Semi-related: NV and IR lasers

[DougCxx]

I recently got into paying with Russian NV stuff, and while looking for sources of IR flashlights I have run across a few listings (or people asking for) IR weapon-mount lasers. The couple I have run across are fantastically expensive--like $500+, and the one place that sells them says "military and LEO only". So I began looking around for IR laser modules, and the only place I can find that retails them singly (Edmund Scientific) gets about $500 each for them too.
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I didn't really want one, but I am now curious: are these things really restricted in the US? And why are they so expensive? I thought that IR LED's and solid-state lasers were developed BEFORE visible-light ones were, because they were easier to make? --And that is why most every television and radio remote control you find uses an IR LED in it? IR LED's cost next to nothing, a couple cents each in bulk, even for the fairly-high-output ones.... but IR LED lasers cost....$500 each? Something here does not make sense.....
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[444]

I don't know the answer to your question

But............... I have a related comment.

A couple years ago, I went out shooting jackrabbits at night with a friend of mine who owns two Gen III nightvision riflescopes. In addition, he had a big IR flashlight. It was as far as I could tell, just a five cell mag light. He had the flashlight duct taped to and AR15 in addition to the NV scope. This whole lash up was obviously very cumbersome and not practical in the least. It also didn't work very well. The IR flashlight only really improved things within about 10 yards.
Today, this problem is a thing of the past because Surefire sells IR filters that go over the lens of their flashlights or weaponlights. In fact, my current faviorite AR would be the way to go with his NV scope. I have a flat top receiver so you could mount and dismount the scope at will. I also have a KAC RASII and a Surefire 900 series weaponlight. All I would need is the IR filter and I would have a light that is probably more powerful than his five cell maglight and it weighs a fraction as much. Plus it is actually mounted to the rifle and not duct taped.

The only IR laser that I have read anything about is the one Surefire sells and I only read about it in their catalogs. It is expensive, and it is military and LE only.

 

[Telperion]

Quick explanation of laser laws

Since 1968, the FDA's Center for Devices and Radiological Health (CDRH) has regulated laser products in the US. Laser devices are given classifications based on power and wavelength, and each class requires certain safety features. Here's the rub: visible laser aiming modules are classified as IIIa devices, but infrared lasers are classified as IIIb. Class IIIb lasers are required to have significantly more safety features such as a key lock and remote disconnector.

Now, key locks and remote switches can get kind of clunky, especially on a weapon-mounted device, so Insight applied for a variance to the rules. They argued that law enforcement/military training was a sufficient substitute for the safety requirements. Hence, they cannot sell them to private citizens.

Bottom line: your government thinks you're too dumb to own a IR laser. Possession of one is NOT illegal, but you will have to find somebody willing to sell you one. Or if you have some electronics knowledge, you can try building one from parts, since laser diodes and tubes are not regulated.

 

[Leatherneck]

your government thinks you're too dumb to own a IR laser

That may well be so, but the dangers of IR lasers are insidious. IR is not in the visible spectrum, and, depending on the wavelength and whether it's a pulsed laser or CW, one could literally put one's eyes out nearly instantly with one. Irreversible eye damage is not pretty, and probably merits some precautions.

TC
TFL Survivor

 

[HankB]

To expand on what pipsqueak said, IR lasers are IIIb devices because, being invisible to the eye, there is no blink reflex - so any exposure may not be noticed until eyesight is damaged. A five milliwatt IR beam is more of a hazard than a five milliwatt visible beam.

If you consider something like an 820nm IR laser, your eye's lens and cornea are transparent, and WILL focus the light on your retina. The energy density will be increased by several orders of magnitude (the literature says up to five!) and, depending on the laser's power, may damage your retina in a fraction of a second.

If you want to follow the DIY course, individual IR laser chips are available from places like Thor Labs but you'll have to put together your own collimator (ideally, corrected for the diode's astigmatism) and power supply. Then there's the problem of "ruggedizing" it to take the weapon's recoil.

Have fun.

 

[Jeff White]

A visible laser works just as well as an IR laser with NODs. If you are really looking for a laser aimer to use with your night vision goggles, just buy a visible laser and be done with it. They work just as well.

Jeff

 

[DougCxx]

A visible laser works just as well as an IR laser with NODs....

-Yea I know but in the interest of general sneakiness I was looking for flashlights that cannot be seen by the naked eye.

