Going blind

[NeverDaylight]

Hello everybody, Im new to the higher power lasers, although ive been playing with lasers for years.Just a laser lover.I picked up a 1watt RGB and of course Pangolin.Lots of fun.In the past Ive had no problem sitting in front of my4.95 millawatt stinger laser with a dmx and a fog machine impressing myself and friend with beam shows.But now the brightness can be overbearing. I see that there are laser safety glasses out there. My question would be are any of them rated to protect me from my projector? Any help would be much appreciated . Thanks

 

[Aaron@Pangolin]

Since this falls a bit outside the realm of our support I would like to refer you to photonlexicon.com. I am happy to give you what might be considered a "fair" answer but it will not compare the the explination(s) you will get there. Our forum here is a great resource for anything Pangolin but Photonlexicon.com is, in my opinion, the best resource on the Web for anything and everything laser show related.

The short answer to your question is "yes" there are safety goggles that could work in your situation although there are many other solutions beside goggles that will probably produce a better laser show experience. Goggles are mainly for setting up and maintaining a laser. A well prepared laser show will be physically set up in such a way that it is comfortable to watch no matter what the laser projector powers are; this is usually achieved with the palcement of the lasers and where they are set to point. Also, many laser controller applications have some sort of setting that will allow you to attenuate your projector's laser power (if your lasers are analog modulated, not TTL modulated) in areas where your laser projector is projecting. I think all you might need is to adjust where you are pointing your laser projector when you are watching shows and/or to use an Attenuation Map to dim the laser powers some; wearing goggles to watch a laser show is what I might call counter productive.

 

[NeverDaylight]

Hey Aaron thanks for the response.I looked up that link and there are some real players there. Goggles being counter productive i agree, im not looking for the welding helmet experience i just seen on ebay glasses and goggles. Some of them were clear and was wondering if any of them would work,most seem to be only for certain nm.Its not that im puting the straight beams at me its that some of the boxes and cones when they open up it can be a bit bright. with the beams i can duck and dodge them you see em coming.I can turn down the brightness for sure but then i start too loose certain colors,so i try to keep it just under 80% for everything scanning at me. I love the programming and am having a lot of fun with it , KUDOS to Pangolin.Ive been using the timeline and thats great.Is it possible to copy an altered que. To the beat it can be very painstaking,every two seconds repeating a quick flash,it would sure save alot of time. Once again thanks. ND

 

[lasrgreg]

Basically there are two ways to limit the laser power entering your eyes (other than wearing goggles), reduce the laser power or expand the beam. Here is the thing, if you reduce the power to make it safe and comfortable, you will be about 5-10 mW. If you use a lens to enlarge the beam, then you can use more power, and still be safe and comfortable.

Pangolin has a new set of lenses just for this purpose, and they can be installed on any laser to make it safer at higher power.

Please protect your eyes, generally you only get one set... and the damage is permanent.