Laser Safety
Laser Safety Services & Training
Lucid offer a wide variety of Laser Safety Training courses, LED and lamp safety training courses, plus consultancy in Laser and LED safety to whatever level you require. We also offer laser safety qualifications and laser safety software to help with simple and complex safety calculations.
Lucid's Laser Safety Background
Lucid have a strong pedigree in laser safety gained from working with laser sources and laser based equipment at the optical research level and within fibre optic communications applications. In the past, many of our clients requested support with laser safety at the introductory level and also within their bespoke laser based equipment or optical communications activities. Accordingly we have developed a number of modular laser safety training courses to suit such requests, and our popular Laser-Bee Software package to help take them step-by-step through various complex laser safety calculations. We train personnel at all skill levels, from the non-technical right through to the experienced scientist; our laser safety delegates are nearly always surprised by both how much they have learnt and how much they have enjoyed a laser safety training course; there's something about lasers and optics that seems to fascinate everyone... at least on Lucid's laser safety training courses!
All of our laser safety training delegates receive a full colour and fully indexed training manual on laser safety, designed as a useful reference source after the course. For additional quality assurance, we can offer a vocational qualification (at level 2) in laser safety from the Open College Network (OCN) to strengthen the skills records of your staff. This laser safety qualification is very popular amongst laser safety professionals at all levels as evidence of basic laser safety competence for laser users and professionals alike.
LED & Lamp Safety
Following on from our highly successful laser safety training courses, we are now offering training in LED (Light Emitting Diode) and lamp safety. Similarly, we can assist if you require a consultant to provide technical assistance in the assessment of your LED or lamp source. In the case of LEDs we can assess against the IEC 60825 series of laser safety standards, and/or the CIE S 009/E:2002 standard "Photobiological Safety of Lamps and Lamp Systems".
Until relatively recently, LEDs have been relatively low power devices, and with their output generally being highly divergent they have normally been reasonably safe. This is changing as new high power LEDs are becoming far more common. Although these LEDs are still normally more divergent than highly collimated laser sources, they can still be hazardous and safety concerns are increased as LED arrays utilizing several LEDs are becoming more common in a wide variety of LED products and displays. With all of these developments LED safety is becoming a real concern, the danger being that some LED suppliers will not address LED safety until it is too late and there has been an LED light injury. Unfortunately, the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) are extremely unlikely to look favourably on an explanation that "we had not heard of any LEDs causing injury so assumed they must be safe", as this would not be an adequate risk assessment for an LED based product or process.
Please feel free to contact us to talk to one of our LED and lamp safety experts about the peculiarities of classifying and assessing these LED or lamp based products under the various laser and lamp safety standards. Users of our LaserBee laser safety software will be pleased to know that an LED equivalent has been developed and will be available soon.
Laser Safety Services from Lucid
- Laser Safety training courses - designed in a modular format that can be tailored to suit your requirements (including LED safety if required)
- Consultancy to help with your specific laser safety concerns, classification problems or issues - especially if you are required to establish laser safety policies and procedures in a new facility
- Safety audits - covering a wide or specialised area as required
- Laser Safety software - our user-friendly LaserBee package that helps Laser Safety Officers and laser safety consultants with their calculations
OCN Certified Laser Safety Award
Lucid's "Laser Safety Introduction OCN" course is believed to be Europe's first laser safety qualification accredited by a national awarding body. This is a 2-day training course with a written assessment. Successful candidates gain an Open College Network (OCN) award at level 2.
Modular Laser Safety Training Courses
For those who either want a shorter course or a laser safety course more focussed on another aspect of laser safety, then our 1-day modular courses are ideal:
- Introduction to Laser Safety (1-day)
- Laser Safety Management & Implementation (1-day)
- Laser Safety - Advanced Principles (1-day)
- Laser Safety and principle of risk assessment (1-day)
- LED safety - fundamentals and testing
- LED safety workshop - training and laboratory measurement sessions in conjunction with the Photonics Cluster (UK)
Public versions of these courses are occassionally run on consecutive days so trainees can opt for appropriate 1, 2 or 3-day training programmes. Please note, however, that the second and third courses assume a level of laser safety knowledge equivalent to that gained from the first course.
Laser Safety Consultancy
We deliver a whole range of laser safety consultancy services:
- laser and LED product classification reports
- laser safety management procedures
- documentation reviews
- on-site evaluations and assistance
- classification testing
Laser safety consultancy is not just for the untrained, in fact most laser users should really have had some formal training and certification, but it is also useful in order to check calculations and that nothing has been missed. Why? Because mistakes, and accidents happen, so you can't be too careful with a complex subject like laser safety.
LaserBee Laser Safety Software
Our LaserBee laser safety software was developed from routines we used to verify our own laser safety calculations when employed on laser safety consultancy projects. During a discussion on one training course a trainee seeing us use one of the routines suggested our in-house software looked better than a commercial package he'd bought and was struggling with. We decided we could make our in-house routines better, so after doing more work to build our routines into a coherent and user-friendly package we launched LaserBee.
LaserBee was given an original 'website-style' interface that has received mixed reactions. Those who have tried it like it (especially since we toned down the original bright colours to something more tasteful), and almost 90% of those seeing a demonstration buy the software. The downside is that it "doesn't look like technical software" from flyers or adverts, so we've struggled to sell without doing a demonstration. To address this we have now developed a demonstration version of LaserBee on CD-rom, and hope to have a downloadable demo available soon. Until then please follow this LaserBee link for more information or contact us for a demo CD.
Laser Safety Products and Services
If you need any laser safety protective equipment signs or closures, then the first thing you should know is that we do not sell this equipment, hence we can give independent advice.
If you want us to supply a full laser safety solution, including laser safety procedures, controls, signs, closures and personal protective equipment (PPE), then we can do this. If you would prefer simple independent advice, and help with finding appropriate laser safety signs and optical safety equipment suppliers, then we will do this and point you to reputable suppliers of laser safety equipment. In short we are here to help you with laser and LED safety at whatever level you require. We believe in helping our clients so that we get repeat business as your business prospers, and we get word-of-mouth referals for our laser and LED safety training courses and services.
With some laser safety advisers you may get the feeling they are trying to maximise the laser safety work you need to do in order to maximise their own profit. This is not the case at Lucid where we actively seek to reduce the complexity of laser safety processes and procedures, as this can benefit the ultimate safety of the product and the financial viability of the laser based process or procedure. Once you have experience of our laser safety services we believe you will reurn to us as our existing clients do and also recommend us to colleagues, again as our existing clients do, so it is in our interests to offer a high quality service.
