Laser for my cat, which wavelength?

[Zar]

I don't really care whether he will see the color or not, as far as I'm concerned cats see yellow/green/blue both are washed out. As long as he sees a dot during the day.

Question is dangers of the wavelength/frequency, as per power I don't plan on going above 10mW with this, and as I understand
Red = IR heat burn
Blue = UV radiation burn

Thus I decided green or yellow would be the best options, with a bias towards yellow because green is still pretty close to blue.

Any input on this?
Any recommendations that won't leave me naked on the street lol?

 

[ARG]

Lasers are coherent. Red/Blue diode lasers in the visible spectrum do not produce IR/UV light.

 

[NightExplorer96]

Here is my input

Yellow is definitely out of the question unless of course you have the money! The cheapest yellow's which have a wavelength of 593.5nm and output around 2-4mW depending on the unit usually sell around $200-$300.

Green is by far a better choice since they are cheaper & can be found by more suppliers(which makes their price cheaper). 10mW's of a quality 532nm shouldn't be more then $20-$60.

Red(around 635nm & 650nm, so non-IR) is going to be your cheapest option but won't be as bright as yellow or green. 10mW's shouldn't be more then $40.

-Alex

 

[Zar]

thanks! So yellow is out of the question will look for the green one.
Which of the greens should I get I know there's one that's like acidic green ~534nm or something, and another one that is more of floral green I believe ~520nm. As far as I remember the ~534nm has some actual IR bleed.

As per IR and UV being present, I should have been more clear, it's not the actual UV IR that concern me it's the higher frequency (blue) and heat (red) that concern me.. I'm not sure and nobody really knows if cats see IR/UV, I'd imagine they see some UV to help them see the birds in foliage hence the lack of low frequency cones and more higher frequency ones. I may be talking out of my ass, but With that logic I'll stay away from blue, don't want to duck up the essential colors for him for the times it will hit him in the eye.

What are the prices for that darker evergreen looking laser? Acidic looking one isn't that pleasant to look at I used to have 30mW one, preferably normal button instead of cap button

 

[NightExplorer96]

The yellowish-green looking is actually 532nm & is one of the most common greenies you will find out there, but of course you run the risk of having IR out-put if you don't buy from a reputable company. That being said it's impossible to block 100% of IR light so even quality 532 lasers will output a small amount of IR, but IR filters do a pretty good job of blocking most of it

The bluish-looking green is as you said 520nm & is a diode laser, so no IR out-put here. You can get a 5mW, and I believe a 10mW version below. IIRC they should be selling for around $60-$70.
laserbtb.com

-Alex

 

[Cyparagon]

it's the higher frequency (blue) and heat (red) that concern me

I don't think you realize just how much blue and red light that is bombarding you right this moment.

 

[Zar]

Thanks green leader I'll check them out, I like the bluish green better, the 530 one looks mad "acidic" to me, plus IR..

Cuparagon,
great point, but totally wrong, your argument becomes totally invalid once you cross the 1-5mW power, that is when your laser dot becomes visible during the day light. Up to that our eyes offer protection from the UV, when you look at the sun for two seconds, if you can, everything will be dark and colorless for 20-30 seconds, powerful laser is equivalent of a diffracted sunlight then concentrated with a lens, your eye lens focuses the the light onto retina and if not for your iris, your retina would burn, and not from IR what's interesting, but from UV.

IR could be measured with a thermometer, sun is emitting IR to warm up the earth to 25°C, our body temperature is 36.6°C, point being proteins will not denature and no damage would be done from a glance at the sun. But because our eye lens only blocks low UV frequencies, medium and higher UV frequencies will NOT be visible, and will not be filtered out, thus causing damage, good thing though is that our eyes ache from it so we can avoid further exposure.

You might say, well blue isn't UV thus should be filtered out, well thing is, we can see blue, so it's not filtered out, and when above idk, 5-10mW(?) would be equivalent of staring at the bright sun potentially messing up your vision, I'm not aware how bright light damages vision, but a laser burning electrical tape might give you an idea.

So above 10mW blue is worse than 10mW green in the sense of more energy to cause damage to the molecular structure. Concentration and energy/frequency being the key element. Though above 50mW I don't think it would matter lol.

UV light + blue wavelengths excite bond vibrations, thus messing up the protein structure.
IR accomplishes that by heat.
All other frequencies is combination of both.