-I just noticed that others seemed to have a hard time finding lasers in such wavelengths. I thought it odd that you need to spend $500+ to get an IR laser when Wal-Mart sells a visible red one for $20.....
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[entropy]

An IR Lightsource, be it laser, LED, or Flashlight with a red lens cover, will still be seen by any NV user in the area. The applications of IR lasers for LEO or military use are limited to NV deprived opposition that you would want to continuously 'paint' with out being seen. There are mission-specific units designed for this task (painting an artillery or airstrike target), but they are usually not weapon mounted. I suppose a weapon mounted IR laser could be used to direct fire from a fire team, but if your enemy has NV, you are now a very obvious target.
The only possible civilian applications, besides the 'cool' factor, might be varmint hunting, and Home Defense. For the latter, the psychological impact of a visible laser, particularly in conjuction with a bight combat light, would be far superior to an invisible laser.
My .02? Get an AN/PVS7B, you won't need the IR laser.

 

[Jeff White]

entropy opined;

My .02? Get an AN/PVS7B, you won't need the IR laser

How will you aim your weapon with the PVS-7B on? Check out the AN/PAQ-4 and AN/PEQ-2 series of Infrared Aimers....You need one to effectively use the other. No way to sight your weapon without the aiming light. A visible laser works just as well for this application.

Jeff

 

[son of a gun]

The short simple answer is some IR devices admit Gamma Rays, witch are strongest rays in the light spectrum and used to kill cancerous cells.

To compound things 1st generation soviet/Russian night vision eye pieces glass is not leaded glass from the image tubes
AND all the optical lenses between the image tube and the user's eyes. So when the electrons are turned back into Photons(Light) it allows x-rays that are generated to travel through your eyes and bombards your brain with x-rays.

I have been employed in the opto-electronics business for 10 years and currently grow gallium nitride crystals used in high brightness light emitting diodes.

 

[Dan Forrester]

Any of the IR flashlight filters should work fine. For example take out your filter and try to look through it. You shouldn’t be able to see anything. Now go into your closet with your NVG and the filter and look at it. It should be completely transparent. Like a piece of glass.

Tape this IR flashlight filter onto your Laser and see if it works. The IR beam should pass right through as if it were a piece of glass. However the red visible light should be stopped by the lenses. If this works fabricate a more secure means of attachment (maybe PVC with a set screw, or machine something out of aluminum) and grind down the lenses to a more appropriate size.

I think it would be quite nifty on a suppressed .22 rifle.

Dan

 

[DougCxx]

To compound things 1st generation soviet/Russian night vision eye pieces glass is not leaded glass..... it allows x-rays that are generated to travel through your eyes and bombards your brain with x-rays.

-Ummm no, but we had argument on Totse. I will not repeat it here.
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Any of the IR flashlight filters should work fine. ...

-I have seen these filters a couple places online for quite a lot of money (considering that they are just a piece of deep-red plastic), and did not like the idea of them. They would force a regular flashlight bulb to run significantly hotter and shorten its life I would think, and they are expensive--$25 for a 2-"AA" mini-Mag-Lite lens cover??? And those darn Mag-lite bulbs are not cheap either! So I don't like the IR covers, though I can imagine where in some tactical instances they would be the best choice.
......I found that you can buy a Brinkman 2-"AA" LED flashlight for $10 and convert it to an IR LED (or any other LED you want) for about three dollars more, if you already have a multimeter and soldering iron. You just need to avoid the long-IR LED's (940 nm) as I have found that they do not work well with gen-1 NV. Many surplus/overrun stock LED's are only labelled "IR" and give no wavelength, but long-IR LED's all seem to be tinted blue or green (like the one that Radio Shack sells, which is 940nm and tinted blue), while the shorter-IR LED's are crystal-clear.
---Also I noted: the best way is just to use a clear-package red LED and limit it with a big resistor (~175 Kohms for a 3-volt flashlight). That IR LED I mentioned above needs about 35 milliamps to run well. A clear/red LED running only about 5 milliamps will have just a tiny pinprick of red light in it, but it still lit up the whole room with the NV on! The light it casts is not visible but the LED itself is--but it works very well anyway,,, so I will get another Brinkman and convert it to a red LED also.

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[Dan Forrester]

DougCxx:

I’m not sure if you exactly understood what I was getting at.

Use the IR flashlight filter on the laser. That way you are filtering out the visible laser light wave lengths and only allowing the IR spectrum to pass through. Basically you are making a IR laser.

I’ve never tried this myself. I have a bottom of the barrel gen 1 monocular, a cheap laser and currently no IR filter. It’s just an idea.

Best of luck in your project.

Dan

 

[444]

DougCxx
The IR flashlight filters I was talking about were made by Surefire. If you buy into their hype they have some pretty serious engineers working on this stuff and their IR filters were designed to be used with their lights. Also, these are not mini-maglites. These are seriously powerful flashlights. The problem with something like a mini-maglite or an LED is that they simply arn't powerful enough. As I mentioned in my first post, I used an IR flashlight that ran off 5 D cells and it was only good outside for about 10 yards. A mini maglite would be lucky to be useful to read your watch.

