SAFETY QUESTION - Child eyes V adult eyes

[Lasermad]

A short summary would be to directly ask - 500mW entering an adult eyes would like cause a retina burn , my undestanding is the brain will compensate ,you may not even know you have been harmed .............. but what about childrens eyes ? ? ?

My thoughts on this are based around LOCAL DJs , huge amounts are buying lasers off ebay for their lighting rigs , as the prices have dropped they are now buying 50mW-250mW units ...what power will they be able to afford in 2 years time ..... 500mW ? 1watt + ??? I am working on the presumption here that these guys will treat lasers like every other light they buy and not be aware of consequences of laser light and be crowd scanning without even being aware of the dangers !

....... HEREs a thought , most of these LOCAL parties the local djs attend are family events with lots of children in attendance filling those dance floors ! wonder what effect a 500mW would have on a Childs Eye as against an adults eye !

PAUL

Maybe we should all pray some legislation comes along quickly for the UK otherwise we are gonna have a LOT of drivers out their with blind spots in 10-20 years time !

[mixedgas]

The major diff between a childs eye and adult eye is the young child's eye is still learning to focus. This is a skill mastered by the internal hardware at like age 16. But for a laser source, they are the same. OK yes the automatic argument is the child will be more sensitive, but this is not the case, and nor will the child heal or remap any faster then your average clubbing young adult.

Sadly :-)

Steve

[mixedgas]

BTW, if you see a child get aud scanned, and the venue doesnt have a exemption on file, ring HSE, and do something about it. Its my understanding that lasers now have to be approved for the venue.

Thats the only way change is gonna happen without a tragedy.

Steve

[dzodzo]

i hope no one will be so irresponsible and burn holes into heads of people with some hi-power lasers as it happened with this party in russia where many people were harmed because the light crew was probably incompetent

when i bought my first 100mW green DMX laser and had it somewhere on a party i always pointed it above the heads as i wasn't sure about the safety... now that i read some of the articles about the laser safety (thanks to this forum btw!) i just say thanks god i was so cautious =)

[mccarrot]

I can imagine a child's eye is smaller, and therefor have a smaller iris opening resulting in less light in they eye = less damage.

MPE calculation use a 7mm pupil size. when a child got a smaller eye and lets say a 6mm pupil size max the difference is as follows

pi * r^2 =mm^2

3.14 *3.5^2 = 38mm^2 for a 7mm adult eye

3.14 *3^2 = 28mm^2 for a 6mm child eye

So IF a child's pupil is smaller I would say less damage.

[lasersbee]

I always heard that the human eye does not grow bigger as you grow older.... please correct me if I'm wrong..

Jerry

[mccarrot]

Google is you beast friend

Useful Info: Eye Facts

• Babies look like they have big eyes at birth because they do. The eye of the newborn is about 65 percent the size of the adult eye.
• Babies may not have tears when they cry until they are between 1 and 3 months old.
• Although babies can see at birth and especially enjoy looking at faces, they do not see as well as adults until 1 year of age.
• Early in life, babies see strong, bright colors the best. They are also attracted to bold patterns in black and white. Pale pinks and blues, which are traditionally considered baby colors, probably aren’t even noticed by babies.
• At age 3-4 months, your baby’s vision has developed so that he or she can see small objects. Some babies start to have color vision at this age.
• By 4 months of age, your child will have developed 3D (three dimensional) vision.
• Children who are nearsighted have difficulty seeing objects that are far away. Nearsightedness is the most common vision problem in young children. Nearsightedness is inherited and is usually not diagnosed until after 3-4 years of age. Nearsightedness is not caused by reading too much or by reading in dim light.
• Children who are farsighted must focus a bit harder to see objects up close but rarely need glasses unless the condition is severe