Quote:
Originally Posted by Ricochet
In the case of a laser, it must go directly into your eye for an amount of time in order to do damage. That's pretty hard to do unless you are trying at close, close, very close range.
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Yes and no - and it's mostly no.
The amount of time it needs to stay in your eye ball to cause any significant damage decreases dramatically on factors such as power and wavelength. Whereas a .7mw laser can stay in your eye pretty much forever without any issue, a 5mw laser can start to cause damage fairly quickly.
While the amount of damage that a 5mw laser can cause is limited and small, that damage is pretty much
permanent.
The reason why red lasers are limited to 5mw or less for a majority of applications (dollar store laser pointer) is because your blink reflex kicks in before any real damage can occur. It's not a perfect guarantee but for the most part your eye breaks beam contact before it can get destroyed. Your body recognizes that the amount of light is actually dangerous and does what it can to get away from it. Much like pulling your hand away from a hot stove.
Now here's where the fun begins;
IR Lasers don't have that blink reflex.
From a community standpoint we are lucky that IR Lasers like the G&P DBAL have not had a super power IR Laser in them. Just based on what I can observe testing with other lasers it seems to float around 8mw or so. Still dangerous, but nowhere near as bad as it could have been. Even a cursory look at eBay and other sites have random ass home built / china built lasers using diodes anywhere from 30mw to 200mw. These lasers are readily available because Green lasers actually use an IR diode and use prism magic to make it green. So China has access to all these beautiful super high power lasers and sometimes sells them as weapon lasers with a rail mount included.
Getting blasted with a 100mw laser will, basically,
fuck your eye. Doesn't matter how long it would take. Your eye is
fucked.
Would your eye ball still get fucked with a 8mw IR laser? Less likely. It's still very possible that it's going to happen eventually, especially given how some people only poke their heads out from over cover when trying to shoot back. Your head is the only target in many cased - that is where the laser is going to be pointing.
So where does that leave us:
Class 1, eye safe lasers. Certifiable, third party accountability. I don't give a damn about origin of the laser as much as some people in this thread as I know a number of the US Lasers are made overseas in places like Taiwan and China. I have used some random East Bloc lasers that are available here in Canada very easily that are also certified as eye safe. I don't mind having a Beamshot or a USNV Triad on the field any more than I do an LDI or L3, because all four of those companies have offices in the US and have to abide by US Laws or they face the wrath of the FDA.
Why will ThunderCactus's laser never be allowed in the province of Ontario? Because he is a random nobody who is running a literal basement operation. There is no accountability, there is no guarantee these lasers are kosher. I have no idea what they are capable of. I have no idea if he has made a super cool high power version for his buddies, I have no idea about the lab that is testing this shit or whether or not their tests are accurate. I have no idea how to tell this item apart from the unmodified ones.
Most importantly I don't have the time to even call the lab to verify they even DID test the laser and it is appropriate for use on the field. I have a game to run.
We need to know 100%, without a doubt, these lasers are good to go. Cause if a company like LDI slapped "Class 1 eye safe" onto a high power unit, at the very least that results in a lawsuit when that eye damage occurs... But that doesn't happen because their quality control is very high, and they make a high quality product. I can trust that manufacturer and so can a majority of players.
Can I trust the guy who said it's okay to use a non eye safe laser on people because they didn't complain about it, despite not knowing the risk (or maybe even not knowing it was on the field)? Who is pumping these things out of his garage with a soldering iron and diodes he bought on Alibaba.com?
I don't mean to be a dick Cactus, and I think I'm driving this point harder than I should be, but the lasers are getting used on other people. The owner of the device does not have to worry about his own safety. It's like if a person showed up at a game with a gun that can somehow shoot past peoples eye pro. He's still perfectly safe, as he's the only one with that gun. Some people might say "Hey, I don't want you using the gun that shoots past my googles. It might hurt my eye" and you say "Oh it's okay it won't hurt your eye I promise" - the difference being it's not your eyes on the line.
This is, literally, how people feel.