As a steamfitter myself the only uses right off the top I can think of are: mounted to a level or square, or used with a rotating mirror to mark a datum elevation, or a control line or a column line..problem is, any safety man I've run across would likely throw you off a job if you took something that powerful on site...well small jobs might not be a problem, and now that I'm actually drawing the piping systems in the office I haven't had the pleasure of arguing with a safety man in some time - but I bet you'll get in trouble with your o-like beast (&it is a beast) unless you find a way to filter it's brightness. Maybe you could tell him you're using it to tell if the water in the piping is clean (or if the air is properly filtered if your a duct guy).
Oh yeah, then there's duty cycle - I'm not sure a laser this powerful may be used for long duty cycles...I think < 2 mins is recommended? There are way more knowledgeable people here who know more about that. I generally won't run my 200mw model for more than a minute at a time.
As for safety glasses, I have a cheapo pair of red lenses from Dino Direct that work on 532nm (green's wavelength) pretty good (lpm-ed) but I want to get a better fitting (better looking) pair soon...
cad602
