Night Vision advice

If it seems too good to be true.

I genuinely can't imagine what the end result will end be for £126, even gen 1 costs a lot more than that new retail and Gen 1 isn't much better than carrots.  I'm not saying go spend thousands on NVGs, but have you found any reviews/user footage of whatever this is?

 
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What is not to trust?! I have no idea what to expect, not bought anything, but want something mountable. Will mainly use NVs for wildlife watching at night in my everyday life tbh. 

 
I would advise against buying these. The price is way too cheap for decent NV. 

A decent set that you would actually want to use will cost you a couple grand at least.

The problem with budget NV is it's all bit crap. Gen 3 is where it starts to get good. 

 
It's not a NV. It's a camera with the infra filter removed and an infra torch and a concave lens so you can put it close to your eyes. Hardly worth that price.

 
I've had a look through one of these... they're garbage. Even for static observation they're poor but mounting it on your head is basically a no-go.  Magnified 2x so depth perception is utterly impossible and there's a delay on the picture so when you turn your head the 'goggle' takes a little while to catch up.  

If you want even a halfway decent night vision experience you're going to need to triple that budget for gen1 + a decent illuminator (this will still be quite disappointing, gen1 does not provide a good image).  Gen2 isn't worth the cost, so gen3 like Gepard said is where it gets useful, though a start price is £2k+ realistically. 

 
Keep an eye out for FLIR technology. It's getting cheaper and cheaper and it looks like something we could use for airsoft.

 
Samurai said:
Keep an eye out for FLIR technology. It's getting cheaper and cheaper and it looks like something we could use for airsoft.
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A guy at a recent milsim had one the size of an RMR at a guess something like 3cm squared which cost him about £800 and was pretty bloody good. 

 
You could do something affordable if you found a way to mount a phone to a RIS with a FLIR One. Get a good case for it though to protect it 

 
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You can make a night vision set up for less than £40 if your not wanting a helmet mounted set up. Won’t be milspec, but you’ll see 30-40m. Can post some info if anyone’s interested.

 
Hey, what ever floats your boat!

Well firstly, you have to understand how NVG works. It just sees IR light that the naked eye cannot see.

So the first thing you need is a screen(shall post some links at the bottom of items I used) I used a little 5inch reversing camera from China, think it cost £10, with RCA connectors.

https://rover.ebay.com/rover/0/0/0?mpre=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.ebay.co.uk%2Fulk%2Fitm%2F222636355313

Secondly you need a camera that sees below 0.5lux light, luckily reversing cameras for cars see 0.1lux light so these are perfect! And they come with RCA connectors and the connection lead to connect them all together. Think this cost £5? If you look around you’ll probably find it cheaper.

https://rover.ebay.com/rover/0/0/0?mpre=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.ebay.co.uk%2Fulk%2Fitm%2F263155092961

Thirdly, you need a power supply, there are two ways of doing this, if your using for wildlife outside your window you can use a 12v transformer 3 pin plug and splice the cables and cut off the RCA connectors and solder/heat shrink the wires together. Or if you are wanting to use for Airsoft grab a 12v portable battery back with a recharging cable. Like this:https://rover.ebay.com/rover/0/0/0?mpre=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.ebay.co.uk%2Fulk%2Fitm%2F282385151018

Now to be able to see a good range you’ll need 2 other items. 1 is an IR torch which I would connect to your gun and the other is a 12mm lens for the camera to get you a clearer image.

https://rover.ebay.com/rover/0/0/0?mpre=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.ebay.co.uk%2Fulk%2Fitm%2F263257819252

https://rover.ebay.com/rover/0/0/0?mpre=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.ebay.co.uk%2Fulk%2Fitm%2F172304372876

Then it’s just connecting the wires together. I snapped my wires the other week so I can’t show you it working (haven’t had time to repair) but with the torch you can see 30-40m all right.

 
Great stuff. Will be incredible to see all the sights whilst dog... Walking. 

 
That's not *really* how proper night vision works, but it will allow you to see in the dark.  Be aware though that the IR light you need to have for that setup to work is extremely visible to anyone using even gen1 night vision. 

 
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