Hi guys - I bought these Cloudray laser glasses - they ticked all the boxes in the description but didn’t come with any certification / etched ratings on either lens or frames - should I replace them? If yes, does anybody have a good recommendation for a pair around £40? Thanks so much
Glass, acrylic, and polycarbonate are very opaque to far infrared, such as what a CO2 laser creates. The key for the glasses is the protection at the sides. These have that protection. The tint is to protect against bright flashes of visible light.
For visible lasers like the ubiquitous blue LED lasers, it’s really really critical to get the right goggles because they need to absorb specific wavelengths with dyes (chromophores), and you can’t tell that well enough by “eyeballing” (sorry) the color.
I’m in the UK and bought mine from a company called Thorlabs. The have a UK arm but my glasses came from the US. I found them to be good, I spoke with someone to make sure what I was buying was right for my K40. They aren’t cheap but are ce marked and are from a reputable company. What cost can you put on your eyesight? I think mine were £120 ish. The style lg2 should go over your normal glasses. I have those and mine fit. I emailed them and got some good advice and friendly service.
I wouldn’t entertain anything from ebay or amazon. However the advice is never to lift the lid whilst the laser is running. Another point that an optician friend of mine made is around the UV the lasers emit.
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Thank you! So sorry, only just found this reply! I need to get out of my laser cave more often! Hehe … I’ve still got these glasses, I never lift the lid while laser is on and try not to watch it when it’s running, but have to keep checking to make sure all good in there! So these glasses aren’t great at blocking the invisible UV? I might need to get some more x
Thanks so much - I’ll def give these guys a look! I paid around £50 for mine, but they don’t have the CE marks 
thanks again for link, I might have to trade mine in! Xx
“checking” as in looking through the window in the lid, right?
It’s a good idea to monitor it — to make sure it hasn’t caught fire. This is where you really want a safety feature that many K40s don’t ship with: a switch to disable the laser when the lid is lifted — if you have to put out a fire you want your fire extinguisher handy and to not have to remember to turn off power before trying to put out the fire!
CO2 lasers themselves don’t emit UV. They emit at the other end of the spectrum in far infrared. These goggles block far infrared but I don’t think they block much if any ultraviolet. If your K40 has a yellow/orange plexiglass window, that will probably block any UV emitted by the material being cut; at least, I understand that is the intent.
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Thank you that’s really good to know re the orange plexiglass window - my K40 has an emergency stop button, but we do still need to fit the interlocks - we’ve bought the bits just need to wire it up! Still abit nervous to go poking around the power supply tho! x
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Mine caught fire once, due to using vinyl transfer tape to stop the wood being stained whilst cutting/ engraving. It melted the plexiglass, so I replaced it with aluminum sheet. I now have a reversing camera and screen to keep an eye on whats happening inside. NEVER leave the machine unattended, if I hadn’t been around my man cave would be a pile of ash!
