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Gov't Report: Laser Pointers Produce Too Much Energy, Pose Risk For the Careless

Posted by Soulskill on from the isn't-that-half-the-fun dept.

coondoggie writes "Commercial grade green and red laser pointers emit energy far beyond what is safe, posing skin, eye and fire hazards. That was the conclusion of a National Institute of Standards and Technology study on the properties of handheld lasers. The study tested 122 of the devices and found that nearly 90% of green pointers and about 44% of red pointers tested were out of federal safety regulation compliance."

2 of 260 comments (clear)

  1. At least the moon is safe of those careless people by Anon,+Not+Coward+D · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Obligatory xkcd http://what-if.xkcd.com/13/

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  2. Re:So then... by DeadCatX2 · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I saw this article earlier and it's a bit misleading. Buried much more deeply...

    The NIST tests were conducted on randomly selected commercial laser devices labeled as Class IIIa or 3R and sold as suitable for demonstration use in classrooms and other public spaces

    That whole "Class IIIa/3R" thing is a pretty big deal. Lasers of this class are pretty heavily regulated because of the danger they can potentially pose. The color of the laser is almost unimportant, except for the minor detail of how green lasers are generated by dividing infrared light in half, which makes them subject to a bit more regulation since infrared is not a visible emission; invisible emissions are more strictly regulated, since there's no blink reflex to save your eyes.

    I wonder what percentage of commercial laser pointers are Class IIIa/3R?

    For the record, I did some research on lasers, because we were going to incorporate one into one of our products...until we learned how heavily regulated they are, and went with a diode that pumps out like 50x as much wattage, but doesn't fall under regulations since the emissions aren't coherent. Throughout my research, I learned that no one - literally, no one - has ever reported being injured by a Class IIIa/3R laser. The danger posed by these emissions is more theoretical than practice.

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