 

[son of a gun]

DougCxx

-Ummm no, but we had argument on Totse. I will not repeat it here.

A TV disperses x-rays like a mega phone dispersing them far and wide were NV device funnels them right into your eye sockets every last x-ray, that's why comparing TV x-ray emissions to NV x-ray emissions is not an accurate comparison.

For all we know someone could be buying X-ray emitting NV devices at a gun and knife show, garage sale or off E-bay they tend to have low prices and uninformed Joe Smo's gobble them up.

I guess it's an anti communist conspiracy and the FDA's Lying
FDA Enforcement Report

PRODUCT Night Vision Image Intensifiers, Models T3C-2 and T3C-3,
used in viewing objects and persons in subdued lighting.
Recall #Z-927/928-4.
CODE None.
MANUFACTURER Novosibirsk Instrument Making Plant Novosibirsk, Russian
Federation.
RECALLED BY Intertech (Advanced International Technologies), North
Kingstown, Rhode Island (importer). FDA approved the firm's
corrective action plan May 17, 1994. Firm-initiated field
correction ongoing.
DISTRIBUTION Nationwide.
QUANTITY 79 units.
REASON Products emitted x-radiation that is unnecessary to the
accomplishment of the purpose of the product, and creates a
risk of injury to users. http://www.fda.gov/bbs/topics/ENFORCE/ENF00319.html


Vision Monocular is defective under 21 CFR
1003.2, in that it emits 13-20 kev x-rays at a
rate of 3.5 mR/hr, which are not required to
accomplish its intended purpose. http://www.fda.gov/bbs/topics/ENFORCE/ENF00425.html


The FDA Enforcement Report is published weekly by the Food and Drug Administration, U.S. Public Health Service, Department of Health and Human Services. It contains information on actions taken in connection with agency regulatory activities.
RECALLS AND FIELD CORRECTIONS: DEVICES -- CLASS II =========
_______________
PRODUCT Night Vision Monocular, Russian made lasers.
Recall #Z-361/362-6.
CODE (a) Night Vision Monocular Model 2.6 x 30 TNS;
(b) Night Vision Monocular Model 5 x 52 TNS.

-3- MANUFACTURER International Sourcing, Inc., Fort Wayne,
Indiana.
RECALLED BY Manufacturer. FDA approved the firm's
corrective action plan December 1995. Firm-
initiated field correction ongoing.
DISTRIBUTION Nationwide.
QUANTITY 12 units.
REASON The laser product failed to comply with the
following provisions of the Federal laser
product performance standard, 21 CFR 1010.2
Certification; 1010.3 Identification;
1040.10((f)(3) remote interlock connector;
(f)(4) key control; (f)(5)(ii) emission
indicator; (f)(6) beam attenuator; (g)(2)(iii)
warning logotype; (g)(5) aperture label and
(h)(1)(iii) user information)). http://www.fda.gov/bbs/topics/ENFORCE/ENF00419.html http://www.sarinfo.bc.ca/Library/Technology/NightVis.tec http://yarchive.net/gun/night_vision.html http://www.logicsouth.com/~lcoble/stuff/vision.txt http://www.icomm.ca/survival/310.don/vision.htm

the Russians cut corners on the lens coatings and other steps in the manufacturing process in order to make their light intensification tubes cheaper. So instead of containing the radiation, the devices send a lot of it through the CRT in the eyepiece and in the words of an FBI SWAT guy "they X-ray your head". http://www.savvysurvivor.com/night_vision_gear_is_it_worth_it.htm http://wilcoxeng-res.com/faqs.html


Since 1968, the FDA's Center for Devices and Radiological Health (CDRH) has regulated laser products in the US. Laser devices are given classifications based on power and wavelength, and each class requires certain safety features. Here's the rub: visible laser aiming modules are classified as IIIa devices, but infrared lasers are classified as IIIb. Class IIIb lasers are required to have significantly more safety features such as a key lock and remote disconnector. http://www.fda.gov/cdrh/

Radiation-Emitting Electronic Products http://www.fda.gov/cdrh/reenging/radhlth/overlap.html http://www.fda.gov/cdrh/devadvice/311.html

FIRMS RECOMMENDED FOR DWPE KNOWN RUSSIAN MANUFACTURERS/SHIPPERS OF INFRARED
NIGHT VISION ILLUMINATORS AND SCOPES


NIMP
Novosibrisk, Siberia
Russia
FEI #1000134061

Ratio
Ul. Tvardovskogo, 5-3-426
Moscow, 123, Russia
FEI #1000141916

Rostov Optical-Mechanical Plant
(or Rostovskiy Optico-Mechanicheskiy Plant)
Savinskoye, Schosse
Rostov, Yaroslavl Region 152100
Russia
FEI #1000134060

