Your opinions on lasers?

[Tariq182]

Re: Your opinions on lasers?

Red ones are usually fine at most sites as long as you're not pointing them at people purely to blind them. Green and IR lasers are usually banned as their wavelength means the eye takes longer to detect it and thus blink. In that time it took your eye to detect the light, your eye can be damaged. That's usually the reason given for why green lasers are banned.

Green lasers are also banned at my local site as we have the flight landing path for Birmingham directly over us. Red lasers don't usually interfere too much with aircraft as the range is quite short, but green lasers travel considerable further.

[Caldymoose]

Re: Your opinions on lasers?

All good points above, personally, I have one or two red lasers and have used them on rifles, they do work much better in lower light conditions which can be very useful for quick aiming without using a torch, or for pointing things out on a woodland site.

Our site does not allow the use of Green lasers for normal gameplay, reason being, that generally they are too powerful and can cause eye damage, but those bots have been covered above. We do some invite only small games, usually in the evenings and indoors, so there is little to no light, and sometimes we will use green lasers as a light source. Always pointed at the ceiling or the floor, and just generally being safe with them. Plus, green lasers look cool when you can see the beam!

If your going for a specific weapon look then a laser or PEQ box can be a useful little tool.

[javaoverride]

Re: Your opinions on lasers?

I have seen a combo laser used extremely effective by a CQB sniper but not for aiming, there are lots of objects to hide behind and from a spot at the top of the stairs you are able to see most of the arena so the sniper was set there and if he see an enemy hiding he would shine the red laser on what he was hiding behind so his team mate knew where he was and if one of his team mates see some one hiding and was unsure what team he was on he would flash is torch at the sniper to get his attention and point out the were they was then if the sniper found out he was one of his team mate he would shine a green laser. I have thought about using a laser for signaling since i saw it as i do own lasers not gun lasers just the cheap pointers from ebay but have never taken them to any games i could see the use in a few senerios but most of the time they just let everyone know where you are.

[two_zero]

Re: Your opinions on lasers?

kinda useless, not nearly as good as red dot, and it is impossible to control that people are using safe ones. I bet 9/10 are cheap Chinese ones.

even the risk is not worth it, if majority of players would use airsoft, I would stop skirmishing.


Ban lasers from airsoft.

[No1_sonuk]

Re: Your opinions on lasers?

I have seen a combo laser used extremely effective by a CQB sniper but not for aiming, there are lots of objects to hide behind and from a spot at the top of the stairs you are able to see most of the arena so the sniper was set there and if he see an enemy hiding he would shine the red laser on what he was hiding behind so his team mate knew where he was and if one of his team mates see some one hiding and was unsure what team he was on he would flash is torch at the sniper to get his attention and point out the were they was then if the sniper found out he was one of his team mate he would shine a green laser. I have thought about using a laser for signaling since i saw it as i do own lasers not gun lasers just the cheap pointers from ebay but have never taken them to any games i could see the use in a few senerios but most of the time they just let everyone know where you are.

Now that's a clever use for them.

[RedHawk]

Re: Your opinions on lasers?

No point in IR laser unless you're using NVGs.
You won't see it otherwise, and won't blink.

Regardless of having NVGs or not, they're still very dangerous.

Infrared lasers are particularly hazardous, since the body's protective "blink reflex" response is triggered only by visible light. For example, some people exposed to high power Nd:YAG laser emitting invisible 1064 nm radiation, may not feel pain or notice immediate damage to their eye sight. A pop or click noise emanating from the eyeball may be the only indication that retinal damage has occurred i.e. the retina was heated to over 100 °C resulting in localized explosive boiling accompanied by the immediate creation of a permanent blind spot

Although you don't get IR lasers THAT strong, they are by far the most dangerous laser type out there that is handheld. UV is potentially worse due to the way the skin reacts to it, but it is very uncommon to find a handheld UV laser.

WRT Green lasers: The problem isn't speed of blink response. It's that the human eye's light detection peaks in the region of green (this is why NVG output is usually green). What that means is that a green laser (or any light source) looks brighter, even though it may have the same, or lower measured power as a red one. That makes the eye more susceptible to damage from a green laser than red.
Going back to blink response: I'd have thought that, given the above, it'd be faster for green than red.

