Duty Cycle and Infinite Travel

1) I'm reading duty cycle...does that mean I have to turn my laser off every now and then to let it rest? Mine in the mail says it has 5 min/2 min. What would happen if I go over the 5 mins?

2) When you shine your laser into the sky, will the light from it travel until it hits something, millions of miles out? or does it just dissipate into nothing?

:wtf:

thanks for any answers or opinions or theories

Yep, duty cycle means exactly that. After using the laser for awhile(some, not all) need to cool down to let the heat dissipate so the laser won't "over-heat". If you do over the duty cycle of a laser you can face the following: Dimness, damage to the diode & even killing your laser if done excessively!

Laser light will travel until it hits something but as the distance increases the beam will spread out until it is barely noticeable.

-Alex

RoyWalker said:

1) I'm reading duty cycle...does that mean I have to turn my laser off every now and then to let it rest? Mine in the mail says it has 5 min/2 min. What would happen if I go over the 5 mins?

2) When you shine your laser into the sky, will the light from it travel until it hits something, millions of miles out? or does it just dissipate into nothing?

:wtf:

thanks for any answers or opinions or theories

Click to expand...

Duty Cycle means it is only recommended to stay on for a certain amount of time then cut it off to let it cool down

If your duty cycle says 5min/2min it means they recommend only shinning it for 5min at the most and let it cool down for 2 min

And about distance...it will not shine for millions of miles to where you can visually see the beam. The beam will dissipate after so far.

Every laser diode has a maximum operating temperature, the longer it runs the hotter it gets unless there is some type of active cooling and that's usually only in lab lasers, that's the reason for the duty cycle.

The light can travel millions of miles but with the lasers we use it would dissipate so much you wouldn't detect it. When they bounce a laser off the moon it takes very sensitive equipment to detect it because so little light makes it back.

Alan