Dangers of lasers (again)

Sterling Archer

Stumbled across this on reddit
Guy loses 20% vision after getting a laser in the eye (In america)

http://www.reddit.com/r/airsoft/comments/33wmnq

ShRT

Ouch! There really is a need for sites to keep an eye (no pun intended) on these kind of high power lasers as most of the lasers come from abroad and the labels are not worth much.

There is a relatively simple test they can do to determine the power of any given laser:
http://laserpointerforums.com/f42/simple-laser-power-meter-using-ir-thermometer-26341.html

LeeHarvey

Seen a lot of PEQ boxes, mostly batteries though.

Gatling

LeeHarvey wrote: »

Seen a lot of PEQ boxes, mostly batteries though.

Been around for years since they start appearing on US army rifle's,
Most don't have lasers built in

LeeHarvey

Yeah, one I bought before actually came as a model kit. I can't see why you would use a laser in airsoft though, no one is shooting for keeps, and damage to eyes is way too likely, battery boxes are obviously fine, but lasers? Nope. Should be banned for use on skirmish sites.

ShRT

They are very useful in indoor sites for quick target acquisition. As long as they are below the 5mW there is no issue with them but that is the problem. Too often, there is no control on what they are being sold and most are coming from China and have poor quality control. They might have a 5mW sticker but could be of a higher rating. Of course they could also be of a lower rating.

I have a couple that are sold as 5mW but they all have noticeably different levels of brightness. I have an IR thermometer so I might do the test as linked above to work out the actual power on them.