Night Vision advice

[Cannon-fodder]

Are you still looking.? The one pictured looks like a knock off copy of an ITT  PVS14.  I have a genuine o  of these for sale at only £550. These are American military scopes and are about $3k each brand new 

[Dentonboy]

I bought a Bushnell Equinox, I can see in the dark with it. Win. 

[Monkman]

Yesterday I was able to have a quick look through a Gen3 AN/PVS14 monocular.  The tube was damaged (had what looked like a black tear/smudge) but was still amazing to look through down a dark tunnel. (There was enough ambient light to light up the tunnel which was dark to my eyes)  I was very impressed and it would certainly explain how we got lit up during 1 game down a pitch black tunnel.    

 

I asked the guy how much he paid as new Gen3 PV-14's can go for £4-5k...but these were 2nd hand ones and more than half price lower than new.  But seemingly difficult/rare to get hold of.

 

Can't afford one right now...but maybe sometime in the future.  Problem is trying to find Surplus NV, where to look?  My google-fu is not great.

[AshOnSnow]

1 hour ago, Monkman said:

Yesterday I was able to have a quick look through a Gen3 AN/PVS14 monocular.  The tube was damaged (had what looked like a black tear/smudge) but was still amazing to look through down a dark tunnel. (There was enough ambient light to light up the tunnel which was dark to my eyes)  I was very impressed and it would certainly explain how we got lit up during 1 game down a pitch black tunnel.    

 

I asked the guy how much he paid as new Gen3 PV-14's can go for £4-5k...but these were 2nd hand ones and more than half price lower than new.  But seemingly difficult/rare to get hold of.

 

Can't afford one right now...but maybe sometime in the future.  Problem is trying to find Surplus NV, where to look?  My google-fu is not great.

Have you looked on classifieds in hunting forums?

[Monkman]

1 hour ago, AshOnSnow said:

Have you looked on classifieds in hunting forums?

I will check that out...Thank you sir!! 

 

[Adolf Hamster]

On 12/16/2017 at 9:34 AM, Prisce said:

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.

 

 

hmm, interesting, i must say i'm tempted to give something like this a go over the summer as a weel homebrew project, although i might go for more of a hacksmith thermal vision element.

 

 my main site occasionally does night games, although there's one guy there with a gen 3 and a nasty habit of climbing trees so maybe putting out infrared light isn't the best idea.

[AshOnSnow]

Remember there are three main types of NV - light intensity enhancement, infrared and thermal.

 

The former is cheaper, but you need existing visible light for it to work best, so this is better suited to dawn/dusk games. It’s essentially like a normal camera running ISO 32000 filmspeed.

 

Infrared uses infrared light not normally visible to the naked eye, and so either also requires at least some natural light, or be combined with an IR light. Vegetation shows up quite well in IR.

 

Thermal uses heat signatures to display an image, and is the most expensive, and while this is useful for picking out targets in the dark, it won’t be much good show you obstacles. Using just thermal in woodland will end up with you whacking your head on a branch that’s in front of your face.

 

Many systems utilise combinations of the above to overlay images on top of each other so you can see not only the intensified natural light and forward lit infrared, but also the heat signatures as well. How much you want to spend will dictate what kind of system you want to run. The DIY above is a combo system of natural light and IR light.

[Adolf Hamster]

6 minutes ago, AshOnSnow said:

Remember there are three main types of NV - light intensity enhancement, infrared and thermal.

 

The former is cheaper, but you need existing visible light for it to work best, so this is better suited to dawn/dusk games. It’s essentially like a normal camera running ISO 32000 filmspeed.

 

Infrared uses infrared light not normally visible to the naked eye, and so either also requires at least some natural light, or be combined with an IR light. Vegetation shows up quite well in IR.

 

Thermal uses heat signatures to display an image, and is the most expensive, and while this is useful for picking out targets in the dark, it won’t be much good show you obstacles. Using just thermal in woodland will end up with you whacking your head on a branch that’s in front of your face.

 

Many systems utilise combinations of the above to overlay images on top of each other so you can see not only the intensified natural light and forward lit infrared, but also the heat signatures as well. How much you want to spend will dictate what kind of system you want to run. The DIY above is a combo system of natural light and IR light.

 

 

 

yeah, i'm less concerned about smacking into branches and more about being able to see the enemy, so a heath robinson thermal scope might be just the ticket.