 

[USAbro]

If you want yellow, the cheapest your gonna get is about $150, and you'd have to build it using diffraction grating and 2 diodes.

 

[Zar]

If you want yellow, the cheapest your gonna get is about $150, and you'd have to build it using diffraction grating and 2 diodes.

Yeah I saw the thread, Too much involvement knowing myself I will just keep tweaking it trying to make it better.. That's why I don't get androids lol.

 

[upaa27]

If you want yellow, the cheapest your gonna get is about $150, and you'd have to build it using diffraction grating and 2 diodes.

You mean dichro?

 

[Zar]

No he means diffraction, though not grating, but prism, and not to diffract but to refract.
Essentially he is right, just wasn't specific. I'm rusty with my optics so don't kill me if I'm wrong.

 

[00Giorge]

My cat like red or green, he does not like my violet 405

 

[ZRaffleticket]

Let's get down to the point. You're looking for a pet toy. Don't get anything over 5mW. Heat exposure and radiation exposure are not the factors you should be looking for in this. No matter what sort of fantasy world you live in, you're not going to notice a difference in eye damage from a red laser to a blue laser of equal power.

So that considered: Red is very cheap and easy to get in low power. Green is cheap but somewhat difficult to get in a low power, yellow is expensive but easy to get in a low power. Blue is affordable but difficult to get in a low power. Purple is cheap but somewhat difficult to get in a low power. (blue and purple I would get off the forums for <5mW)

It doesn't matter what color you get. Just don't get something that will blind your pets. Keep them <5mW and you can get any color your heart desires without any silly worries.

 

[ARG]

No he means diffraction, though not grating, but prism, and not to diffract but to refract.
Essentially he is right, just wasn't specific. I'm rusty with my optics so don't kill me if I'm wrong.

I'm pretty sure he meant dichro.

 

[Lazerbeak]

What ZRaffleticket said. Nothing over 5mw regardless. Their eyes are way more sensitive than ours. Please don't blind the poor cat

:lasergun:

~ LB

 

[Svenvbins]

Cuparagon,
great point, but totally wrong
[Right up to the end]

Your avatar quite accurately represents my state of mind after reading your post.

IR could be measured with a thermometer, sun is emitting IR to warm up the earth to 25°C, our body temperature is 36.6°C, point being proteins will not denature and no damage would be done from a glance at the sun.

You do know that "heat" IR is about 4-14 times longer than most lasers discussed here when it concerns IR? (around 4-14 um, instead of ~1064nm, and even then the red discussed is still far below that)
Basically, forget anything about IR being 'heat' in this context - except maybe when you plan to point a CO2 laser at your cat.
EDIT: Right, I remember better now. The IR 'heat' I'm talking about is the (deep-IR) light we humans emit due to our body temperature. The sun emits at this wavelength too, but it's absolutely dwarfed by the amount of visible light it emits. Also see http://phet.colorado.edu/sims/blackbody-spectrum/blackbody-spectrum_en.html

But because our eye lens only blocks low UV frequencies, medium and higher UV frequencies will NOT be visible, and will not be filtered out,

Our eye lens blocks low frequencies, so we can't see the others? huH?

good thing though is that our eyes ache from it so we can avoid further exposure.

Any high power laser, and you're too far gone already anyway.

So above 10mW blue is worse than 10mW green in the sense of more energy to cause damage to the molecular structure.

Say what? 10mW = 10mW, color doesn't make a difference. If anything, green is more dangerous because it is absorbed better into our eyes due to the red cells there. But there's no way there's more energy in a 10mW blue beam than in a 10mW green beam.

UV light + blue wavelengths excite bond vibrations, thus messing up the protein structure.
IR accomplishes that by heat.

Shorter wavelength light has more energy per photon, and thus can excite to a higher level - or even kick off some electrons that damages cells. (Might be wrong here, this was quite some time ago for me)
However, bond vibrations are typically excited by IR-light (not blue) and by IR light I now mean ~4-14um.

All other frequencies is combination of both.

Maybe better to not buy any laser then?

All in all, sounds like you're trying to buy a laser for your cat, but want to make >9000% sure nothing happens if you accidentally hit him. If that's the case, better buy nothing at all, that's the only way to be sure.


Disclaimer: Bit tired from a long day, might be wrong on some parts, but most of your post didn't make a lot of sense to me.