So Jow Forums, we've got kids these days making homemade guns, x-ray machines, high powered lasers, even nuclear reactors. So how come no one has created their own night vision system? And I don't mean strapping a cheap security camera to a knockoff VR headset, like an actual passive viewing system using tritium or other effective means that delivers decent performance and battery life.
I'd love to make my own and have the tools to do so, but I don't have the technical expertise to fabricate something like that myself.
Tried searching online and I couldn't find anything other than wonky stuff a kid would make for his schools science presentation.
The hard part to make would be the microchannel plate.
Jason Allen
Then we need someone to come on here and tell us how to make it!
Adam Perry
I think they're made by drawing, like how wire is drawn. Start with a bundle of tiny tubes and stretch them until they're nearly microscopic. Each tube becomes one pixel in the image.
Aaron Wood
Think maybe we can just buy that part then?
Carson Edwards
Bump
Benjamin Wright
It's usually the most expensive single part, and from what I remember it's nearly useless without the optical bits that go in front and behind of it.
Benjamin Martinez
It's the expensive part. It's the part people would steal to build their own NVGs until they started keeping inventory of "bad" parts.
>huh, this image intensifier tube is out of spec... *yoink*
t.Used to service AN/PVS-7Bs in the Marine Corps
Easton Johnson
I would just be stoked to get my hands on some quality night vision without dumping $3000. I've seen you can build your own PVS-14 from spare parts on ebay for around 1500ish, but I would love to make most of the parts myself and buy the super intricate stuff for cheaper than that.
Even better just to give NVG manufacturers the middle finger for keeping this stuff so damn expensive. I know some of it is hard to make, but if I spend 3000+ on something that fits in the palm of my hand, it better give me a mean blowjob and make me a sandwich too.
Nolan Cox
Oh tight. I'm guessing that's the image intensifier part that sells for about 1000 bucks on ebay. Most expensive part to buy if you want to build your own from spare parts.
Asher Peterson
>Even better just to give NVG manufacturers the middle finger for keeping this stuff so damn expensive. I doubt they're "keeping" it expensive. More likely the field is so small, that you can only really cater to professionals, which means constantly improving their flagship product, without wasting effort on making a budget model, because they might only shift a couple thousand units.
Night vision home security cameras have definitely come down in price over the last twenty years though, because they've got a product more suited to the average consumer, meaning they can cater towards budget stuff as well as high end.
That and with security cameras there's like a hundred off-name companies that make the things cheap and keep the prices competitive. I paid 150 bucks for a 8 cam setup that works great.
Charles Thompson
Not trying to pretend to be the Predator and make myself dizzy and puke.
Jeremiah Morris
Guess no one knows how to do it. It was worth a shot to ask.
I have some Dipol Gen 1 goggles that stopped working because the auto-shutoff circuit is fucked up and just causes the unit to keep power cycling forever. But the tubes are still fine. Anyone interested in them?
Blake Mitchell
Light amplification is weaksauce anyway. Thermal is more useful and rapidly coming down in price.
Connor Ortiz
The painful part is being given a couple of blemished tubes for a PVS7 and then going on eBay and trying to bid on some tubeless PVS7's in the USA for $600 only to be contacted by the sellers saying sorry... ITAR.
But I guess i'm not alone, had one US seller moan about how he had his listed for 2 months @ $500 and didn't have any takers. Oh well, in the meantime I keep looking.
Logan Cook
Because not only do you NOT, but I'm almost certain tritium actually doesn't come into it. BUT, since you think so, I'll just explain. They use big fucking drawing towers many stories tall to draw glass into honeycombs. The photocathodes are made from Gallium arsenide, a film made of we don't know what is put in to protect the tube or not and a phosphor compound of we don't know what, usually called P43 or P45 depending on whether you're talking green or white phosphor is your screen. It's an advanced engineering project involving numerous optical engineers, infrastructure several stories high and technologies and techniques closely guarded by firms and companies which make these magical electro optical devices.