 

my night game tactic is to turn into a turret, i don't do much running around, so i can deal with it.

 

although maybe left eye as diy night vision might work.

 

either way i can't remotely justify a proper system but i'm game for a bit of tinkering.

[AshOnSnow]

31 minutes ago, Adolf Hamster said:

 

yeah, i'm less concerned about smacking into branches and more about being able to see the enemy, so a heath robinson thermal scope might be just the ticket.

 

my night game tactic is to turn into a turret, i don't do much running around, so i can deal with it.

 

although maybe left eye as diy night vision might work.

 

either way i can't remotely justify a proper system but i'm game for a bit of tinkering.

You might want to think about using a smartphone on a picatinny mount with a Flir One then.

[Adolf Hamster]

5 minutes ago, AshOnSnow said:

You might want to think about using a smartphone on a picatinny mount with a Flir One then.

 

definately a possibility, pretty sure i've got an old phone or 2 i can pillage for it. i'll worry about the specifics when i start properly looking at it, night games are mostly pretty rare here so it's not a massive priority.

[jcheeseright]

There are 2 types of night vision; i2 (Image Intensification) which is the traditional 'green eyes' style of intensifying existing light, these can also see into the near-IR spectrum up to about 0.9micron wavelength (not true infrared). This is what Gen1, 2 & 3 night vision devices all do, just in different ways and to varying levels of effectiveness.  Good Gen3 will amplify the available light by up to 80,000 times allowing you to see clearly in what would otherwise be considered near total darkness (your eyes would not be able to perceive any light long before the image in the night vision starts to get fuzzy)

 

The other kind is thermal IR, which detects true infrared radiation in the mid IR range 3-30 micron wavelength this radiation is emitted by EVERYTHING that has a temperature, with hotter objects emitting more of it.  Thermal IR systems are 100% passive and will work perfectly even in absolute darkness (very deep caves as an example).  Military thermal IR devices are calibrated to look at things between a, anything above that show good range either side of 37C.  Humans show up REALLY well on military thermal IR, as do engines, fires, animals, exhausts etc.  Foliage also shows up really well with pretty good resolution (by that I mean the display will be able to differentiate between 10.4C and 10.5C quite clearly) you can absolutely navigate the woods using just thermal, unless you're using a very cheap (relatively at least) unit which doesn't have temperature resolution necessary.  Non-military thermal IR devices like the thermal cameras used to assess the heat loss from houses or by firefighters to find hot spots in fires generally have either a different operating range (e.g. firefighters looking for hotspots want to see stuff waaaaay hotter than 100C and couldn't give a monkeys about stuff at 80C) or with a vastly reduced temperature resolution like the cheap cameras used by double glazing firms to show you how much heat your windows are leaking.  

 

Good thermal equipment is 1. Tremendously expensive and 2. hard to use in airsoft as any kind of glass you put in front of the lens will block the IR and make the unit blind! (very expensive germanium sacrificial lenses can be made, but they're not very robust and are to be considered actually sacrificial, one BB hit will do them in). 

 

Good Gen3 i2 equipment is actually quite reasonably priced these days, you can pick up a decent spec PVS14 for £2-2.5k on the grey-market, though new they're still pretty pricey. 

[Adolf Hamster]

1 hour ago, jcheeseright said:

Good Gen3 i2 equipment is actually quite reasonably priced these days, you can pick up a decent spec PVS14 for £2-2.5k on the grey-market, though new they're still pretty pricey. 

 

so i should trade in my car for a pvs

 

its an interesting point on the thermal not working behind glass, guess either a spotter scope or just have a reticle digitally imposed on the display and adjust the whole thing.

 

seems like it could be fun to try and do, i'm not expecting miracles doing it on a shoestring but if it's better than my mk1 eyeballs then i'll take it

[jcheeseright]

There’s a few options for thermal sights with reticles imposed over the image.

[Adolf Hamster]

14 minutes ago, jcheeseright said:

There’s a few options for thermal sights with reticles imposed over the image.

 

yeah, i'm presuming if i go down the phone as a screen route there'll be some way of getting a screen overlay to act as a reticle. tbh aiming isn't even the problem so much as knowing where they are to aim at.

[GREG_BURTON]

On 4/30/2018 at 5:24 PM, AshOnSnow said:

Remember there are three main types of NV - light intensity enhancement, infrared and thermal.

