eli5 different laser paths

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I have 2 lasers. When moving the dot fast along the ceiling, one of them has a steady constant trail. The other one is more like a dotted line. What causes this?

In: Physics

Anonymous 0 Comments

It sounds like your lasers are powered in two different ways. One of them is continuous, while the other is pulsed. It flickers so fast that your eyes cannot tell, just like many interior lights and screens.

While I can’t think of any functional advantage to having a pulsed-supply pointer laser, it may be cheaper to run it that way than to add an actual constant-current supply to run the diode.

If they are not laser pointers, and especially if they are instead lab lasers, then there are a whole host of possible reasons for them to be pulsed. If this is the case, you probably shouldn’t be playing around with them.