Welding Goggles for IR?

[morganclay1219]

Has anyone researched using welding goggles to block IR? I've searched a good bit to find their capabilities, but it's kind of hard to find true specs on them. Basically, one site selling the goggles mentions blocking IR radiation, but that's about it. Most other sites only mention the goggles' "shades" (e.g., shade 5) which is also hard to find info on. I read somewhere that the goggles block some IR, but I can't remember where I saw that. I'll be honest, I'm pretty pessimistic about the usefulness of them, but if anyone has or can find any good information about welding goggles for IR or any other protection, I'm sure I'm not the only one interested in it. Thanks

 

[nes_ds]

Your not going to find much info on welding goggles, their designed to absorb all wavelengths, ie the black tint.

Black tinted goggles will block lots of light, that will make your eyes dilate, this means your pupils will enlarge to absorb more light, the bad thing is, you don't want your eyes to absorb more light.

That's why you should get glasses that only block IR.

 

[Romenadan]

You have to look for Burning/Cutting goggles, as "welding" ones are designed to block all light, IR UV and VIS. Burning goggles are clear to sunglasses darkness and block out the IR created from molten metal, not sure if they block UV too though.

I know for a fact that there are Shade 4 and 5 Burning goggles that block out LOTS of IR, I'm a welder and use them every day. Welding goggles are usually shade 9-14, Burning/cutting goggles are shade 0-5.

 

[charleytown55il]

i use shade 5 cutting goggles for eye protection from my green x-65 green laser

i was comparing my x-65 going through the shade 5 lens (dot on the left) v.s. my 5 mw laser (dot on the right).

 

[charleytown55il]

these are the goggles i use for eye protection. they seem to work very well.
btw im a welder also.

one more thing, the glasses i ware claim to block out ir radiation. i know that they block out ir radiation from a fire, but would they work with ir lasers? :-?

 

[Romenadan]

I use these:

http://www.airgas.com/browse/product.aspx?Msg=RecID&recIds=25937&WT.svl=25937

 

[Shilood]

I finally found a site that lists the IR transmittance for different welding shade levels.

http://www.aoa.org/x5364.xml

Short version is that Shade 3 only blocks 91% of IR (OD 1.5)
Shade 5 blocks 97.5% (OD 1.6)

To get to OD 2 you need a shade 8.
To get to OD 3 you need a shade 16+ (I don't think they make them higher than 14.)

This is just for IR.
UV is blocked more easily. A shade 6 is >OD 3 for most of the UV band.

(Transmittance to OD conversion chart found here since I'm not that smart. https://www.omegafilters.com/index.php?page=tech_con_chart )