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Curious to know if anyone has had issues from lasers


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5 replies to this topic

#1
joester

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Hello everyone!

I'm going to be performing a test at work and part of it includes recording a laser beam shining onto steel rulers to measure flex of one of our assemblies using a green (520nm) laser level.

My concern is that the reflection (not a direct hit) off the rulers might damage the camera sensor. The camera(s) will be in record mode for several minutes while we slowly apply force.

Has anyone here had any experience along these lines? I'm looking into buying filters, but I need to see the beam on the ruler so I'm not sure how this is going to pan out and damaging several $600 cameras is NOT preferred.

 

Joester



#2
g4aaw pete

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Hello joester

 

What class of laser are you dealing with?



#3
Merco_61

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The risk is dependent on how well the infrared emission is contained  in the unit as well as what the power class is.



#4
Marcus Rowland

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It's fairly unlikely - unless the ruler has a mirror-smooth surface the reflected light will no longer be coherent, so the main problem will be prolonged exposure to a bright pinpoint light, with a lot less energy than sunlight etc.

 

One thing that may help is using a polarizer - laser light is always polarized, so you may be able to get rid of most of the light that's still coherent and just see the scattered light which is a lot less damaging. A ruler that has a matt white surface might also help.

 

Hope this helps.



#5
joester

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We were looking into filters for that range but that would defeat the intent to record the flex since the laser would be "blocked".

We do have several polarizer filters and that seems the most likely answer. This is a simple green laser level from Home Depot shining across several steel rulers at the same time with a camera on each ruler. 

 

Thank you all!



#6
Marcus Rowland

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We were looking into filters for that range but that would defeat the intent to record the flex since the laser would be "blocked".

We do have several polarizer filters and that seems the most likely answer. This is a simple green laser level from Home Depot shining across several steel rulers at the same time with a camera on each ruler. 

 

Thank you all!

Did it work?