Quick question for people here who use the JTech laser: what kind of safety goggles do you have/recommend?
I got the 2.8W kit from JTech that comes with a pair of OD2+ grade, 405-445nm goggles. I also got the laser shroud option, so that and wearing the goggles and not being silly should provide a reasonable level of safety. I want to buy a second pair (in case I need to have a guest in the room while I’m using the laser), and I thought I might as well buy a better pair for myself, and keep the JTech one as the guest pair.
I found surprisingly few threads (well, exactly one) mentioning specific laser goggles.
Among the ocean of cheap c…p on Amazon that do not even state against which wavelength they protect and at what OD level, I found a pair of OD6+ in the suitable wavelength range around 50$, that MAY not be counterfeit.
I may be a bit paranoid when it comes to safety, but I value my eyesight at more than 50$
I have the JTech glasses and also bought a sheet of there safety shield 24”x12” acrylic. Propped in the slot between the MDF bed and front plate. Works good.
I wish I could find a local supplier for an acrylic laser shield in that price range. Then I would replace my enclosure’s front window with this, wire a door contact to the laser controller, that would be ideal…I’ll keep searching
Honestly I don’t know the exact specs of the laser shielding acrylic, but I’d suspect it mostly comes down to color (I am no expert on this, please verify before burning your eyeballs). Something like red translucent acrylic is red because it’s blocking all colors except red. I don’t know that there’s any real magic pixie dust mixed in, it’s just a color that doesn’t allow the blue laser light to pass.
Funny, I just stumbled upon an old thread on a different forum where someone was making exactly that same point, that it was just a piece of orange acrylic sold at a premium.
I guess, since I’m going to have the laser shroud in place and my safety goggles on anytime the laser controller is powered anyway, any orange piece of acrylic will come as a 3rd layer of defence, any extra attenuation it will bring will be a bonus.
Oh, I have just the answers for you. I’ll respond more in depth later when I’m not on my phone but I dug into this a lot. What you want is blue light blocking glasses. OD6+ glasses are fine for this. They will block all UV and all you have to worry about is the bright intensity of the visible light. I talked to a rep. at Airgas (welding and industrial supply) about this last year.
Needless to say, if you want a pair, I could mail you one if you’ll pay for postage. I bought a whole box of them.
And just so people know what is safe. When I talked with the rep. from Airgas, since the laser diodes we work with emit a lot of blue light, he recommended either a green filter 3.0 (12% visible light transmission) or 5.0 (2% VLT). Welding-style safety glasses all remove UV and IR spectrum so it’s just how much visible light you want to remove then.
