Whats the best way to stop your goggles from Fogging?

[BrightCandle]

ive been thinking, what if the lense was heated itself so that air didnt condense on it? something similar to the defog on rear car windows. course the heated thing infront of your eyes might be uncomfortable but at the same time, chances of this being workable?

Heating the glass would absolutely work. Heating takes a lot of energy however, its no where near as cheap as running a fan. You only really need to equalise the glass to the temperature of the inside air however, which presumably is just a little over 40C. But then you reverse the problem, now on a cold winters day the condensation will appear on the outside. Its easier to clean off there but its also the dirtier side of the glass and hence a lot easier to form. I suspect the key challenge is power consumption, if there was one area it might get dragged down its 8+ hours of running heating wires.

 

[Ian_Gere]

Had a dig through the details on Revision Sawflys as there seems to be quite a few ex-issue ones kicking about. Revision state that the Sawfly exceeds the ANSI and EN impact standard by a factor of 3 which gives at least 2.58 joules so it would seem that if you really want glasses not goggles then Sawflys are the way to go...

Not at all. If you want to risk being hit in the eye by a ricochet, Sawflys are the way to go.

I doubt that any of the polycarbonate lensed offerings which people regularly use for airsoft would actually fail so badly that you would be shot in the eye, even those which are not rated for 2.32J (0.2g BB @500FPS) (which could happen if you were accidentally shot point blank in the face by a sniper... if, for eg, a sniper is concentrating on aiming down range and, like a penis, you step into the line of fire at just the wrong moment). Some products would crack, certainly, but stuff does tend to be over-engineered when a test which may result in a law suit has to be passed, and a crack does not equal a BB in the eye.

But that is not the point. The point is that you could fit more than 1 BB side by side between the edges of Sawflys and most people's faces. We have 2 confirmed instances of BB's hitting people in the eye after bouncing off 1/2 face masks and getting between correctly worn eyepro (for those models) and the face, but that is not the only way a BB could approach your eye from below. If you look up then the bottom edge of your eyepro faces forward... how about when you are lying down? And BB's can ricochet off other things than masks.

 

[Ian_Gere]

If I was a site owner, or if I become involved in promoting an event, I would ban non-seal glasses.

 

[BrightCandle]

If I was a site owner, or if I become involved in promoting an event, I would ban non-seal glasses.

Its a personal choice of the amount of risk taken, we are after all adults. But I think anyone that cares about keeping their sight should definitely go full coverage googles. Even mesh IMO is a bit of a risky proposition.

 

[Ian_Gere]

Indeed we are adults, but i'm not at all convinced that everyone who wears shooting glasses to a skirmish is making an informed decision. People are extremely poor at risk assessment and I believe that it is fair enough to require them to abide by restrictions which may make no 'sense' to them in order that their recklessness does not result in accidents which reflect badly on our hobby/sport. We do not have discussions concerning responsibility when a site declare some area out of bounds over safety concerns.

I say 'sense' because risk assessment is something which people do emotionally and, unless they are used to trusting logic over feelings, demonstrable scientific fact has little, if any, impact on what a given person will consider safe at a given time. Consider your own reluctance over mesh... I trust you have at the very minimum been taught basic 'science'? You know that Force = Mass x Velocity / you also know that something which looks say 1/10th the size of a larger cousin actually has 1/100th the volume in 3 dimensions / you know how an equation works... so what's the problem? It just doesn't feel right...

But I'll bet that you could put a diagram of a person wearing glasses with their head tipped back and a big red arrow going from in front of them, below the glasses, to the eye, on a sign right by the exit from the safe zone and people would still pass by wearing shooting glasses. Why? Because they're for shooting, so they must be safe...

 

[Lozart]

Not at all. If you want to risk being hit in the eye by a ricochet, Sawflys are the way to go.

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Which is why I said "if you really want glasses and not goggles" as they appear to have at least the correct impact resistance. The main drive of the point I was replying to was one of impact resistance, not whether or not you could get a ricochet between them and your face.
Full seal eyewear incorrectly worn is no safer then non sealing eye wear correctly worn in that respect and I've seen plenty of people wearing goggles that are being displaced by their face masks.

