Thread: Laser Light Purchasing Questions - Family Woodworking

The nanometer number is the wavelength - i,e, the color. Blue Lasers run from 360 to 480 nm (I had to look it up), while visible red lasers run from about 630 to 680 nm (or up to 900 nm, but then they are outside the visible color spectrum - fine for an industrial bar code scanner that can see infrared, but not for a laser pointer.

A 1 milliwatt laser will be far less bright than a 5 milliwatt laser. I suspect that they are rater "less than" 1 mw or less than 5 mw because of the shielding you may need, to keep from hurting someone's eyes who accidentally look directly into the laser. Since a laser light goes straight, it does not get significantly dimmer when you are farther away, so some jurisdictions restrict casual users to less than 1 mw power in something like a laser pointer.

Trivia... some bar code readers have a fairly powerful laser outside the visible spectrum, that actually does the reading, and a fairly low power red laser pointed close to the same area, that is to help people know where the reading is occurring. Why do I know this xxxx? Because a customer had a bar code reader where the red laser was a half inch away from the "reading" laser, and their operators were having trouble. The solution - point the scanner just under the bar code.

Source: http://familywoodworking.org/forums/showthread.php?28968-Laser-Light-Purchasing-Questions

derek jeter Red Bull Stratos Redbull Stratos justin tv justin tv steve mcnair vice presidential debate