BLIND.....Re: [Laser] medium power IR diode

[John Schnurer]

	Dear AT.,

	I will try to write some more on the topic, but at 50 mw IR lasers
are not toys.... at 100 mw plus, you can do permanent damage to your eyes
VERY easily by accidental specular incidence on a wide range of
surfaces...
	This can REALLY ding your eyes and the eyes of OTHERS in 100
milliseconds and less.

	We all might do well to help design a "safe-switch" that
interrupts power under a number of overlapping conditions.

				JH

On Wed, 23 Jul 2003, Andrew T. Flowers, K0SM wrote:

> Hi folks
> I was looking around at laser diodes the other day and I came across a 
> 120mw IR (784nm) diode made by Sharp:
> http://rocky.digikey.com/WebLib/Sharp/Web%20Data/GH078JA2C.pdf
> 
> I was thinking of getting one or two and building a constant current 
> source to drive it about halfway between Ith and Iop.   This should keep 
> it from blowing up when I take it to a mountain in January.  Anyone know 
> how I might go about collimating this thing?   Would I need to find some 
> way of cooling it?   Digikey is selling them for $20, which seems to be 
> a good value in terms of $/mw.  If I can get it going it would probably 
> be ideal for cloudbounce/troposcatter experiments with Silicon-based PIN 
> photodiode.
> Ideas??
> 
> Andy
> K0SM
> 
> 
> 
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