 

[BrightCandle]

Its all bad choices really. Glasses have gaps and hence you could loose an eye, googles fog and you need to do a lot to stop it being a problem none of which is cheap or that good and mesh is dark and lets fragments through to your eyes and you can have your eyesight damaged using them. Personally I am surprised anyone chooses glasses or mesh but they do. Personally I don't think that trade off makes any sense, I want maximum protection for my eyeballs, airsoft is a hobby and if I can't push up because of fog I'll just sit in cover and maybe get shot until it resolves. I don't care that much about winning.

One of the reasons I have gone for the Bolle raiders is that they are smaller. They look like glasses but they are fully sealed. They go around the TMC lower mesh mask without impact so neither the mask nor the glasses are in the wrong place.

 

[Ian_Gere]

mesh is dark and lets fragments through to your eyes and you can have your eyesight damaged using them

No you cannot. Absolutely. Indubitably. Under no circumstances. Never.

It is not a matter of opinion. It is a matter of fact. If a fragment of BB could penetrate mesh with enough force to harm your eyeball, then physics does not work. Force = Mass x Velocity. End of.

 

[Lozart]

No you cannot. Absolutely. Indubitably. Under no circumstances. Never.

It is not a matter of opinion. It is a matter of fact. If a fragment of BB could penetrate mesh with enough force to harm your eyeball, then physics does not work. Force = Mass x Velocity. End of.

I wouldn't be so quick to deal in absolutes there Ian, just because a fragment is so small that it lacks any significant force does not mean that it can't damage your eye. Granted we're not talking about having your eye shot out here, but a piece of BB small enough to get through your mesh is still significant in terms of abrasion and cutting the surface of the eye.

 

[Lozart]

Also - I'm wondering if any of the mesh eye protection available is ever actually submitted to any form of standardised testing? Is any of it EN or ANSI marked? Or is it all just "I shot at some a bunch of times and it was fine"? Serious question by the way.

 

[Ian_Gere]

Good points, Loz. Of course if something with sharp edges gets in your eye and you rub it, you will get a sore eye. Splinters of wood, bits of dry leaves, sand, tiny chips of concrete, and shattered BB fragments - any of them are best dealt with by rinsing your eye out with a few clean hands full of water and may well scratch the surface of an eyeball if rubbed...

I suppose what I should say is that it is impossible for a fragment of BB small enough to fit through mesh goggles to damage your eyeball simply by impacting it.

AFAIK there isn't any standardised test for mesh eyepro. The various meshes aren't manufactured specifically for eyepro, my own research has determined at least that much. Even high grade SS316 wire mesh (medical grade stainless steel) isn't impact tested - at least none of the suppliers I spoke to could find that data. I have seen Begadi wire mesh goggles which say 1.2J, but I know from my own testing that the mesh they are talking about withstands more than that (SS304 0.71mm wire #8 mesh) - my CO2 pistol puts out about 1.3J 1st shot and that mesh withstands quite a few point blank shots into the same spot (I forget how many now - it was a while ago) / but that is almost the same stuff I have in my custom V12's, although I'm certain that the way I have bent the ends of each strand of wire to wrap around another and the convex shape I've used increases its resilience a lot - certainly they withstand 320FPS 0.2g BB's without a dent, but I haven't tested the design to destruction.

The thing to be concerned about is full auto fire, because mesh does deform and finally give way, but yeah, AFAIK there is no standardised testing. Makes you wonder how well the lower end impact tested polycarbonate would stand up to full auto as well, eh? I mean obviously it has an elastic limit and also a harmonic resonance frequency...

 

[PT247]

I wear ESS shooting glasses, so I am bias as to what I deem safe enough for skirmishing. I was however also a risk assessor in my previous career and deal in health and safety in my current work (I am pretty much the health and safety police at an airport.

