NV light artifacts? Is this normal for WP?

[Redman797]

So don’t know much on the technical sides of night vision. Have used a lot of NV in GP but never had WP before. The potential issue I’m having never seamed to happen on my GP unless I was using lasers indoors and for obvious reasons of having FP laser on high.

I have a set of L3 PVS-31 that have a DOM of 2018. When I’m in the area of a light source, like on houses, street light, or a car goes by, etc…. Basically any light source, and not like I’m staring at it, when I move the nods around it leaves light black marks like it’s drawing lines and the light source is the pen.

Is this normal for WP? Is it because the tubes are old or have a lot of use? They never stay when the unit is turned on and off and there’s some downtime in between, but is it an aging tube or normal? It doesn’t really matter if gain is turned up or down, but lines are more visible with gain turned up.

I read it’s called tracing, and there’s not much on it, nor does it seam to be something that’s identifiable as an issue since it goes away. Not something that black boxing would fix since it fixes itself when turned off or more usage while it’s on over an hour or so, but figured someone might know more here?

 

[nutation]

That's normal, nothing to do with the tube's age, or color. It typically happens with any bright or concentrated light source. I have a green phosphor tube that gets a case of the squiggles from a little illuminated switch on a surge protector under my desk. You can see a similar effect at nautical twilight- the edge of the horizon can look sort of liquid.

It is possible to burn the tube with something really intense like an IR laser, but normal light sources are much more diffuse and won't do any permanent damage.

 

[Redman797]

Thanks. Makes me feel better about my purchase. Don’t have much time behind WP so wasn’t sure if it was specific to WP. All my time was behind GP and never had that issue but I guess the tracing issue isn’t an issue.

I’m aware of burning in stuff since I had burned in images but was able to turn em in. Not so lucky these days and wanted to make sure the tracing thing was an indicator of old age or a defect. Seams sone tubes do it from the get go though.

Thanks.

 

[TheGerman]

It's ghosting. Happens on some tubes.