New EU directives making scanning over MPE 'illegal'. Discuss

[norty303]

Sorry James, meant to respond to your comment about the thread title earlier.
At the time I started this as a split from the original thread there was some interesting discussion going on, with less clarity around what it might mean. It was intended to be deliberately provocative, and as you pointed out, might serve to entice more people to look in.
Thanks for the initial heads up about this and your continued involvement in the discussion.

[White-Light]

On the subject of the 10xMPE thing, that's a disaster for ILDA public relations if it's their concept on how to do things. Never mind whether or not I don't fully understand it, MOST people don't, and that's the problem, because most people never will. What we have is a trade association saying that the MPE, a carefully defined limit to exposure to strong light sources for anyone in a workplace, doesn't apply to a large number of people in a confined space. When a trade association says to a regulating authority "Ok for you, but we can take ten times your limit if we choose to", it's a very bad way to negotiate joint responsibility. Never mind the odd yahoo with his 300mW lightsaber, the ILDA will do far more damage to the industry in the long run if this 10xMPE stuff is coming from them. No matter how much other maths people apply, that 'tenfold limit' will be a hard lesson for the public to unlearn once they get wind of it. I strongly suggest get rid of this concept before it's too late to undo any damage.

Again, I see claims of 'difficult to enforce'. You wish! How many times must it be said? FAST. LOGGING. METERS.

Jem:
I like your icon, Sam I am.

The concept of 10xMPE has arisen out of the fact that injury statistics have failed to show injuries despite many clubs in Europe running many hundreds or in some cases thousand times MPE. I believe ILDA took a look into this and decided that based on statistical evidence over some 20 years there was a case for a new standard of MPE exposure limit as lasers appeared to be safer than was previously thought.

I believed and still believe that ILDA were wrong to tag this as 10xMPE. In my opinion what they would be better doing if they are confident over safety is issuing this as the new MPE standard and refering to the previous standard as the old MPE standard. This would straight away remove fear about MPE being exceeded as unlike the 10 x MPE tag, there's no suggestion of standards being exceeded if the new standard is simply "MPE".

This might also get around any problems caused by the H&S legislation because if accepted internationally as a new MPE standard, because if the legislation is drafted in terms of MPE rather than a specific figure or definition of 10mw/cm2, the legislation would assume the new MPE standard as the new standard thereby immediately bringing audiences and employees back into line with the same exposure levels.

It has to be said as well than on the safety issue, whilst there is no excuse to flout safety, the evidence is overwhelming in favour of a higher standard.

[Insanity]

I still have to disagree on this one Mark. To my thinking if clubs are banned effectively from using the 10xMPE standard by H&S rules for their employees, they're more likely to just ignore the set standards and do their own thing. For those that choose not to abide to the standard MPE limitation therefore, I think its more likely they'll just install what they think is right rather than what is right by the 10xMPE standard. After all, if the HSE don't recognise the 10XMPE standard why should they abide by it? Efefctively the new law lays rubbish to all guidlines and anyone who is inclined to break it isn't going to stick by a law that the HSE don't recognise themselves.

That's not entirely what I was getting at. Any laws that help stamp out the sale of lasers to inexperienced users by inexperienced sellers can only be a good thing. If you mentioned MPE to these club owners they would probably think it's a new digital music format

The issue here is an age old problem which has become magnified by the easy access to laser equipment some of which is now cheaper than a decent intelligent light. Buyers are not being educated and just assuming you can point lasers at people with no risk. Take a mobile DJ for example; he finds a super cool laser on eBay for £1000, he thinks Jean Michelle Jarre and then he see's pound signs. But does he research the restrictions on usage? Probably not, because he probably never knew there were restrictions.

The problem is, how do we educate people? Well, we could add a safety supplement to the user manual, but who ever reads manuals?

I agree the 10x MPE standard would be a welcome boost for lasershow companies and it seems well justified, but the small clubs installing cheap often unsafe lasers are the real problem in my mind.

By the way, the club I mentioned has a dancefloor capacity of around 100 people, household level ceilings and four 300mw lasers, one in each corner. There is far more likely to be an accident in a place like this than at a show provided by an educated laserist running at 10x MPE.

Mark

[mixedgas]

show that under the right circumstances (whether by luck or design), lasers are much safer at higher levels than was previously though (again I'm not suggesting 500x would ever be appropriate, just that in this particular instance, there is no evidence of any harm).[/QUOTE]


Its not luck, its the buffer provided in the standards when written.

Steve

[Insanity]

Finally I have found some pictures from the venue I was talking about in my earlier post...

Clubs like this are seriously worrying and could end up destroying our business... Hopefully these new laws will help stamp out this madness...

This has obviously been set up by a club owner who has no idea of the risks he/she is putting patrons under...

Mark

[mccarrot]

WTF!!!




Those 300mW lasers most of the time also have a small beam diameter and low divergence.

[smokeAndMirrors]

^ Yeah, but that's a frickin' light sabre!

[Insanity]

WTF!!!



Those 300mW lasers most of the time also have a small beam diameter and low divergence.

Exactly!!!! The irradiance at that proximity is ludicrous, but the person that bought/installed those lasers probably has no idea what irradiance actually means...

Complete madness

Mark

[JStewart]

Hello,

Already been mentioned, but now the regs have come into force, HSE have produced some new documentation and a webpage that may be of use.

To keep you abreast of the new developments in terms of laser and other bright light usage, you may be interested to know about the new webpage that HSE have now produced for workplace Artificial Optical Radiation (AOR) exposure, http://www.hse.gov.uk/radiation/nonionising/optical.htm

As well as having a full link to the regs which came into force last week, there is also a new guide that will probably be of use also, http://www.hse.gov.uk/radiation/noni...loyers-aor.pdf

As for the photo above. ...wow! - But of course, they may be using Beam Attenuation Maps, proprietary "trade secret" safety techniques, and that old chestnut, camera trickery.

Best regards,

James Stewart

[Stoney3K]

As for the photo above. ...wow! - But of course, they may be using Beam Attenuation Maps, proprietary "trade secret" safety techniques, and that old chestnut, camera trickery.

Best regards,

James Stewart

I'd probably get that fixed before you could say 'double exposure'.

Hey, if Tesla pulled it off...