the CDROMs and burners I saw are class one devices:

-----------------------------------------------------------------------

_Class 1:_

Class 1 lasers are the lowest powered lasers and considered "harmless" unless tampering with the device has occurred. An example of a Class 1 laser product is a CD-ROM player.

(from http://www.weizmann.ac.il/safety/laserTC.html )

-----------------------------------------------------------------------


one should look at the label for each device ...

Oleg Goldshmidt wrote:

I
don't know the parameters, but my guess is that its power is not all
that great (though I do want to be careful). If that is right, it can
only damage the eye if it is UV (I doubt).
wrong. UV will burn the lens or cornea and cause photo-chemical damage. This kind of physical
damage is nasty, but not always irreperable (in the extreme one can implant a lens or cornea)
(I saw in a previous job a man who actually shot his own eye with an air-gun.
His CT looked to my untrained eyes as quite a mess, but the retina wasn't hurt,
so the technitian said the doctors will probably fix it, which they eventually did.)

visible and IR-A pass thru the lens like a hot knife thru butter, they can then cause retinal (neuronal)
damage. This is AFAIK irreperable blindness. As in blind for life.

AFAIK cd-drives are red wavelength, but their power is small. However,
I wouldn't bet my eyes on it.

Even that is not too bad
since I am wearing glasses... Looking at the light of a Xerox machine
is probably worse.

1) glasses are no reliable protection against visible-light laser.
2) glasses are reflective. If a hazardous laser bounces of from them it can hurt someone else .

;-)

Tartei Mashma ...


--
-- regards

+-----------------------------------------------------------------------
+ Guy Baruch , Plasma Laboratory, Weizmann Institue.
+ mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
+ phone: 972-8-934-2211
+-----------------------------------------------------------------------

They hang the man and flog the woman
That steal the goose from off the common,
But let the greater villain loose
That steals the common from the goose.

-- English folk poem, circa 1764
	http://bostonreview.mit.edu/BR27.3/bollier.html




=================================================================
To unsubscribe, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with
the word "unsubscribe" in the message body, e.g., run the command
echo unsubscribe | mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]

Reply via email to