Hey EF -
Well, please show me the 'Class IV' labels on this thing and/or statement of 'non-conformance' because it's 'OEM'? It puts out up-to 24 WATTS of visible laser power, yes? - no labels, no interlocks!!!... And yeah, blu-ray's should have appropriate labeling / interlocks, too, (I actually don't know - how many W can those put-out, total?) but these seem to be all-too easy to access that much power - and all-too easy to get in the hands of the 'inexperienced'...
Should all hobbyists be 'banned' from having access to these? No. Again, imo, the 'control-efforts point' needs to be the harvester / seller. YOU (and I am not saying YOU, Pat...) ARE, for all intents and purposes, 'the CDRH', and as long as we have laws governing these things, imo, it is up-to each to uphold that - it's the *principle* behind safety... it's an attitude / belief-system, even-more than a particular set of laws (cause clearly, the 'laws' got 'circumvented' somehow, on these things... do I understand correctly that the label on these things states: "CLASS I"?? Happy to be-corrected...)
...that we KNOW-of... that is my 'personal concern' with all the assertions that 100x MPE is 'just fine', based on: "because, look at all the millions of ravegoers in Europe, and they're all 'fine'..." - I say: we THINK they're fine... has, in-fact, every one of them GONE to an opthomologist to get a retinal-scan? No, and how many ever will? - the 'concern', imo, is what will the LONG-TERM fx of *frequent* eye-scans with multi-watt lasers, do to your vision?
And - subtle-aspects, like color-perception / detail-recognition, etc. How can we possibly know that, right now?... 30 yrs ago, there weren't today's ubiquitous multi-watt crowd-bathing shows, at least not nearly as often / widespread...
I'd love to find some of the people that were at the infamous 'BOC' concerts, getting scanned with 20W of Argon off the mirror-balls, etc - and, some of those people were fairly far-away from the fx... and see how their 'eyesight' is... Would be interesting...
I'm not saying they'd HAVE injuries - I can't say that. Especially because there is the 'wild-card' factor of heredity, whether that person smokes / other 'eye-health-influencing factors', etc. I'm simply saying, I, for one, ain't gonna risk damaging MY show-goers eyes - even-if just a *little bit* and/or the 'results' don't show for 20+ yrs... if, in 10/15 yrs from now, a LARGE sampling of Euro-rave/show goers get retinal-scans done, and there are, in fact, ZERO effects, degenerative, included, I might feel differently. But just because it's 'popular' now, doesn't mean it's a 'good-idea'.
'Incessant cigarette smoking will kill you'.
As usual, my 'un-solicited' - and off-topic - opinion...
peace..
j