[noosphr]

It's 45w of lasing power. I have a scar on my hand that's 15 years old from running one of those at 10% power and getting a reflection from a bare metal sheet.

This will absolutely scar, if not char, your cornea faster than you can blink.

[CamperBob2]

That's (again) less energy than a flashlight puts out these days, so the beam had to be tightly focused in your case. That isn't how these things work.

There is nothing special about "lasing power." It amounts to a 45-watt light bulb, nothing more and nothing less.

[dotancohen]

A 45 watt light bulb spreads the energy in all directions - at 1 meter away that's about 3 watts in every square meter or roughly 0.000003 watts per square millimeter. The laser is putting 45 watts into that same square millimeter at the same distance.

Of course the laser is tightly focused. That's pretty much one of the defining properties of laser devices. How else do you think the laser is heating the microprocessors in the video?

[CamperBob2]

They will be using a beam spreader to conform to the size of the targeted IC, which is usually on the order of 5x5 mm and up. For smaller parts they will be reducing the power.

They shouldn't be focusing it to a point under any conditions. Whether it's as safe as it could be is a different question, of course. For instance, you'd like to think that the act of configuring it for a smaller beam footprint would reduce the power at the same time, as opposed to requiring a separate adjustment that might be overlooked by the operator. Would have been nice if the video had addressed that and other safety considerations, for sure.

A lot depends on the exact wavelength. 1400 nm and longer is much less worrisome than near-visible IR.

[noosphr]

OK, put you face in front of a 45w co2 laser tube and report your results.

The laser is collimated but not focused so by your logic it will be fine.

This is advice on par with eating tide pods.

[CamperBob2]

That's obviously not a good-faith or technically-accurate description of what's happening here, or else everybody in that video would be carrying a white cane, along with everybody who uses this type of equipment in the phone repair business.

About all we can agree on, I think, is that neither of us knows enough about the product to argue about it usefully.

[noosphr]

I build CO2 laser cutters after dropping out from my physics PhD for 18 months.

Unlike you I do know what I'm talking about.