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2022 Issue-2

Laser Eye Protection

With high powered laser prices dropping like crazy, I decided to pick up a 3W blue laser from eBay for $50 to experiment with. I’m concerned about eye damage and would like some advice on eye protection. What makes a pair of laser goggles good and what should I stay away from?

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Answers

First you are correct in assuming you'll need protective eyewear. I've worked with high powered lasers, even higher than 3W, but the most important thing is to be sure the goggles cut out as much LASER light of the incident frequency as needed to protect your eyes. Understand that no goggles can be made to cut out enough directly incident laser light to protect your eyes for long.

Blue light is in the higher energy light range and if you pick the opposite color eyewear it will protect your from the blue light, meaning select red filters. Then, if you really want to be thorough, measure the light getting through to be sure it's below the eye damage threshold. I'm sorry but I do not know that level and you haven't specified the light wavelength or frequency. I did a quick search and found this link on Amazon: Tactical-Flashlight-Travel-Camping-Outdoor goto Amazon then tack on this: "/dp/B0B4KKHXS7" to the URL to get to the link I'm trying to provide

You will also notice that this is a responsible company that also includes eye protection, and guess what, the lenses are RED. Also notice they do not say this is a blue LASER. SO if you can send me the link to the one you purchased I'll do some research but you can at least ask the seller what they recommend for eye protection.

Philip Karras
Mount Airy, MD