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Yes, I'm glad someone finally mentioned that goggles are only meant to profect sudden flashes of exposure. Those UVEX should definitely be thrown away at this point.Personally, if a pair of goggles does not have an OD rating stamped on them, I'm not using them for lasers... it's that simple. There are people who have lost their vision even with laser-rated goggles on - why? Because (plastic) laser goggles are rated for an accidental (<0.25 sec) exposure. They are not meant for you to go looking into a laser beam with, they are meant for that extreme case when a laser rolling off the table happens to flash past your eyes. Which means, yes, your UVEX goggles may be blocking all of the 5W blue light, but where is that light going? Most likely, your goggles are absorbing it (and turning the photons into heat). How do you think cheap dyed plastic that is specifically known to be very efficient at absorbing blue light react to 5W of concentrated blue light in a small spot, knowing that the goggles were never intended to come in contact with light that intense to begin with? We sacrifice laser goggles to test them... we don't use them after we've tested lasers on them
Point being, yes, your goggles may have sufficed, but a) they won't be OK anymore anyways since you've deliberately shined a 5W laser at them to test them, which likely at least partially melted the plastic, and b) why risk your eyes anyway? We don't even have a working eye transplant procedure yet, and even a trip to the ophthalmologist will cost more than an OD-rated pair of laser goggles...
You're not coming across as argumentative, I just wasn't aware that you were testing the goggles - I thought you were claiming that "x pair of goggles is good cuz I shined my laser at them and I didn't see funky colors for the rest of the day"
It's just that, given the low cost of safety goggles rated and designed for laser purposes, I don't see it being worth the risk of wearing goggles that are not designed for laser use. Yes, in a pinch, those goggles would probably be fine. But why risk it? It is hard for me to recommend any kind of safety equipment that is not rated for said safety measures, since inevitably, someone on the interwebs will see this thread, buy said safety equipment, use it in situations that it was not designed for, accidentally hurt themselves, and then give us all a bad rep for it. Plus, the QC of those goggles could be OD>4 nominal, OD>1 minimum. Or even OD>1 nominal, OD>4 maximum. So you could just need to be unlucky once with a pair of those goggles to be permanently blinded, even if 95% of them really are at OD4 spec. Just some food for thought
A OD1 rating will reduce the strength of a laser by 10. Meaning a 1W or 1000mW laser will be 100mW after it passes.
A OD2 rating will reduce by a 100 meaning a 1W will do 10mW. OD3 will reduce by 1000 so a 1W will do 1mW.
So a 5W through a OD3 will be 5mW. With todays powers a OD4 is minimum..
Measured by an LPM testing the beam through the glasses. See Styro's video that you linked to see.OK - I get that. In my case with the UVEX glasses I have, if absolutely no light passes through them what would the OD rating be? I'm certainly not going to put them on and look directly at the beam. So how would I know what the OD rating is? I know, I know - it SHOULD be printed on the glasses. But if it's not how can it be determined?