I've touched all sorts of things in my "Maker" years, but one of the things I'm never going to touch by far is lasers. I know how bad they are, and I also know how woeful unqualified I'm for messing with lasers. Heck, I've even left a couple of dancefloors in clubs that I heavily suspected were firing actual lasers at the people, wonder how many of those were actual lasers vs light pointers and how many people got unknowingly injured, but it was just not worth the risk.
How I got my laser eye injury
111–120 of 378 posts
Re: How I got my laser eye injury
#112[deleted]
Re: How I got my laser eye injury
#113I’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…
As I read through it, it does sound like an apocryphal old story, since too many of the details are too perfect setups for the teller. Then again, occasionally real life really does happen unbelieveably, including when fudge-ups are involved. Maybe what's most unbelieveable is that, to the extent the story tells, the only known injured person was the laser safety officer. Presumably the safety person was partly in th…
possibly his boss asked him to not write up the report
Re: How I got my laser eye injury
#114I've touched all sorts of things in my "Maker" years, but one of the things I'm never going to touch by far is lasers. I know how bad they are, and I also know how woeful unqualified I'm for messing with lasers. Heck, I've even left a couple of dancefloors in clubs that I heavily suspected were firing actual lasers at the people, wonder how many of those were actual lasers vs light pointers and how many people got un…
Even better is when the dancefloor wants UV lighting, so they just buy some cheap UV-C bulbs
Re: How I got my laser eye injury
#115Rule number 1 of laser safety is "do not look into beam with remaining eye".
I think that's rule number two. Right after "don't look at the laser".
Re: How I got my laser eye injury
#116Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm dying of curiosity how cheap a cheap laser welder can be.
There's a killer Neal Stephenson plotline in here somewhere. Redneck protagonist zapping enemy drones with a modified laser welder.
Hmmm.
I'm black, but my wife did anoint me to the position of "honorary redneck" some time ago. Neighbor has stopped with the drone overflights of my property, but still, you're giving me ideas...
Re: How I got my laser eye injury
#117Earlier quoted context omitted.
There's a killer Neal Stephenson plotline in here somewhere. Redneck protagonist zapping enemy drones with a modified laser welder.
Oh yes: https://youtu.be/xNmbvaUzC8Q This is why we can't have nice things
There's no way this stuff isn't giving the secret service nightmares.
This guy set ablaze the inside of a vehicle through closed windows from a significant distance.
Re: How I got my laser eye injury
#118Earlier quoted context omitted.
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
Yeah, that's the problem with some of the more expensive Alibaba/Aliexpress stuff. The list price is attractive, but once you add in all the extras like duties, transportation from the port of entry to your location, warranty difficulty etc., there's not much price difference from heading over to the local Kubota dealership.
Still, some of those little tracked tractors on TikTok are interesting. If I could somehow raise enough money to start importing them, I'm sure I could sell quite a few.
Re: How I got my laser eye injury
#119So 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 get laser safety curtains, but what do you do for reflections off the ceiling? Asking because our makerspace was recently donated a fiber laser welding unit and we don’t yet know best practices for not blinding our membership short of building a completely enclosed separate room for it with door interlocks.
Re: How I got my laser eye injury
#120Are there any stats on the scale of laser eye injuries?
Like what percentage of the world population are blind because of laser injuries? What percentage have permanent vision issues?
How do those compare with the number of people who work with lasers?
How does it compare with say vision loss from arc welding?