Lasermet
Safety standards
The EN 60825 standard covers the safety of laser products, including the laser itself and the enclosure. Part 4 refers to laser guards, which protective windows have to comply with. In addition, there is EN 12254, which relates to screens and barrier protection, but not the laser itself. ‘My customers are interested in EN 12254 if they want to open up a laser system in a large environment, using barrier screens and protective curtains,’ commented Ian Stansfield, a director at Pro-Lite Technology.
visible light transmission. Some protective materials might have a high optical density, but the user can’t see through them. ‘Te application has to be considered,’ said Stansfield. He gave the example of doctors using laser safety goggles will need good colour recognition when viewing a patient. Reflections are also dangerous
when using lasers. ‘Te biggest problem is that reflections are really difficult to quantify,’ Stansfield said. ‘Is it going to be diffuse reflection spreading light in all directions, or have the effect of focusing the beam?’ Reflections might not be so much of a problem in an enclosed system, but some machines contain cameras that can be damaged by reflected light. ‘We oſten put protective windows on cameras to guard against this,’ Stansfield added. ‘You can’t dismiss reflections
because they’re unquantifiable,’ he Laser safety eyewear falls under
personal protective equipment. This links to EN 60825, but is also covered by EN 207 and EN 208. EN 207 is full protection from the light source. ‘The downside of full protection is that you can’t see the laser beam,’ Stansfield said. ‘In the visible range, people might want to be protected against the laser, but still be able to see the beam. Here, sufficient light is allowed through but not so much that it can cause any damage. The standard associated with that is EN 208.’
continued. ‘It might only be 0.1 per cent reflectance, but on a 16kW laser it’s still significant. Half a watt is going to burn your skin.’ Tozer commented that safety
equipment for high-power fibre lasers is a big growth area for Lasermet. ‘Te price of lasers is coming down, which means companies are buying higher power systems that can process things quicker,’ he said. And upgrading lasers to higher power versions also might involve different safety equipment. ‘A 4kW laser welder might have a passive enclosure, but if the company upgrades the system to an 8kW laser then you need to be thinking, “is a passive enclosure good enough?” We’ve been involved in retrofitting active guarding to existing passive enclosures for situations like that where people have upgraded the power of their laser,’ Tozer concluded.
Lasermet’s modular Laser Castle gives passive laser protection for up to around 4kW of power
www.lasersystemseurope.com | @lasersystemsmag
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