If you have a cheap Chinese laser get these laser protection glasses now – your eyes should be worth 50 Euros. There is quite a debate what kine of glasses are sufficient to protect against a K40 laser. Most likely simple glass could also work to protect your eyes. Some people even claim that sunglasses would be good enough. At the end everybody has to decide for himself if you want to accept the risk or not.
Having children and working with them on the laser I don’t want to go for any compromise and bought some protective glasses. Here are a few criteria that are important from my point of view:
- Most importantly the glasses should cover the wave length of the K40 – which is around 10.000 nm. Some “laser glasses” are only optimized to let you better see a red laser (e.g., from a laser level). Don’t buy these!
- Ideally the glasses also protect the sides as much as possible. You want as much of your eyes covered as possible.
- Last but not least – maybe as important as glasses: Follow this article and integrate a safety switch in the K40. If the laser stops in case you are opening the lid this increases the safety tremendously. Otherwise you will always be tempted to quickly open the lid – only to remove that one piece that might ruin your next cut.
The laser protection glasses I bought and that are shown in my K40 setup article and video are unfortunately no longer available at Amazon. I placed a link down in the description that links to glasses that are rated at the right wavelength.
Cost of this article are around: 50 EUR
You can purchase the article under the following links:
Disclosure: Some of the links above could be affiliate links. This means that - at no additional costs to you - I earn a small commission when you purchase products through these links.