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How I got my laser eye injury

funraniumlabs.com

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Re: How I got my laser eye injury

#31

Post by mdorazio »

RealityVoid wrote: post #27
DannyBee wrote: post #17

So I laser weld, and beyond my own PPE, interlocks (gun won't fire if it's not touching metal, etc), the most important part of the whole setup is laser safety curtains. Because it's a 2500 watt laser, if i didn't have laser safety curtains , the relections/etc could very easily blind someone at a fairly long distance. The NOHD (nominal ocular hazard distance) is something like 10km (2500 watt laser, 0.06mm spot size…

I'm dying of curiosity how cheap a cheap laser welder can be.

A quick search is showing me new machines in the $7k range. You could probably pick up a used one for a few thousand less. This is cheaper than I would have thought, honestly - a decent full MIG rig is not exactly cheap.

Re: How I got my laser eye injury

#32

Post by supermatt »

RealityVoid wrote: post #27
DannyBee wrote: post #17

So I laser weld, and beyond my own PPE, interlocks (gun won't fire if it's not touching metal, etc), the most important part of the whole setup is laser safety curtains. Because it's a 2500 watt laser, if i didn't have laser safety curtains , the relections/etc could very easily blind someone at a fairly long distance. The NOHD (nominal ocular hazard distance) is something like 10km (2500 watt laser, 0.06mm spot size…

I'm dying of curiosity how cheap a cheap laser welder can be.

I don't have one yet so cant really advise on quality, but I was recently looking and you can pick up a 2.5kW laser welder from about $15k. They are slightly cheaper (around 12k) from alibaba, but then you will be looking at import duties, warranty complexities, etc

Re: How I got my laser eye injury

#33

Post by delichon »

steve1977 wrote: post #24

"Are you declaring war on the United States, Bob?" This almost made me spill my tea...

A few years ago I worked in a high rise in an office with a window facing Moffet Airfield. I worried about crashing experimental planes but never thought to worry about being blinded by a stray laser beam. Maybe I'm not paranoid enough.

Re: How I got my laser eye injury

#34

Post by aj7 »

gus_massa wrote: post #22
zoky wrote: post #3

I’m not saying it didn’t happen as described, but this really kinda reads like the “Bald eagle named Albert Einstein flew into the classroom” copypasta…

I worked for a few weeks in a class with a custom infrared -> green laser. The teacher were very hard about glasses, how to crouch looking away from the laser table, close the door and a few more security measures. And later, I had a 5W (0.5W?) green laser at 3 yards pointed at me [1] with some optical equipment bolted to the table in the middle so there was (almost) no possibility that it hit me. The story sounds re…

Crouch? When training technicians, the first thing is, you never ever bend your waist in the laser room, with lasers on. Your head never enters the plane of the laser beams. You do not put your ahead above the laser. You use a piece of copy paper to earache for stray beams near the apparatus. You use an IR viewer to (shock yourself as to how many there are to) find 1064nm stray beams.

Re: How I got my laser eye injury

#35

Post by p_l »

ta988 wrote: post #18
relaxing wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The sales guy set up the entire rig on his own? And no other engineers in the lab stopped to ask what he was doing? I know some places have poor safety culture, but this is a “laser company”. Basic laser safety should be drilled into them from day 1 and every day after. When I worked in an optics lab, we had interlocks on the doors that switched on with the power supply running the experiment and a sign outside indic…

I have seen a drunk employee wrestling with a moving industrial robotic arm trying to "fix it" after having disabled the numerous safeties with screwdrivers. This was at a major car manufacturer plant. Do not underestimate the horrible situations people can put themselves in.

Sometimes you fight and curse the volkswagen-special VKRC safety circuits.

And sometimes you think what kind of shenanigans might happen and why it might be better to have complex safety interlocks that mate with entire automation cell controls...

Re: How I got my laser eye injury

#36

Post by sph »

DannyBee wrote: post #17

So I laser weld, and beyond my own PPE, interlocks (gun won't fire if it's not touching metal, etc), the most important part of the whole setup is laser safety curtains. Because it's a 2500 watt laser, if i didn't have laser safety curtains , the relections/etc could very easily blind someone at a fairly long distance. The NOHD (nominal ocular hazard distance) is something like 10km (2500 watt laser, 0.06mm spot size…

NOHD = Nominal Ocular Hazard Distance

Re: How I got my laser eye injury

#38

Post by protocolture »

relaxing wrote: post #7
zoky wrote: post #3

I’m not saying it didn’t happen as described, but this really kinda reads like the “Bald eagle named Albert Einstein flew into the classroom” copypasta…

The sales guy set up the entire rig on his own? And no other engineers in the lab stopped to ask what he was doing? I know some places have poor safety culture, but this is a “laser company”. Basic laser safety should be drilled into them from day 1 and every day after. When I worked in an optics lab, we had interlocks on the doors that switched on with the power supply running the experiment and a sign outside indic…

Sales Engineer = Knows enough to be dangerous.

Sometimes a good sales engineer can tell you all about then undocumented feature you need to get something delivered.

Re: How I got my laser eye injury

#40

Post by rob74 »

mpalmer wrote: post #12
zoky wrote: post #3

I’m not saying it didn’t happen as described, but this really kinda reads like the “Bald eagle named Albert Einstein flew into the classroom” copypasta…

Never let facts get in the way of a good story. The build-up is great (VP's car, elementary school, military base) and the punchline is funny, but it's just a bit too perfect ("and what's above us?", cue clouds). Even the name Bob sounds like it's been chosen for comedy. It's clearly a mostly true story that's been refined and polished over the years.

It's entirely possible that "Bob" is a generic name (using $SALES_GUY, like he uses $LASER_COMPANY and $FACILITY_GUY, would have been too repetitive).

...or the guy was really called Bob.

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