Elijah Brooks
That's because it's just a digital camera with no IR filter and a bunch of IR LEDs. It's comparatively simple to make that versus manufacturing the tube. They're not "keeping it expensive." The side of the house that uses NVG's professionally, IE, funded to buy them by a vast pool of resources with no limit as far as they're concerned, because they don't have to pay for them, is MUCH larger than the side of the house that buys them for recreational use, since most people think of the worth of something by it's size, like for example, why would I spend 3K on a PVS-14 when I can buy six rifles, CLEARLY I'm getting more quality because I'm getting more and bigger things.
It's a limited field. Not to say that there aren't comparatively inexpensive units out there. For example, there's a tube Harris makes called the XLS, which is not autogated. It is less expensive than their military contract tube, which the GOVERNMENT keeps expensive because they can't sell it elsewhere for less than a government price. L3 has NO civilian market offerings. Only military, and as such, their tubes are still expensive. Photonis isn't military grade, and photonis tubes are available at lesser prices compared to L3 tubes, such as their 4G INTENS which is a white phosphor tube. It doesn't perform AS WELL as those, because they're french or something and they can only be sold (I think) with a maximum FOM of 1600.
Grayson Flores
IIRC there are only 2 or 3 manufacturers that make the components for GEN 3 image intensifiers, not to mention those companies are very thorough in eliminating competition and enforcing patent rights
Nicholas Sanchez
Why would someone even want NV goggles/scope now? Isn't infrared only a bit more than modern night vision?
William Evans
IR is cheaper, you can buy IR with a little red LED for $100 or less, now THERMAL-IR is still in the 4k-6k range for basic, and 30k for the military type gear. you can still buy low res thermal optics for 300-500, thermal is based on pixel resolution and distance range
William Hernandez
The problem is you glow to anybody with real nvgs
Charles Bailey
If you want to go digital you want to get a camera that is .0001 lux. Run cam night eagle 2 is the camera you want, used for FPV at night with drones, it works great as a night vision camera. You really don't even need IR light under moon light. Diagram attached for installation.
>8888 The thing with thermal IR (which I'm sure is what you meant) is that it varies widely in price based on resolution. Low-end are cheaper than image intensifier NV, but high-end cost a lot more. At the same price point, you get a lot clearer image from NV, but of course, people, engines, and the like aren't lit up like neon signs with NV, so it's really a good question whether to get high-end NV or mid-range thermal.
Of course, the thermal situation is continually improving, because there's civilian demand for thermal gear (of all levels), so there's incentive for manufacturers to make it cheaper, whereas militaries are more-or-less happy with current prices, so NV advances are mainly focused on making it even better, but not cheaper.
Everybody glows to the man with thermal optics. Everybody except Carl Carwindows.
Parker Kelly
Forgot to add, this won't give you a true 1x magnification so you probably won't be running around with it operating. It has a sort of fish eye lens that can be digitally zoomed, it works great as a viewer. You may need to find a different lens for a more true 1x. Also you can build this to pocketable size if you follow this guide. instructables.com/id/DIY-Pocket-sized-Night-Vision-Monocular-Eagle-Scop/
Ian Lee
For those of you experimenting with digital starlight security camera and FPV modules, how do you cut down on latency?
I bought this hupuu.com/camera/ipcb-3519vs226-d29-imx226-hi3519v101-starvis-12mp-1-1.7-4000x3000-8mp-4k-1-1.9-4096x2160-ip?sku=CBF-D29 which claims 0.0001 lux and 12MP thinking I could easily program around the IP camera interface but there appears to be significant latency even using the lower resolution sub stream. I'm seeing things happen 1-2 seconds on the screen after they do occur. I think it has something to do with the digital board the camera is connected to that allows the signal to be digitally encoded and sent to a computer. Right now I have the camera connected over an ethernet cable to a powerful desktop and I'm still experiencing these problems. I intend to connect the camera to a single board computer eventually.
What is the ribbon cable interface that the camera connects to called anyways? Is there a way I can just hook that up directly to a single board computer to try to reduce latency?
