Posted By Lawrence Laing We have installed some machinery with class 2 lasers fitted, used for lining up and measuring, our plant manager thinks we should be supplying laser safety glasses, my thoughts are they are not needed. Thoughts anybody. Thanks

Posted By Lawrence Laing Cheers, I had seen the theory side I was wondering if anyone has any practical experience with them.

Posted By Dave Merchant I spent a few years working with such things (our terawatt CO2 was great for parties) and the first reply is correct - goggles are not required, and indeed cannot be used. If you wear goggles, then you can't see the laser - so using it for alignment becomes a little tricky! As to tweaking the output - that's possible on open-board systems, but machinery alignment lasers are usually self-contained encased modules with a feedback regulator (diode lasers need regulation or they fry instantly, as they have a positive temperature coefficient) and so any variations to input voltage should be filtered out. You can kill one by over-powering it, but it won't be any brighter while it's dying.