Green Lasers and Eye Blistering IR Light

[Confederate]

Okay, this is another IR question regarding green lasers. Having done a search of previous Q&As, I came away still not sure of the danger.

First, how can one's eyes be damaged, and at what power? By this I mean, I buy a green laser, battery installed and ready to go. Is looking at the green dot reflected from a wall harmful? Using a 5mW, 10mW, 20mW and 50mW, respectively, what sort of exposure does one need to worry about?

What do the goggles protect one from? Is it the spill light, reflected light or direct beam?

Is retina damage done by IR light reversible? Does the retina heal like the cornea heals or is the damage permanent? What precautions should a person with a green laser w/o an IR filter take?

Finally, using a 50mW outdoors at night, is IR spill a problem? How about 100mW+?

I'm thinking about getting a 50mW light. I have the DX pot-modded laser and have only turned it on a few times. At night in this area the beam is barely visible. Too much city light. Other than astronomy uses, it's essentially a toy. I've been trying to find out how to switch the laser from "stun" to "kill," but I can't seem to locate it. Maybe it's on a more powerful laser! :thinking:

Thanks for any replies!

 

[Kenom]

You can figure that IF a laser isn't filtered (which many of the cheap greens aren't) that you can expect up to 50% of it's output to be IR. for example. A 5mw laser can put out 2.5mw of IR. A 20mw can put out 10mw a 50mw can put out 25mw. This isn't a rule of thumb as any laser can be different. Like a really inneficient 5mw laser could be spewing 30mw of IR if the crystals and everything are poorly alighned. There really is no way to know how much of your laser is IR and green without a power meter and a IR filter. There is a very simple way to determine if your laser is spewing IR. Shine it right beside the input on a webcam and look for a white light instead of green. IR spreads out pretty quickly so it's going to make a white shine on a webcam.

 

[PhotonWrangler]

Flaky keyboard today - please ignore duplicate post.

 

[PhotonWrangler]

There's a Wikipedia article on the topic here. See the section on Maximum Permissible Exposure.

 

[ahx66]

Educate yourself: Laserpointerforums.com