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Thread: Two Questions 5mw and 500 beam lasers

  1. #1
    Join Date
    Jun 2010
    Location
    Atlanta Georgia
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    124

    Question Two Questions 5mw and 500 beam lasers

    i have searched over the forums and read quite a few remarks.
    one person says any laser 5mw and under is safe,
    and another person says it is not.
    so which one is it?
    and second question i bought a laser from china you see them all the time on ebay they are called red and green mini lasers,they say sky efffectm and they produce 500 beams of light.
    it is a red 100mw and a green 30mw diode are these safe?
    it makes beams go all over the room.
    they sell them at american dj they are called the gallaxian. and they say that they are legal, does anybody know?
    thank you for any information that you can give.

  2. #2
    Join Date
    Aug 2008
    Location
    UK
    Posts
    5,704

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    I can't comment on the American DJ unit as I don't know how the laws in your country treat such lasers. Generally these starburst type lasers are safer because the beam is usually split into many lower powered beams to created the effect. The obvious caveat here is if someone produced a projector that produced the beams by using lots of seperate diodes, highly unlikely because of the cost.

    However, to answer your question on laser safety, generally less than 5mw is considered safe however to be entirely accurate here because you seem to be under the impression that you can simply go out and buy a one size fits all safe laser off the shelf, the answer is you can't.

    What is safe depends on a host of variables including distance to the audience, beam divergence, power etc.

    As Steve (Mixed Gas) told you in another thread elsewhere the only safe way to use a laser for audience scanning is to take detailed measurements and then make calculations to establish the irradiance in mw / cm squared and then compare that with the safety standards.

    Theres no one power you can buy off the shelf and just say its safe because safety depends on all of the variables. So 20mw might be safe under one set of circumstances but unsafe under another similar.

    Also, as others have mentioned unless you're doing your own private displays in your own home for friends and family, audience scanning in the US is illegal and could land you in prison without all of the necessary permits, called variances.

    EDIT; I think American DJ make Fat Beam lasers at 10mw that are designed to be audience scanning "safe" because of their fat beam design. However whether or not you still need a variance for one of these to do public displays in the US I don't know. I'm unsure if they are exempt or not. However, scanning with any other laser requires calculations and variances.
    Last edited by White-Light; 06-24-2010 at 02:26.

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