xDom wrote:I would describe this letter as one more competition attempt to sabotage Pard sale.. Drew's lab is unfortunatelly spreading false claims made by Thomas Jack's since their sale is effected by Pard products to a point that they don't have any other answer but false claims.. In the end 60/70 % of Pard users buy stronger ir based on same vcsel laser named Sirius xtl or Pbir laser or Solaris cause Pard one is weaker.. so situation is very clear here. Pard NV007 and NV008 are registered and patented in EU and have CE and ROHS certificate so that is way more solid then Thomas Jacks "indipendent testing".. Pard units are safe to use same as any other nv units with fact that they offer excellent value for money what can't be said for some of competition that is trying to make some advantage in this cheap way..
Cheers
Above you've quoted "Bruce", who is basically a PARD employee, receiving free products from them, and writing their user manuals, and also receiving, I suspect, a paycheck (although he denies it). Certainly by claiming to know about their patents and trademarks, he betrays his communications with the product distributors and/or manufacturers, which indicates a certain intimacy.
More recently, "Bruce" made this post
in another forum:
Because the PARDs have been so successful, sales of Pulsar and Yukon NV kit have been declining steeply, and it's hurting TJs profits.
They don't like that, and they think the competition from PARD is unfair because the IR illuminator in the PARDs is of a class that Public Health England recommend should not be sold to the public.
Note the words RECOMMEND and SHOULD - there's nothing mandatory about it.
In addition, the Public Health England Guidance was based on visible laser pointers of the types beloved by the idiots who shine them at aircraft coming into land.
There are already laws in place to punish people who do stupid stuff like that.
The IR illuminators in the PARDs are not like laser pointers, the IR produced by the PARDs spreads out like a normal beam from a torch - it simply cannot be made to be as narrow as that produced by a laser pointer.
The fact that the IR from the PARD spreads out makes it much, much less dangerous than a laser.
It is more dangerous than an LED, but the risk of eye damage from a PARD illuminator is far lower than with a conventional IR laser, such as an N1000.
I have spent several weeks working my way through the technical standards for both lasers and LED based illuminators and developing measuring techniques that can be applied to the PARDs and other commercially available illuminators, both laser and LED based.
Hopefully, in the coming weeks I'll be able to post the results of these measurements and compare them with the recommended exposure limits so that people can judge for themselves if they think the the risks posed by different types and models of IR illuminators are acceptable to them
Cheers
Bruce
Points to note:
- Bruce claims —without any real proof— that the concerns and recalls are all the doings of a competitor. We'll soon find out if that's true or not, because I'm sure the UK's Public Health England are investigating.
- He admits that the PARD products have unusually strong laser emitters
- He does not admit that these lasers are inadequately labelled (should have 3A warning labels)
- He claims, without any proof, that VCSEL lasers are safer than other lasers, which I could not corroborate despite a long search online. I challenged him about this and he was unable to provide proof for his claims. On the other hand, I was able to provide proof of the opposite, IOW that VCSEL lasers are dangerous. There is no text on the internet claiming, as Bruce does, that these lasers are in any way "safer".
So we shall await developments. Meanwhile, buyer beware. I actually have a NV007 in my possession for review, so I'll have more to say soon (perhaps not here).