red laser pointer is dim for the first few seconds

My family has been doing some fall cleaning over the last two weeks, and my father found two red laser pointers. They are fairly old, although they have rarely been used. However, one of them starts out pretty dim and takes around ten seconds to reach normal brightness.

Does anyone have an explanation? None of my other red lasers have this problem.

Re: red laser pointer is dim for the first few sec

Well what kind of laser is it? Also whats the output?

Re: red laser pointer is dim for the first few sec

It's one of those 1 mW diode lasers.

Re: red laser pointer is dim for the first few sec

clean the battery contacts?

Re: red laser pointer is dim for the first few sec

Must be something like that, perhaps corrosion on the inside of the switch, who knows.

The low-power-start problem is only common for DPSS lasers that sometimes require crystals to warm up a bit. Red lasers usually lose power when they get warmer.