50+ mW lasers and LCD monitors DON'T!!!

Don't do as i did and pull out your modified laser which outputs over 50mw, the one that cuts into black tape, pops balloons and point it an LCD screen to go, that one there while standing on the other side of the room...

Presentation pointers should be for lasers less than 5mW.... as i got closer to the LCD screen i could see lines and dark black spots where the laser had hit...

the good news was, after turning the LCD screen on / off a few times they started to fade, by the end of the day it was was still visible but almost gone.....

I learnt my lesson, heed my warning, I've busted too much with lasers now don't point lasers at Cameras or LCD screens, CRT screens however seem fine as i've pointed at them before lol

Good to know..

I've written about the dangers of using a laser in a room with an LCD screen. The laser will slice into the individual transistor/pixels and destroy the cells that contain the liquid crystals. When photographing my lasers in use when they may reflect onto the monitors, I make a careful point to cover my screens with a fabric that has several layers to prevent laser damage. It's a bit of work to set this up but my LCD monitor is a HD Apple... not worth the stress and cost to have to replace it.

Here's a picture I took showing the purple cloth which is covering my monitors behind a laser experiment. If you look closely, you can see laser light spilling into the top right hand corner which is actually where the monitor is situated. Some of the other refracted beams were quite fine and were strong enough to do more harm.


I purchased my material from the fabric store and recommend drapery material due to the dual layers designed to block light. I also have a white sheet with a black inner layer (also from the curtainware dept) which I will be using for my next experiments.

Those Apple HD screens are amazing. I don't blame you one bit for being extra careful with it!

Pointing a 'burning' laser onto anything you do not wish to do harm to seems to be common sense. It amazes me how so many people have shone a high power laser into a camera and not realised it will seriously harm the sensitive CCD cells.

yup, i shone a 5mw into my camera and now i just see lines and squiggly marks on it, but heh, better than my eyes.