[msds]

I second this; this is super bad advice. CO2 systems are comparatively safe from an eye damage perspective - unless you take a direct hit, (...don't, seriously, that's what interlocks are for...), 10.6um is strongly absorbed by your eye and you'll get superficial thermal damage, maybe cataracts or a corneal burn, but it won't get focused on to your retina so serious vision loss is unlikely. Polycarbonate safety glasses have a crazy high optical density at 10.6 and are suitable protective eyewear.

The situation for visible diode lasers is much worse. Sure, the power tends to be lower, but they're still powerful enough that looking at a diffuse reflection will result in dangerous power densities on your retina. Unfortunately, the brain is really good at hiding this sort of damage, so it's possible to not notice until it's too late.

1.064um fiber lasers are the worst of both worlds. Very high powers, invisible so you have no idea how much stray light is getting out or if you're staring at a reflection, and expensive + hard to verify safety glasses.

I like doing things with high power lasers (next up for the collection is probably a 355nm ns system?), but am glad that I had to take a lot of laser safety training before I bough my first big laser source.

[looofooo0]

Fun fact: in Uni people doing stuff with not so strong white laser are using VR headsets with see through mode

[cenamus]

Sounds like quite a good solution actually, low latency and all. Do you know if they fitted any filter over the headset cams to protect those just in case?

[zokier]

White laser? Rgb or something else

[jacquesm]

Ah yes, these are very good points. I will update the article accordingly, thank you.