How to Care for Your Night Vision Equipment
A night vision equipment is certainly a great acquisition. If you deal with nighttime tasks like hunting, bird watching, or similar, it is a desirable piece. But, if you use it for security purposes, it is definitively an essential piece. Nowadays, the market offers a wide range of products. However, they all share the same kind of technology to make them function. To take care of them, you must consider both the technology and the special features.
Ways to care for your night vision equipment
Whether you use it frequently or not a night vision equipment always needs a routine to take care of it. It is a piece of sophisticated technology that must be always ready when you need it. Due to natural elements and the materials, you must consider several aspects. The best strategy consists of setting a step-by-step program that allows you to check each of those aspects when you actively use it or store it.
Step 1 – Use the instructions
Every night vision equipment includes its manual of instructions. And manufactures always add some references on how to maintain and take care of them. Since technology, design, and materials may vary from one brand to another, it is important to check it. Most of the time, the fabricants warn about some pieces that need special care. Also, they suggest some measures to increase their performance and duration. Hence, the manual of instructions will always be your best initial reference.
Step 2 – Check humidity and wetness tolerance
Every piece of equipment is built according to the specifications of the fabricant that includes different materials. Also, some of them may be water-resistant or tolerate high-levels of humidity. In such cases, you must know this information before you use it. That will help you decide where and how to use it.
On the other hand, when you store it, you will be able to select the proper place to protect it against extreme humidity. Although some versions are highly resistant to water, you should use common sense. It would require that you always dry it after using it in wet environments.
Step 3 – Be aware of bright lights
The best friend of a night vision device is the darkness. Yes! But it is not that it only works in this environment. It is also about the materials and technology that may fail if you expose the equipment to the light. Hence, you must be careful to store it and carry it in a properly dark bag. Also, when you take it out of the bag, make sure you don´t have too many lights around.
Step 4 – Keep an eye on the power
These devices are powered by batteries. But the requirements may vary according to the model and design. Hence, you need to check the instructions to make sure you are using the right voltage. If you exceed or reduce the requirements, you might cause irreparable damages to the equipment. It is also important to maintain the batteries away from humidity. And when you replace them make sure you are in a dry and secure place.
Step 5 – Clean properly
It is important to clean the device. However, it is more important to do it correctly. This is to say that you must avoid abrasive or chemical products. Also, avoid excessively wet cloths to clean them. The first recommendation is to check the fabricant´s instructions. And, make sure you clean it and dry it before storing it.
Step 6 – Target the objective lens
You can find the objective lens of a night vision device in the furthest position from your eyes. They are not only delicate but are usually poorly protected with a coating. That makes them very easy to get damaged. Due to that, it is important to handle it with extreme care. When you need to clean them, use soft and delicates cloth to make sure you don´t damage them.
Step 7 – Storage
When you are ready to store your device, select cool and dry places. It doesn´t matter how tolerant to humidity the equipment is. When you store it, it might take some time before you use it again. And long periods of humidity can damage even the most water-resistant devices. Also, make sure you use a bag or case that covers it from the light. Also, it should be resistant enough so it can resist any hit.
Step 8 – Use professional repair services
Sometimes you might be tempted to repair the equipment on your own. However, this is not the best choice. Although a first look might lead you to think of these devices as something simple, they are not. The newest models are quite the opposite. Hence, when you open them up or remove internal pieces, you can cause serious damages.
Step 9 – Follow the entire routine
To take care of your device, it is not enough to apply just some of these recommendations. Instead, you need to follow them all. This is how you guarantee you can keep it in the best way. To ensure that you do it, you just need to create your list and repeat step by step every time you use and store your device.
Final words
The benefits you obtain by taking care of your night vision equipment make worthy any effort that you make. This is how you keep it always ready to use.
