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Cheap green 523nm lasers are especially dangerous. They are marketed as Class III <5mW, but with a laser power meter they are frequently 30mW-80mW or higher. I
by antimatter15 7y ago
Cheap green 523nm lasers are especially dangerous. They are marketed as Class III <5mW, but with a laser power meter they are frequently 30mW-80mW or higher.
It's not that 5mW lasers can't cause permanent damage to the retina, but rather that within 200ms the blink reflex will typically kick in and stop continued exposure.
Green lasers are typically DPSS diode lasers— which means they have a high power infrared laser diode that passes through a frequency doubling crystal to achieve green. Cheap laser pointers often skip the IR filter and will pass through a lot of IR light— which is especially dangerous because it doesn't trigger the blink reflex.
The NOHD (nominal ocular hazard distance— the distance at which there's a 50% chance of some minimally detectable permanent lesion on the retina) for a green laser pointer can be hundreds-to-thousands of feet.
The (temporary) flashblindness threshold is some multiple of that. Given the distances involved, I'm guessing it's temporary, unless someone was using some obscenely powerful (e.g. 1W) laser.
- bryanlarsen 7y ago> I'm guessing it's temporary The TV news mentioned the pilot is on suck leave
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- wyred 7y agoThat sucks.
- sigkrieger 7y agos/suck/sick
- CydeWeys 7y agoIt's pretty easy to buy handheld lasers in the several Watt range online for only a few hundred bucks. They're even on eBay, just advertised as way below the actual strength that they are. You look up the actual model number and can figure out their real specs. It wouldn't surprise me if something like this was used here.
- DuskStar 7y ago> unless someone was using some obscenely powerful (e.g. 1W) laser. People haven't quite grasped the stupidity/danger of laser pointers yet, I'm afraid. Check out this page with a variety of '50W' lasers: https://www.laserpointerpro.com/attribute/power_50000mw-lasers_105 https://www.laserpointerpro.com/attribute/power_50000mw-lase...
- TheCraiggers 7y agoThis... has got to be the stupidest thing I've seen online in quite some time. At the very least, something like that should come with a free pair of goggles. And of course they basically look like lightsabers / toys.
- Moru 7y agoI would not trust a pair of free goggles to protect my eyes from a 50 W laser.
- DuskStar 7y ago> I would not trust a pair of free goggles to protect my eyes from a 50 W laser. FTFY: I would not trust a 50 W laser. I wouldn't trust it not to blind me, not to blind someone else, not to make burn marks on my walls, not to catch fire randomly, and not to actually output 50W. This article [0] is a 'fun' look at the laser regulatory environment. Unfortunately, that environment doesn't seem to have teeth yet. 0: http://www.funraniumlabs.com/2017/08/laser-products-hate/ http://www.funraniumlabs.com/2017/08/laser-products-hate/
- amluto 7y agoI was once helping troubleshoot a UV laser in a lab. It was an IR Nd:YAG pulsed laser with two frequency doublers, and I think the rated output was something like 1 J. The measured UV output was essentially nil. We took off the second doubler and fired the laser at the side of a desktop computer we didn’t care about while wearing serious goggles. There was a little snap and the paint got replaced with a shiny metal spot. :) You do not want a laser like that anywhere near your eyes.
- everyone 7y agoThis is fairly relevant https://youtu.be/DMVWW-bmKwQ https://youtu.be/DMVWW-bmKwQ They sell Lasers on ebay for about $50 listed as 'eyesafe',that are 100's of times more powerful than listed, about 1.5 Watts
- ganzuul 7y agoAutomatic welding helmets are pretty quick. Might be adaptable for pilots.
- 83 7y agoI'm reminded of the nuclear flash helmets for pilots.
- kuzehanka 7y ago> Cheap laser pointers often skip the IR filter and will pass through a lot of IR light— which is especially dangerous because it doesn't trigger the blink reflex. This is just outright wrong. IR lasers don't trigger the blink reflex. Visible lasers with an IR component do trigger the blink reflex.
- acct1771 7y agoGlad I tuned in this morning - can anyone with proper knowledge comment on new highway etc license plate scanning clusters' ability to harm the eyes?
- antimatter15 7y agoYou're right about that part, though I've read that since the IR refracts differently than the green, you'll wind up with a region where you're directly exposed to the IR but not to the visible light.