LED = Eye Damage?

John_Galt

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Feb 20, 2009
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I'm none too concerned about it. I don't make a habit of staring into the emitter end of my lights, for any period of time, and try not to do the same to others.

Nor do I strobe my friends, unless they ask me too... In which case it's _turn-on-strobe - flash-it-past-their-face - turn-off-strobe_...

And any legislative act to limit this would be pointless, un-enforceable, and total BS.

/thread
 

baterija

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Feb 7, 2008
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Suppose that 30 years in the future, we find out that converting all our indoor lighting to LED's caused the cataract rate in the US to increase 10%. That's 40,000 cataract cases per year.

...and the ad campaign would phrase it just that way if those were the numbers. .013% of the population has cataracts because of LED's doesn't make nearly as scary of a headline. ;)

Definitely an interesting possible side effect in the long term though.
 

Mr Bigglow

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Feb 24, 2010
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Surely the wavelength output of LEDs is so controllable as to allow for zero UV emissions? And whatever the case I'm quite confident that I get at least 1000% more UV in one hour from the bright yellow object seen in the sky in daytime than I will from a lifetime of LED use.
 

bfvww2

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Aug 11, 2010
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I believe blue light is going to be the most prone to causing retinal damage of the visible wavelengths because the shorter the wavelength, the more potentially damaging it is as the photons that compose the light at shorter wavelengths are more energetic. Also, the eye's sensitivity to blue is quite low, so if the only light source in a room is a blue LED, then the pupils will tend to be dilated, allowing in a greater dosage. However, it is not blue light itself that is the problem as much as high intensity blue light. In nature there really are no blue point sources, as blue light from the sun is attenuated and reaches the earth as evenly dispersed sky light. UV is attenuated even moreso than blue light (the very dangerous high-energy rays are absorbed, and what makes it through will tend to be extremely scattered/diffused as rayleigh scattering of light in the atmosphere is proportional to the inverse fourth power of the wavelength)

The case in which I would see blue LEDs being a problem would looking directly into very poor quality emitters -- the sort that are more "whitish blue" than cool white. Good high-power LEDs that are more of a ~5000K neutral white will not be nearly as much of a problem, as they are so much brighter, the pupil will tend to constrict more if exposed, reducing the received dosage of blue light compared to exposure to a crappy 8000K LED. However, if one were to compare an LED to a HID lamp, or even halogen-incandescent of the same apparent color temperature and intensity, I believe the LED would be safer in almost every case. That is because the LED has almost zero light below about 450nm, whereas HID lights have a strong spike of violet light in the ~420nm, and both HID and halogen-incandescent, if not used with a proper UV-filter, release significant amount of shortwave UV energy. As LEDs move away from nasty blueness toward neutral white, I believe this issue will become largely irrelevant in reality, but that probably won't do anything to stop scare tactics (just look at how many articles there are about CFLs being highly dangerous toxic cesspools of mercury).

This article mentioned UV LEDs intended for use in germicidal lamps as being the most dangerous, and with that I would certainly agree. Germicidal lamps release very short wavelength UV, the variety that causes sunburns. Exposure to that sort of wavelength from a point-source is far more dangerous than even pure blue LEDs as the UV rays would be almost completely invisible (no blink reflex and no pupil response is worse than minimal pupil response) to eyes and much more damaging -- similar to arc-welding without proper protection but without a bright arc to cause a blink reflex.

I certainly hope that damage caused by UV LEDs in weird cases like that is not used to try to scare people away from using perfectly safe white LEDs in flashlights and household lighting. There is no reason LEDs cannot be made at least as safe or safer than conventional incandscent and fluorsecent lights.


Ultimately though, the danger comes from a combination of blue/violet/UV light and high intensity, while I am very wary of using UV LEDs higher-powered than 10mA coin cells used to check $20 bills, I would not worry at all about using a fluorescent black-light at the same wavelength as the radiation is diffused in that case.

Thanks for you post. It was very instructive. Is the damage risk only comes from power and distance?
 

FloggedSynapse

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Nov 11, 2006
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Madison, WI
These LED lights produce a huge amount of blue light compared to more common light sources like incandescent lights and candles. The LED itself only produces blue light in a narrow band of the visible spectrum (apparently most damaging to the retina - see my above post). After passing through the phosphor around the LED some of the blue light is modified to create white light.

It's easy to check this yourself. I can look at a candle flame (indefinitely) or glance at a 100 watt incandescent bulb, and when I turn away the afterimages fade almost immediately. However even a brief glance directly at an LED light leaves nasty lingering afterimages - evidence of how quickly the retina is bleached by these lights.

For home lighting I'm back to using incandescent lights or candles. Given the potential hazards of excessive amounts of blue light I'd hesitate to use LEDs for general purpose lighting around the house, etc (IMO).

About $1.00 will procure a glass candle which will burn for dozens of hours and provide a pleasing light - less than the cost of an Li battery.

CandlePower!

I still love my LED flashlights, just don't use them often.
 
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