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I'm with anonsivalley652, who has had his response here killed - for sure, lasers can be dangerous, but caveat emptor, and all that. I've a plan for a type of

I'm with anonsivalley652, who has had his response here killed - for sure, lasers can be dangerous, but caveat emptor, and all that. I've a plan for a type of laser rig I've never seen before and as soon as I have the readies I'm going to try and build it. The more information that is out there from people in the same boat, the better and ultimately - safer.

avian 7y ago
I’ve stopped going to Makerfaire-like events because home-made laser cutters seem to be the thing now and I’m vary of visiting hackerspaces. I’ve seen too many of these things out in the open with zero protection, just waiting to blind some random onlooker. A lot of people building these have zero respect for eye safety.
- detritus 7y ago
  Well that IS stupid - I'm a little surprised the organisers allow it.
- jedieaston 7y ago
  That's mind-boggling considering the amount of children that go to those events. You'd think they'd have more safety regulations before someone gets their kid blinded when they just wanted to show them cool technology.
  - sandworm101 7y ago
    And then ten years later. after seeing TopGun IV, one of those kids wants to become a fighter pilot. "Sorry kid, the optometrist just discovered your right eye has a huge blind spot in blue wavelengths. You will never fly, and you might want to think twice about driving after dark." One slight accident as a kid can vastly alter future career paths. Safety equipment or not, children simply should not be around lasers at these powers. Lasers like this, even diffuse reflections of the working surface, can instantly and permanently give you color-specific blind spots. The human brain quickly fills in the gaps. After a couple days you will think all is fine. Your standard eye-doctor visit might not turn up anything. Only years later, when you get a colour-specific field test, do you finally realize that you just don't see blue/red from one direction.
    - detritus 7y ago
      I've been working with lasers for a decade now, no problems - up until a few months back. I had the Worst Cold I've ever had, and had to drag myself in to the studio on a couple of occasions to run a couple of cutting jobs. Deadlines. Feeling as awful as I was, I had a couple of Ibuprofen (Advil in the States, I believe) and tried to get on. Checking a job that was cutting I peeked at the machine - which has a protective clear plastic screen, as I have a thousand times before - and then got on with things. When I walked away from the machine I realised I had a small artefact in the centre of my left eye's vision. It was clearly the reflected light from the cut, in a v-shape, about 3mm high at arm's length. Sort of like the seed of a visual migraine. It didn't go away. It wasn't huge, but it was incredibly bothersome - if I winked with that eye open and tried to read, this artefact would block the centre of focus, making reading very difficult. It still didn't go away. I started researching light blindness, lasers and even reactions to nuclear flashes and such, trying to ascertain whether I was now permanently slightly-blind. In this search I happened upon research from the early seventies that attributed similar blindness artefacts from Ibuprofen consumption. Months later, it's barely visible and - as you say - my brain's routed around the problem, but I still see it in certain light conditions and I think it might be with me for the rest of my life. A bit of a bugger. - ed incidentally, i've had a few visual migraines spurred by looking into the machine over the years - low light gloomy conditions (as now here in LDN) and a bright point of light seems to set them off for me. I've always checked with clients who want to view the process whether or not they have visual migraines, and warn them if so. Now I also ask if they're on Ibuprofen :\
      - tptacek 7y ago
        Reading this, it really seems like you entered this conversation by amplifying someone who was mocking the thread for expressing safety concerns with laser cutters, and closed it out by telling a story about how you quite probably permanently injured yourself with a laser cutter.
        detritus 7y ago
        I agreed with the sentiment of the guy, not his tone, and my experience here is a peculiar one more likely to do with the particular medication than an unsafe laser set up - the paper from the 70s indicates ibuprofen has this affect on people without lasers too. As I say, I've been doing this for years and have done exactly what I did literally thousands (tens of thousands?) of times. The machine I have is a commercially manufactured, slightly expensive thing that is compliant with regulations covering the EU and US. It's not some shoddy DIY adventure. I put it down to one of those statistically unlikely fuck yous that life throws out. One day I'll add it as a footnote to my version of a homemade machine and we can both be happy. *shrug - ed added a line in

avian 7y ago

I’ve stopped going to Makerfaire-like events because home-made laser cutters seem to be the thing now and I’m vary of visiting hackerspaces. I’ve seen too many of these things out in the open with zero protection, just waiting to blind some random onlooker. A lot of people building these have zero respect for eye safety.

