Yep. Prolly-won't be long before these XJs are gone... Anybody get any sort of verification as-to the 'discontinued' status of these, people seem to-be encountering?
The only thing I gotta say, is - and I know I'll be 'filleted-alive' for this, but - this thing, imo, is NOT a 'safe' product, as-is, as a CONSUMER product... sorry, but this:
... imo, is NOT ADEQUATE for a product that, '5 phillips-head-screws and a small-piece of gaff-tape over a micro switch-later', you've got 24 friggin WATTS of fairly-tightly collimated laser-output comin-out...
...at LEAST, (imo) they should have had a small 'optical pick-off > sensor' - heck, even a strategically-placed sensor, picking-up on just-enough-of all the 'ambient' inside this thing, tied-in with the Interlock circuit... and/or using, like, 'rivets' on the access-door - what reason would a *normal consumer* NEED to get into that compartment, but-for a service-tech? (...and us ....
..Sorry, but I can't see how this got worked-around, COMPLIANTLY, with the IEC-standard...I just cannot-believe that they (Casio) SHOWED, and/or the FDA inspector who 'signed-off' on this, ever saw THIS, which we've all-seen, blah, blah, etc...
Any-such 'enhanced interlocks' would certainly not-have stopeed US-all, so we-all ould still-have 'reason to rejoice', etc...but at least the 'average 12-year old' would likely not have such an easy-time gaining access-to / turning-on that much - dangerous - power...
I don't wanna start another 'rant-war', just that it's a real shame, that Casio did not do 'smarter interlocking' on these, cause, now, we're proabably gonna see these either get recalled, or 'consumer safety-flagged', etc, and if the performance as a projector, keeps getting 'panned', maybe Casio will s-can the whole thing... that would really be a shame...
But if they had made these just a *little* safer, to begin-with, we'd proabaly all still be 'bathing in blue,' right now, but not have-to-be so-concerned about an 'incident' / losing-ground on relaxing the Regs for shows / CDRH, etc, etc - of course, the 'demise' of this source of blue....
...I know, I know - 'wicked would probably still-be wanton' , etc, etc... ...I talk in circles...like I acknowledged, it's like an 'ant reasoning with a freight-train'...
..but I can try, right?
peace...
j
....and armed only with his trusty 21 Zorgawatt KTiOPO4...
Sounds like everyone who got a few of these diodes might be lucky they did.. although I've always hoped that display technology would bring relatively high-powered RGB laser diodes into the hobbyist world. I just didn't really think we'd be talking solid class 4 right off the bat. Hopefully this whole fiasco doesn't do so much damage that we can't put display technology to work for us..
Last edited by ElektroFreak; 06-14-2010 at 20:48.
Hey Pat...
I assume you had no troubles gettin-in the last 'batch' you ordered, but did they give you any 'indication' of future avail (not sure if you asked, ??) ..Just wondering about the rumors of 'discontinued' status, people seem to-be encountering...checked with Best Buy and Staples, around here, and BB has only a couple left, of either model, and said the 'A130s' were 'unavailable for ordering'...
so we'll see... I just wonder if Casio has already begun any-such 'recalls'...
peace...
j
....and armed only with his trusty 21 Zorgawatt KTiOPO4...
I'm not sure I understand the interlocking thing I'm afraid. All the interlocks in the world won't prevent what's going on at the moment with the harvesting.
I think we can all agree that the biggest danger is the diodes being taken out and mounted in other devices, not someone shining the array out of the case.
the only way they could really stop all this would be to have them mounted in a way that they couldn't be extracted without damage of some form.
....and armed only with his trusty 21 Zorgawatt KTiOPO4...
They wrote about "Wicked Lasers" in one of the major news papers here in Sweden today too. They claim that the seller says "the laser can blind you permanently and set your skin or other body parts on fire"...
http://www.dn.se/ekonomi/teknik/extr...atet-1.1122865
Yagaman - We do not condone even joking about the activity you are speaking about.
I have deleted your two replies. Please be more mindful next time.
I believe the international standards say that provided the laser is encased then its Class I irespective of its power. Quite how on a cinema projector you make the distinction between a projector and a laser projector I don't know as both are projecting high power coherent light from the outlet window.
However, you see this on CD / DVD players. Despite having 150mw 640 inside or similar they're always Class I. I've long thought this dangerous. The 1st time I ever took the top off a CD player to get at the laser (because there was a problem with the unit) I thought I was safe because I'd looked up Class I and so actually looked into the laser from a few feet (luckily it was the laser that had failed). However it shows the dangers of labelling something powerful Class I simply because its encased.
I've long thought this international standard needs changing as you don't have to be a laser enthusiast to get curious and open something up especially when there's a malfunction. To my mind it should always be labelled with the correct class and an eye safety warning irrespective of encasing.