Hi all, I am new to these forums and am happy to be here! I recently purchased a Ortur Lasermaster 2 system and would like to build an enclosure for it to ensure that no accidents occurs with viewing the laser. Ideally I would love to also be able to view the project through the acrylic window I add to the enclosure without needing the glasses if that is possible. The specs provided by Ortur state that additional safety glasses need to meet the following standards (so I assume the same applies to any acrylic purchased)... WaveLength Protection 400-445nm (+-5nm), O.D.+5, L-Rating Minimum required L5 What I have found odd is that any O.D. +5 I have seen usually has a much higher Wavelength Protection range, so it is somewhat confusing. I was looking at the following and wondering if it was adequate... 250nm to 520nm Laser Shielding | J Tech Photonics, Inc. It has the correct protection range, but only an O.D. range of 3+. Would that be enough to 1) protect from stray beams and/or 2) be enough protection to look into the enclosure without the glasses to check the status of a job? If not for either, what if I purchased two pieces of the acrylic and stacked them on top of each other to form the window? Would that be enough? I really appreciate any and all help. Thanks!
I suggest you direct your questions to the pros at JTech Photonics rather than the amateurs here. 'Cause it's only your eyes and the ability to see for the rest of your life you're talking about.
Good advice, thanks! I have sent them an email and will see if they respond. Once they do I will reply back to the thread here to share the knowledge in the hopes that it helps someone else.
Yeah I'm interested to know this. I looked into the same thing, and found JTech as the only source of reliable sheet OD acrylic. But 3+ only goes up to about 2W or so of laser power. Fine for what I'm running now, but no room to upgrade. Anyone wanting to use the 4-7W range- ie. most people, these days- are gonna have issues. I've wondered if welding filters wouldn't also do the job since they're designed for broad spectrum + UV-cut, but haven't yet looked into it.
Here is the information I received back from them. I suspect the specification on your goggles has less wavelength range due to the fact they are providing it for the laser they are selling. We have a broader range as we sell multiple wavelength lasers and have tested our products over this range. I would also not trust the specifications with a lot of the chinese companies. They tend to exaggerate. We have tested many of the 20W lasers with our power meter and they all are 5W or less. The shielding we sell should be sufficient for viewing your laser with stray reflections if you make an enclosure with a viewing window. OD3+ will reduce the intensity of the reflections by a factor of 10000. You should be able to not use the additional goggles when using the shielding instead. I just wanted to clarify even further with him, so I followed up with: "Thank you Jay. I do realize that they exaggerate and that the actual output of the laser is 5w or less. It is good to know that a single sheet will protect from stray beams when used as a viewing window. If I look through the window without the safety glasses to see how a piece is progressing, is that okay as well? I just want to be sure I understand correctly. As they say, I only have one set of eyes." His response back was: Yes, it will be sufficient to look without wearing additional goggles with a single sheet of the laser shielding. We do this in our shop on our laser machines. We have enclosures on ours with shielding viewing windows so we don't have to have everyone walking around with goggles. I agree, always try to protect your eyes. In this, we also don't stare for long periods of time at the laser processing through the windows, but rather use it to just check progress. Based on that, I plan to buy a single sheet for my enclosure. Rob, I hope this information is useful to you, and I hope others find it useful as well.
Eeeehhh... I dunno. That's a real non-answer when we're talking about Class IV lasers. I want to see meaningful values in terms of 0.25s exposure limits, diffuse reflections, irradiance and proximity, log and wavelength graphs, all that stuff. "We do this all the time, it'll be fine" doesn't really cut it for me, especially from a vendor. You don't know when it's gonna be not fine until it's too late. I'm sure they're not a designated Laser Safety Officer (though I assume they have one on site) and don't want the liability, but enough information to be confident in the conclusion seems important. Based on some research I just did via OSHA and some laser safety companies' documentation, I think OD3.5 is ok for diffuse reflections from 7W ("20W") lasers. As long as you don't let anything reflective into the bed, it should be good. Speaking of higher powered laser protection, I just noticed Survival Laser have upgraded the Eagle Pair glasses from OD4+ (what I have) to OD6+! At the same price. Nice. Might upgrade when I get a proper 7W laser diode.
Have a read through Hit in eye with 1000mw 445nm blue laser either way A webcam inside a fully enclosed box is always an option, especially if you might have pets or kids walk in
Thanks Peter. I might use the webcam idea to check status, but still include a sheet of the acrylic in case I need it. It will be placed in a way that any reflected beams would go to the ceiling, and if I had to do a quick check I would also use the glasses still even with the acrylic. I appreciate the insight. Just to be clear also, this is the 15W version of their laser (which probably translates to 4 or 4.5W output). I think the acrylic will be okay for this version of the laser based on what I am seeing, but I might still use the webcam as well (since I have two just sitting around) just because I can.
Camera is what I ended up going with on my enclosure. I've got goggles if I need to open it up when running, but I've placed a $25 Wyse camera inside for monitoring progress.