detritus 7y ago
Well that IS stupid - I'm a little surprised the organisers allow it.
jedieaston 7y ago
That's mind-boggling considering the amount of children that go to those events. You'd think they'd have more safety regulations before someone gets their kid blinded when they just wanted to show them cool technology.
- sandworm101 7y ago
  And then ten years later. after seeing TopGun IV, one of those kids wants to become a fighter pilot. "Sorry kid, the optometrist just discovered your right eye has a huge blind spot in blue wavelengths. You will never fly, and you might want to think twice about driving after dark." One slight accident as a kid can vastly alter future career paths. Safety equipment or not, children simply should not be around lasers at these powers. Lasers like this, even diffuse reflections of the working surface, can instantly and permanently give you color-specific blind spots. The human brain quickly fills in the gaps. After a couple days you will think all is fine. Your standard eye-doctor visit might not turn up anything. Only years later, when you get a colour-specific field test, do you finally realize that you just don't see blue/red from one direction.
  - detritus 7y ago
    I've been working with lasers for a decade now, no problems - up until a few months back. I had the Worst Cold I've ever had, and had to drag myself in to the studio on a couple of occasions to run a couple of cutting jobs. Deadlines. Feeling as awful as I was, I had a couple of Ibuprofen (Advil in the States, I believe) and tried to get on. Checking a job that was cutting I peeked at the machine - which has a protective clear plastic screen, as I have a thousand times before - and then got on with things. When I walked away from the machine I realised I had a small artefact in the centre of my left eye's vision. It was clearly the reflected light from the cut, in a v-shape, about 3mm high at arm's length. Sort of like the seed of a visual migraine. It didn't go away. It wasn't huge, but it was incredibly bothersome - if I winked with that eye open and tried to read, this artefact would block the centre of focus, making reading very difficult. It still didn't go away. I started researching light blindness, lasers and even reactions to nuclear flashes and such, trying to ascertain whether I was now permanently slightly-blind. In this search I happened upon research from the early seventies that attributed similar blindness artefacts from Ibuprofen consumption. Months later, it's barely visible and - as you say - my brain's routed around the problem, but I still see it in certain light conditions and I think it might be with me for the rest of my life. A bit of a bugger. - ed incidentally, i've had a few visual migraines spurred by looking into the machine over the years - low light gloomy conditions (as now here in LDN) and a bright point of light seems to set them off for me. I've always checked with clients who want to view the process whether or not they have visual migraines, and warn them if so. Now I also ask if they're on Ibuprofen :\
    - tptacek 7y ago
      Reading this, it really seems like you entered this conversation by amplifying someone who was mocking the thread for expressing safety concerns with laser cutters, and closed it out by telling a story about how you quite probably permanently injured yourself with a laser cutter.
      - detritus 7y ago
        I agreed with the sentiment of the guy, not his tone, and my experience here is a peculiar one more likely to do with the particular medication than an unsafe laser set up - the paper from the 70s indicates ibuprofen has this affect on people without lasers too. As I say, I've been doing this for years and have done exactly what I did literally thousands (tens of thousands?) of times. The machine I have is a commercially manufactured, slightly expensive thing that is compliant with regulations covering the EU and US. It's not some shoddy DIY adventure. I put it down to one of those statistically unlikely fuck yous that life throws out. One day I'll add it as a footnote to my version of a homemade machine and we can both be happy. *shrug - ed added a line in