Rotan
78 Jurinsky Street
Novo Sibrisk
Russia
FEI #1000141780

Talus Corporation
Malyi Momsomolskyi Per, 6
Moscow, 101863
Russia
FEI #1000141781

VIZIR
5-2 Autonova-Voseenko St.
Moscow,Russia
FEI #1000141779 http://www.fda.gov/ora/fiars/ora_import_ia9502.html

 

[DougCxx]

(sigh) -Yes, that's the same stuff you posted on Totse. While it is true, the percentages of recalled units are very small: your own two examples of FDA recalls total 91 units, imported in 1994 and 1996, and a misquote from a page containing a quote from some mysterious "FBI SWAT guy". This out of hundreds of thousands of units (possibly millions?) that have been imported into the US before and since. If any significant percentage of them were hazardous they would not be as widely sold by as many retailers as they are. It is a fairly safe bet that any consumer product popular in the US has had at least one safety recall, and I might imagine that the pecentage of NV recalled is lower than the percentage of US-made firearms recalled! Now there's an interesting thought, no?
.......
(-and for the less-informed, an old or misadjusted television or CRT computer screen can easily give off as much as 1 mR/hr--so "3.5 mR/hr" is as radioactive as...... sitting in front of four televisions at a time. The horror! Especially if those four TV's are all tuned to the Rosie O'Donnel show-)

~

 

[son of a gun]

I just think it's a fact certain units emitted x-rays in the past the FDA discovered it and the manufactures acknowledged it and I'm going inform people about it regardless of you opinion on this matter.

There's nothing wrong with knowing the facts

 

[Jay Kominek]

I've found 5mW IR LED laser modules in Digikey's (an electronics supply company) catalog before. You might be able to get one and put it into the housing of a commercially made visible light targetting laser, depending on the dimensions.

Putting an IR filter on a visible light laser will not make an IR laser. An IR filter removes (most) everything in the spectrum besides the infrared. But a (good) visible light laser won't emit much, if any, energy in the infrared spectrum. So by sticking the IR filter on the visible light laser, you'll be blocking all of the energy that the laser emits.

 

[DougCxx]

.... Putting an IR filter on a visible light laser will not make an IR laser. ..... a (good) visible light laser won't emit much, if any, energy in the infrared spectrum. ....

-I have ran across a couple posts where people tried this and they say that it does work, at least somewhat. Lasers don't really produce "only one wavelength", typically they generate several different wavelengths with one or two dominating. So it's not impossible for it to work, but I can't try it because I have no IR filter. And I don't really have any use for an IR laser anyway; I was just wondering why they weren't commonly sold.
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And on second thought, ta heck with the Brinkman. I got a 2-D-cell Mag-lite for $20 instead, and that works better because the bulb is easily interchangeable and the reflector is focusable. With LED flashlights the bulb is soldered in, and I had not found any LED flashlights yet that have focusable reflectors. The limiting resistor is just a little trimmer pot that sits tucked inside the rear battery spring, and you just make an LED "bulb" from a regular one and stick the (properly adjusted for that LED!) resistor in the end spring. So the flashlight itself doesn't really get "modified" at all, you can take the end resistor out and stick a regular bulb back into it anytime.
~

 

[c_yeager]

We had a big long argument about this not too long ago complete with links to a lot of sights that cleared up the whole FDA thing. Let me see if i can find it.

found it:

http://www.thehighroad.org/showthread.php?s=&threadid=57725&highlight=laser

 

[Jay Kominek]

I have ran across a couple posts where people tried this and they say that it does work, at least somewhat. Lasers don't really produce "only one wavelength", typically they generate several different wavelengths with one or two dominating.

You're quite right. Keep in mind I didn't say "only one wavelength", though. Rather, I was talking about the tendancy of the energy they emit to come out in places that aren't going to be useful to you if you pop an IR filter on.

 

[DougCxx]

So I just realized.
This leads to a conundrum we see:
-If mallninja try to use an IR filter on a regular visible laser, then they may not be able to see the spot, but what they really want to know is if anyone looking straight into it can see the beam. I have a red LED flashlight where you cannot see the light it casts, but it is very visible if you look straight into the reflector (directly at the lit LED) or if it is aimed directly at you.
.....but then, if you look, you are looking into an IR laser....

So by doing it this "cheap" way, there wouldn't be any easy safe way to tell if it was really "invisible" or not, all you could know is that the spot was no longer visible.....
Maybe ask someone they don't like much to look, and tell him if they can see it.
..........
-But what if that person lies to them?
????

~