So you burned your night vision?
- November 10, 2023
- By Brenton
So you burned your night vision?
Let me guess… so you burned your night vision and are desperate to fix it. Well, we are here to help you avoid burning your night vision as well as fix burns that you may have.
Check out our official video on this topic here.
“How careful should I be with my new night vision device?”
Often when buying a new piece of night vision, people believe it is extremely fragile and will burn up with the first negligent discharge of a white light. Now, having that sort of carefulness with a new unit is smart as you get aquatinted with it. Night vision can be burned easily if not taken care of, BUT it is often way more robust than we think.
“How do I avoid burning night vision?”
The answer to this may seem simple… “just don’t look at light”, right? It’s not that simple.
Things are going to happen. You might accidentally flash your light when training, or perhaps get hit with headlights from an oncoming car. The key to avoiding burns is recognizing the intensity of the light as well as how long you are staring at it. Having a street-light in your peripheral for a few seconds is vastly different from getting hit with a laser. The laser will immediately burn the tube while the street-light would take some time to actually make a burn mark.
Keep in mind how intense the light is and how long it has been in eyesight.
“Will my unit get burned if it is turned off?”
Many claim this is a myth while others stand by the claim that night vision can be burned without being powered on.
Our friends over at Dirty Civilian did an excellent video about this exact topic. They took a PVS-14, took the batteries out and caps off and set it in the sun for a few hours. When they turned the unit on, they found big black streaks across the tube.
That being said, caps for your night vision goggles are important when having night vision out during the day. So… yes. Your unit can get burned when turned off but if you have the caps on you shouldn’t have to worry.
“What should I do if I burned my night vision?”
If you burned your night vision, you are left with 2 options.
Option 1: Blackbox your unit to hopefully repair the unit.
Option 2: send your unit in to get fixed.
To keep it simple, let’s just discuss option 1. Black boxing night vision is a very simple process that will fix most minor burns. It essentially is retraining the phosphor to amplify light correctly inside the tube. The process is pretty simple and only requires a small box and a dark room. To start off, you will need to put a fresh battery in your unit (to ensure long run-time) and then put the cover on the unit. After doing this, put the unit in a box that doesn’t let light in and turn it on. To ensure there is no light, put the box in a dark closet and let the unit run overnight or until the battery dies. Try one or two more times if the first time didn’t fix the burn.
Interested in night vision?
If you are looking for any type of night vision device, shoot us an email at cs@arkayne.com and we can answer your questions. Lastly, if you are looking for supplemental gear, check out Arkayne.com to see what we have to offer.