Question regarding Laser safety of Projectors

[LaserWorker]

Hello Guys!

I recently started working at an unnamed company that builds and sells laser systems.

I never got a safety briefing other than "don't let the light shine into your eyes" and I am wondering how dangerous this stuff really is.

I regularly see some strange behavior and want to understand what you would do in my situation.

Show lasers are often used at this company to show customers or to help programming new shows.
The official "place" where that is done is inside the office.
The head programmer has one or more projects sitting on its desk (from 400mW up to 45W) and uses them on a wall roughly 3m away.
He never dims the lasers and always uses full output, no matter if the lasers are 45W or just 300mW.

The main thing is: the wall includes a door and a whiteboard.

The whiteboard is slightly reflective. It's like shiny white paint.
The whiteboard often reflects the laser light directly into the eye. (It's diffuse-ish, but still shiny white paint.)

The door has a translucent window (glass like it would be used in showers). Sometimes other people completely unfamiliar with laser safety stand behind that door.
The radiation is clearly making it through.

I asked the boss and head programmer about that, and they say it's completely safe.

This week, the head programmer was working on something and a guy wanted to enter through the door. He was using a 400mW laser at the time and projected some kind of dot effect. I deactivated the laser by pulling the interlock plug to not have the person behind the door run directly into the beam.
HE WAS FURIOUS! "I destroyed his setup" and it would be "Completely safe" because it's just 400 mW RGB.

I asked the boss about that, and he took the side of the programmer and said it doesn't matter.

I tried to argue that it's just an easy safety measure, but to no avail.
It seems they say everything is completely safe, and I shouldn't think about that.

I would have guessed that the boss would take my side as he would be the one that needs to pay compensation for the poor guy that gets eye damage but no.
I think I can't get far with discussing that matter.

I just want a second opinion if it really is as bad as I think.
What's the worst that can happen?
Is there anything I should do/can do?

Thanks
LaserWorker

[mixedgas]

Are you in the US? Are you in Florida ?

Unless you have a briefing and some training, you should not be exposed above the AEL for Class II or Class IIIA.

https://www.rli.com/resources/articl...rol%20measures.

AEL is energy per unit area. Qswitched or Mode Locked lasers are a whole issue by themselves.

Sometimes employees skip procedures when the founder is not around... Sometimes folks with no training do stupid things. 30-40 Watts on a whiteboard is generally very stupid. Some of US know what we can get away with due to proper exposure measurements and experience.


However indirect reflections can be bad, very bad..

The only way to know it is safe is to conduct measurements.



Perhaps ask if you can attend the ILDA laser safety cert course online.



Steve