This could lead to serious eye injury.

My advice would be to buy a cheap IR filter or harvest one from an old webcam or something like that. Greenies aren't the best burners anyway and losing a few mWs of 532nm will hardly be noticeable at all.

Seb
 
Well, a part from the fact that in short distance burns the IR is also helping, I would more likely suggest to add the filters to the goggles instead adding them to the laser xD
 
Where can I get the 99 cent IR filters that you guys are talking about? I've been looking around, and can't find them.
 
Yeah those are the ones- however if you post a WTB or look in sales there are always member selling ones.

cant remember specifically but there was someone selling ones for $5 a bit back...

and I agree having no IR filter shouldn't put you off a laser- just I would recommend the filter.
 
SMIDSY said:
Yeah those are the ones- however if you post a WTB or look in sales there are always member selling ones.

cant remember specifically but there was someone selling ones for $5 a bit back...

and I agree having no IR filter shouldn't put you off a laser- just I would recommend the filter.
Click to expand...
Exactly. What I try is to avoid that feeling that buying from sites who don't offer IR filters is a suicide ;)
 
OK so to summarise- dont force yourself into buying one with an IR filter. IR is dangerous as you cant see it, dont know how much is beign given out or how much you are taking.

IR filters are cheap.
 
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