A common green laser emits a monochromatic beam at 532nm, a wavelength that’s very close to 550nm - the wavelength to which the human eye is most sensitive. So yes, it is easier to see green than red. However, a green laser is produced by pumping an 808nm IR laser through a crystal medium to double the frequency, resulting in a 532nm green beam. Good quality lasers have filters to stop any of the IR light escaping, but inexpensive lasers do not. This means your 532nm beam may also be sending 808nm IR light towards that person's eyeball you're aiming it at. That's usually why they're banned. More a safety precaution. My original post was based off what a site owner had sent me, but having looked in my uni physics books I can say that he's wrong (and you're right).

However, power does have a large effect. A red laser with a higher output will cause more damage than a green laser with a lower output. That bit is the easiest part to understand. Above 5mW, the blink response offers no protection.

[TK8456]

Re: Your opinions on lasers?

There are some folk on ebay who sell +5mW!!

Personally I love lasers. Good for marking, keeping peoples heads down and CQB fast target shooting.

As long as you're not a dick pointing in peoples eyes, they're a great thing

[Vex]

Re: Your opinions on lasers?

If you cant be responsible with a laser your probably not responsible with a RIF/IF therefore you shouldn't own either.

[RedHawk]

Re: Your opinions on lasers?

I agree, they're for target acquisition so you know what you're aiming. I don't aim for the head unless that's the only part sticking out and as such if I ever used a laser, it would be pointed at center mass only.

[dj2l8b]

Lasers are only good for Target ID besides that they are just space taker. IR lasers are very expensive and unless you have NVGs you wont see it anyways soo many wont buy them anyways.

[Heinz]

Re: Your opinions on lasers?

IR lasers aren't "very expensive" at all. G&P do several, and you can pick the cheapest of them up for a few notes over £100. The more expensive one costs around £180.

[dj2l8b]

Im not talking about shitty G&P types, im talking about Milspec lasers.

[bobfish]

Re: Your opinions on lasers?

NOT THIS AGAIN!!!

RIGHT ....



the colour of the laser makes no difference ....

lasers are classified as power ratings ... less than 1mW 5mW and 15mW are all 100% safe be they green or red!

above 15mW are still not dangerous!

30mW even 50mW lasers are not dangerous, to cause damage to your retina they must be placed at their focal point (normally around 30cm) and remain there for around 10 seconds before you're in trouble.

SO TO ANY PERSON THAT SAYS LASERS ARE DANGEROUS I CHALLENGE YOU!

stand at minimum engagement distance and hold your rifle so still that you can burn a hole in my retina it's physically impossible.



people are scared of lasers because they do not understand them, and it's really quite annoying that they are so misunderstood.

I ranted and raved in a similar thread a while back so wont add much more than they are not dangerous and site owners should check the power level of the laser and not just the colour.

as you can buy red 2W lasers which will set fire to things almost instantly at their focusing point.


terminology:
mW = milliWatt
W = Watt

1 W is 1000 mW's.

I own a number of lasers and know which are dangerous and should be treated with caution... anything under 15mW is not a threat.


edit:
IR lasers, i don't know if one exists but a 1mW IR laser wouldn't be anymore dangerous than looking at a fire. Bonfires give of way more power than a 1mW laser (even if it is dispersed) however IR lasers I wouldn't really recommend as they are not detectable by the human eye you don't blink or move out of the way of them. This isn't really a huge problem because of the movement of the gun would take it away from the eye quickly. HOWEVER as IR lasers are normally more powerful I wouldn't be okay with someone using an IR laser in a game.


dazzle is a problem, more because if someone is running it could distract them, and they trip, but once again don't point them at people's faces ... simple. No reason to ban green low powered lasers

[Coz]

Re: Your opinions on lasers?

I don't mind people using lasers as long as they act sensible.

Do I use one? No, I don't need to be that accurate i'm usually carrying 1k+ BB's if I miss I will shot a few more times.

I do like them Predator 3 laser unit type ones though, they look cool

[Johnno]

Re: Your opinions on lasers?

I would like to think that Airsofters would be more responsible than your average little Scrote who buys a Pen Laser on Holiday and spends all evening tw@tting about shining it at your Hotel Room Balcony, so much so that you have to go down and grip his/her Parents about it.....Rant over (yes this happened to me last year)