I see what you are saying Ian about repeated shots to the eye could cause mesh (or any other material) to deform and give way but I have yet to see any airsoft gun firing on full auto hit accurately enough for that to be an issue even in a CQB environment, also in their nature airsoft guns in full auto have a considerable drop in fps from single shot, so I would not really be concerned about that happening particularly.

There are lots of risks we put ourselves in every day, some with far higher likelihood of injury and also severity of injury then the 1 in however many million odds of a ricochet off a hard item pinging a BB behind your eye pro but the risk is still there and it has been proven to happen, this does not mean we need to nanny every player and just like calling UKARA a licence to keep/use RIFs rather than a defence to sell them to an individual can be detrimental to the sport so can the opinion of a moderator on a national forum cause legislation to be written to force us to wear more and more PPE which potentially could make the organised and insured sites less enjoyable so players find land to use unofficially and have no rules so wear no eye pro or possibly even inadvertently shoot and injure others that were in the area not playing the game.

I agree face sealing eye pro is safer than glasses, but that does not mean it should be mandatory for adults, just advised.

Being slightly obtuse, all this talk of half face masks causing BBs to deflect behind glasses suggests to me that we are better off with no face protection and just wear goggles/glasses, that way if a BB hits you in the face it'll just lose all it's energy on our squidgy less important bits and drop to the floor! ;-)

 

[BrightCandle]

Being slightly obtuse, all this talk of half face masks causing BBs to deflect behind glasses suggests to me that we are better off with no face protection and just wear goggles/glasses, that way if a BB hits you in the face it'll just lose all it's energy on our squidgy less important bits and drop to the floor! ;-)

And if you get shot in the tooth it will chip it.

If this discussion says anything is that we are all willing to take different levels of risk. Some of us don't mind loosing a tooth, some of us don't mind a chance at a BB fragment in the eye, some of us are happy to potentially loose an eye. We can draw a spectrum of potential risk from one end to the other here and the various trade offs we make at different kinds of risks. I don't think we need to legislate those risks away, we all pretty much sign a waiver every site we go to anyway since we are signing up to get shot with low powered firearms. The site ensures everyone doing so isn't doing anything illegal but beyond that its all our personal choice. But we have to be honest about what those risks are.

Even Stanag 2420 for example on the Bolle glasses is 184 m/s BB strike, but at that speed its got a 50% chance of penetration. Does that mean a 150 m/s (500 fps sniper) has no chance or that it has a small one? I don't know and they don't have listings for 100% protection because presumably it doesn't exist. What the standard does give us though is a clear way to compare the products to each other and be confident its 'safe' for airsoft. Mesh doesn't have that and that bothers me. If I get my glasses and shoot at them to confirm they are good at defending me then they also perish as I do so since they only survive so many strikes. Standards are needed, anecdotal evidence like "I wear them and I have never been hit in the eye" isn't helpful, we need real scientific tests done to determine their limits.

 

[Mack]

Im happy enough with my ESS

 

[Ian_Gere]

Well, I had a reasoned reply, but Windows decided to update so I'll just say this for now: in my more egotistical moments I could fondly imagine that my opinion drives legislation, but IRL I'm yet to be convinced that the process of law making has anything so sensible as the opinion of people where the rubber meets the road, so to speak, at its core. However, there is no law requiring you to wear a helmet to ride a crosser on private land, nor pads, nor boots, but I'd be surprised if you could find an event which would allow you to compete like that.

 

[PT247]

Yes, an organised motocross event (which will have insurance etc) will require boots gloves and helmet, but a lad on a motocross bike will still mess around on building sites often with no protection (& often on a stolen bike) if the hassle of using land officially is too much of a pain for them to be bothered to use.

Do you see my point that if people in an official position are stating legislation should be tighter it can escalate to more and more restrictions on gear which is although recommended not compulsory?

 

[Ian_Gere]

There is no legislation though. I don't think there needs to be any either.