 

The former is cheaper, but you need existing visible light for it to work best, so this is better suited to dawn/dusk games. It’s essentially like a normal camera running ISO 32000 filmspeed.

 

Infrared uses infrared light not normally visible to the naked eye, and so either also requires at least some natural light, or be combined with an IR light. Vegetation shows up quite well in IR.

 

Thermal uses heat signatures to display an image, and is the most expensive, and while this is useful for picking out targets in the dark, it won’t be much good show you obstacles. Using just thermal in woodland will end up with you whacking your head on a branch that’s in front of your face.

 

Many systems utilise combinations of the above to overlay images on top of each other so you can see not only the intensified natural light and forward lit infrared, but also the heat signatures as well. How much you want to spend will dictate what kind of system you want to run. The DIY above is a combo system of natural light and IR light.

 

I can see where you are coming from but not everything there is entirely true.

 

The three main types of night vision are: Digital, Image Intensifier Tube (IIT or I²) also called true night vision and Thermal.

 

Digital is just a digital setup that has been specifically designed to pick up infrared light, not much different from camera with the infrared filter removed but much more effective. The advantage of these is that they can be used day time and night time as because it is digital you can choose to have colour during the day then grey-scale at night on most devices. The disadvantage is that it needs an IR light source to be effective which will bloom up for anyone using IIT hardware. for a decent Digital NV scope you are looking at around £1200.

 

 

IIT is the most common but breaks down into a few groups called: gen 1, gen 2 etc. I am not going to get into all the differences between them as it is all over the internet with about 10 seconds of searching required. The way that this works is that it amplifies ambient light, it does this by taking in all the available light converts the image into electrons passes it through an electron multiplier then converts the multiplied electrons back into an image. How well the IIT converts the image into electrons is the photo-cathode senstitivity and how many times it multiplies the electrons is called the gain. Because their ability to pick up light is so much better than our eyes they are able to pick up electromagnetic radiation outside of our visible spectrum mainly infrared but photonis 4G and echo tubes are able to (I think don't quote me on this) pick up certain UV wavelengths as well. With IIT devices gen 2+ is perfectly usable for airsoft, you don't HAVE to have a gen 3 unit. I have owned a few units cobra demon and titan units are very very good for the price around £1700 new you can also pick up ACT lunox with photonis commercial tubes on FB pages every now and then for £2250-£2600 second hand. If you want Gen 3 then you are looking at a minimum of £2400 that will get you an omni 4 or 5 spec unit or lower usually, up to around £3000 for high spec units second hand second hand and £3600 minimum for new units in the UK.

 

Last is thermal imaging. Thermal imagers have a special lens at the front of the device that focuses all the infrared light captured and it is then sent to a phased array which produces a temperature pattern based on the radiation collected, this is called a thermogram. After this the thermogram is converted into a electronic signal which is then sent to a processor which then converts it into data to be displayed onto the screen at the rear of the device. The device I have is an ATN MARS device which costs about £1595 now so is definitely affordable compared to most night vision units. It is not as high spec as other thermal units and quite heavy but can pick people up out to 600m so more than adequate for airsoft. These devices usually pick up infrared light with a wavelength of 7-14 microns while the infrared light that passes through glass is less than 7 microns this is why they cannot see through glass, but they can see through thin plastics like bin bags etc and also germanium lenses i had a sac lens made for £200 which is alot but alot cheaper than getting the main lens repaired or replaced.

 

 

THIS IMAGE IS A COMPARISON OF THE COBRA DEMON (LEFT) AND A REASONABLY HIGH SPEC PVS-14 (RIGHT), both pics were taken from behind a window and on my phone so not the best wuality. No the demon is not as good as the gen 3 PVS-14 but from a price point the PVS-14 is not twice as good as the demon yet costs more than twice as much.

 

 

this video was taken at the local supermarket to me with the ATN MARS thermal device. It has been converted from MOV to MP4 so has lost some resolution but it looks crystal clear when viewed on the tiny screen the device has as when blown up to this size becomes pixelated.

If anyone has any questions about any of the stuff just ask away as when I started looking for devices some of the FB pages could be a bit elitist when it comes to this sort of thing so i bought wrong items because I didn't know anything about them and i don't want other people doing the same.