laser accidents

[optics]

anyone have any random laser stories they want to share?

when i was young, i had a 1 mw red laser. i thought it was the coolest thing ever. so i looked directly into it. for a second or so. luckily nothing happened because the batteries were almost dead.

 

[LEDSanders]

There are posts on close calls and accidents check this sub forum Safety & Legal Issues - Laser Pointer Forums - Discuss Lasers & Laser Pointers theres a few around just have a look.

there is a sticky on the top that is a good read. http://laserpointerforums.com/f53/hit-eye-1000mw-445nm-blue-laser-69469.html

Edit:
I have had a close call with the crap glasses Wicked Lasers sells. there is no protection for peripheral vision.
I had my Arctic mounted in its tripod, and on high.
I bumped it with my elbow going to grab something to burn, and it fell over and shot right across the glasses I was wearing.
My vision went dark for about 3 seconds, and freaked me out. I built some blinders for the sides right away after that.

 

[ARG]

Only two incidents so far... Hope there are no more in my future.

Took a nasty hit from a 2W laser, reflected right off a shiny magnet, got the full 2W hit right in my eye. I was wearing goggles though, so nothing was hurt.

Second time was without goggles... I was aligning the galvos in my projector and the laser slid and only reflected off the first mirror, up towards my eyes. Took a blast from that, but luckily no damage. It was scanning at a large angle and I had the modulation voltage turned down really low so I doubt the exposure time of the low power was able to do any damage. It gave me a really good scare though...

Lesson learned: Always wear goggles when doing alignment, and use low modulation voltages.