I said if I were responsible for organising the event, I would insist on sealing goggles as the minimum required safety equipment. Naturally since that is my opinion I would also be pleased if site owners/organisers did the same. I understand what you are saying, but I disagree. What you are basically advocating is accepting a known hazard, of which many people, either new to airsoft or perhaps just less into it than we are, are probably ignorant, when the consequences are horrendous at least and very possibly literally grievous, because to not accept this risk as normal may cause some cock to take no precautions elsewhere! Really!?!

Some cock (like me for eg) might put an M200 spring in a long barrelled BASR and end up with something with which you could hunt small animals, but that doesn't mean we should accept 700+FPS sniper rifles in a skirmish (without 1st taking a damn good look at what eyepro can be trusted to withstand such shots at least). We accept FPS limits, even ones which we personally deem wimpish, which require modification of most guns from stock (even if that is done before purchase) and we also accept the need for eyepro - I do not see it as a gross imposition to put a restriction which prevents a known hazard on that eyepro.

 

[PT247]

That is fair enough, I guess awareness of the hazard is the way forward to educate folk that these injuries can happen.

I'd object to be forced to wear full face or even sealed eye pro as I find goggles give me a far better field of vision as well as being the only true non fogging plastic that I have tried. I have a thermal lensed paintball mask which is pretty good as it only fogs a little but I find it too hot for running around in and it leaves my forehead unprotected from BBs (forehead hits annoy me more than the split lips from BB strikes). I would however wear the mask if playing on dark CQB sites like The Tunnels in Epsom. I hate half face masks as they interfere with aiming, are uncomfortable and no matter what goggles/glasses I wear the mask displaces them.

If mesh goggles that fitted properly let in more light and didn't restrict my vision or make me feel like I am about to have an epileptic fit in bright sunlight I would probably wear them still but so far I have not seen any that fulfil these requirements.

 

[Ian_Gere]

There's a gap in the market, for sure! Revision Bullet Ants are pretty good for resisting fogging, with fog tech, and seal very well without getting annoyingly sweaty. But once the fog tech has failed, reapplications don't last anywhere near as long as allowing it to dry overnight before polishing in the morning.

The trick to wearing 1/2 face masks without them displacing your eyepro is to fit pads to the inside which rest on your cheekbones. This pushes them forward so the frames of your eyepro fit underneath, but you also have to pull the straps tight so they don't bounce when you run.

I can't cope with paintball masks either - way too hot to wear. I can't even cope with my killer mask for the same reason. My inner jury is still out on the fencing stylee mask I bought recently - not being able to get to my mouth through it is a major ballache, but a velcroed on mesh door should see to that. The mesh is 0.9mm wire #8 I think, which is about 1mm inc paint and is pretty good for vision, but nowhere near as good as 0.71mm wire.

The issue is the diagonal measurement across the crossovers, 1.4mm as opposed to 1mm, which I don't think I'll ever get so used to that the dot shadows it creates disappear, as they do with 0.71mm wire. My main complaint though is that the paint is gloss, so glints make my eyes refocus close up in bright sunshine or under point source electric light, which destroys the illusion of almost nothing between me and wherever I'm looking. I'm planning to give it a few days in ye olde power spray some time soon, because just spraying it with Krylon will add more thickness to the wires. It is better as is than Hero Sharks though, just.

Is it the pattern of shadow dots and seemingly bright bits that make you think of epilepsy? If so, I think I know what you mean. I suffer from migraine and there are similarities between looking through large hole perforated sheet type 'mesh' and the visual disturbances of migraine... that's why it might seem as if i've got it in for Hero Sharks :lol: I don't get the same effect from interwoven wire mesh.

Perhaps you're right. But at the very least I think this specific risk needs to be made clear to people.

 

[PT247]

I think I will have a think.... See if I can come up with a mesh that still gives a good field of vision.

The strobe effect from light to dark between trees seems to get in harmonics with the gaps in the mesh I guess re the epilepsy feeling. Have been knocked unconscious way too often and it is (in my head) close to the feeling as you lose consciousness