So about a week ago I got my 100mw green laser from DealExtreme. I've been playing around with it for a while, being sure to never look at the beam directly and staying out of the path of IR radiation. Mostly, I use it to point out constellations at night. I stopped using it the past few days though because I started feeling a stinging sensation in my right eye. My actual vision appears to be fine, but I feel sensitive to light and have a slight haze when it's really bright outside. I have what almost feels like a "sunburn" on my eye, which I recall having after viewing an eclipse before. Is this anything to worry about? It's been this way for 2 days now. Hopefully it will go away on its own, but naturally I'm a bit paranoid.
Another "Do I have eye damage?" thread
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stephenmadpotato
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Conjuctivitis? Hahaha, just kidding. If you want to be sure, if your willing to spend alot of money, you could get a meter to measure IR light, and see how much is coming out uncollumated. You can easily damage your eyes without even knowing. Your brain will just compensate for lack of vision with parts of the other eye. I hit my eye directly with a 31mw laser and I was fine. I'm guessing theres really not much wrong, but I could be totally off. My advice- go and see your eye doctor immediately.
LukeA
Flashlight Enthusiast
Or use a digital camera or camcorder.
stephenmadpotato
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I wonder, if you could use the digital camcorder, like this. Take some green light filter, place it over the lens, then stare at the beam through the camera?
Thanks for the advice, guys. It has gotten marginally better this weekend; 10% better I would say. It still have a definite haze with my right eye and a sensitivity to light (especially sunlight.) I followed your thread intensely, stephenmadpotato, and am glad you turned out ok. I'm seeing my eye doctor tomorrow so she can take a look and hopefully everything is fine. I'll update the thread as soon as I find something out.
thethinker
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Is it possible for leaking IR to do something like this? Hope your eye is OK...
Several DX pointers have been dissected by members of LPF and they've ALL had IR filters.
When they made their initial offerings of these pointers no one knew if they had IR filters or not, and the wisdom was for safety's sake to assume they did not have filters until proven otherwise. That quickly evolved into the notion that "DX lasers are unfiltered" and it just took off with a life of it's own, and it just refuses to die. Over on LPF it's kind of funny. Someone signs into a thread, and posts "Well except for my DX laser which has no IR filter…" or whatnot, and the mods are tearing their hair out...
Even with cheap eBay greens that do not have an IR filter, the focus and collimation of the optics is for the green, not the IR, so it's not focused and badly collimated, and the excess IR is also diffused by passing through the MCA without re-lasing into 532nm. So any IR leakage is most likely going to be eye-safe at any distance where the green would still be blinding or damaging anyway.
That's not to minimize the dangers of IR, the need for safety, or imply that consumers ought not be educated about what they're buying, and you could have the one in a million pointer that is putting out a tight high mW IR beam, but overall the whole "cheap green=IR cooked eyes" is way overblown. Any distance from the laser where IR damage could happen, the green will be frying your retina anyway.
Yes, go see your eye doctor. You've only got one set of eyebulbs for life. But I seriously doubt it was your laser unless you were doing something really stupid like looking into your pointer at point-blank range. Or the batteries died, and the IR output fell below the lasing threshold of the MCA to produce green, and you were looking in the aperture wondering what the little dull red dot was...
When they made their initial offerings of these pointers no one knew if they had IR filters or not, and the wisdom was for safety's sake to assume they did not have filters until proven otherwise. That quickly evolved into the notion that "DX lasers are unfiltered" and it just took off with a life of it's own, and it just refuses to die. Over on LPF it's kind of funny. Someone signs into a thread, and posts "Well except for my DX laser which has no IR filter…" or whatnot, and the mods are tearing their hair out...
Even with cheap eBay greens that do not have an IR filter, the focus and collimation of the optics is for the green, not the IR, so it's not focused and badly collimated, and the excess IR is also diffused by passing through the MCA without re-lasing into 532nm. So any IR leakage is most likely going to be eye-safe at any distance where the green would still be blinding or damaging anyway.
That's not to minimize the dangers of IR, the need for safety, or imply that consumers ought not be educated about what they're buying, and you could have the one in a million pointer that is putting out a tight high mW IR beam, but overall the whole "cheap green=IR cooked eyes" is way overblown. Any distance from the laser where IR damage could happen, the green will be frying your retina anyway.
Yes, go see your eye doctor. You've only got one set of eyebulbs for life. But I seriously doubt it was your laser unless you were doing something really stupid like looking into your pointer at point-blank range. Or the batteries died, and the IR output fell below the lasing threshold of the MCA to produce green, and you were looking in the aperture wondering what the little dull red dot was...
Ok, went to the eye doctor yesterday and thankfully everything is ok. The problem was really that I have a terrible habit of leaving my contacts in for months at a time. This resulted in lots of tiny scratches on my eye, which in turn were aggravated from the bright light of the laser. This caused the burning sensation along with light sensitivity. My retina was absolutely fine, although I felt pretty stupid explaining the situation. I explained that I had recently gotten a laser pointer, and she said "I seriously doubt that's the problem." I added that this wasn't some little red keychain pointer and she still didn't seem to think it was the problem. Glad she was right.
Good to hear your eye sights fine. As I know what its like to accidentally zap oneself with the laser pointer.
Mines supposed to be 50mw, but with the momentary switch when putting on dash I have accidentally turned it on. Also unexpected reflection has gotton me one or twice.
Mines supposed to be 50mw, but with the momentary switch when putting on dash I have accidentally turned it on. Also unexpected reflection has gotton me one or twice.
