So you guys know alot of info about gadgets here at BLF. I’m looking for a good set of night vision goggles without breaking the bank. Wondering if any BLFers have any recommendations . Or maybe what the difference between good and bad night vision specs are. As I don’t even know what to look for in a good set. Thanks!
I don’t have any, but you can get a powerful infra-red light and a phone camera. That’ll work.
On the extreme budget side, Walmart sells little nightvision goggles meant for kids for 50 dollars. I have taken one of those apart and installed it in some aluminum tubing. Now it just is a night vision monocular but I have to use a IR flashlight.
I would love to find a nice budget set of night vision goggles also, anyone with a pair have any advice.
True night vision (ie military) that works is very expensive. The only other cheapie solution is IR illumination noted above. Traditionally this mean shitty gen 1 stuff with IR, but more recently digital sensors w/o IR filter also work. The difference is that anyone else with IR sensitivity will also see you but for most purposes it doesn’t really matter.
At the budget end there’s binoculars with a large objective lens. They gather quite a bit of the ambient light. That doesn’t help much when it’s overcast during a new moon away from urban lighting. Giant fixed mount binoculars on Japanese Navy ships during the build up to World War II led to the stereotype of Japanese having bad eyesight (seen in propaganda images with thick lensed glasses). It wasn’t till later that it was figured out that they knew the advantage for their ships at night.
It’s not Hollywood cool. But then most of the Hollywood images look nothing like any of my military experience with night vision systems. =))
True night vision equipment works by focusing the incoming light on a alkali-metal photocathode screen. This emits electrons when hit by light in the (mostly) red to near-infrared range. The electrons are accelerated by a strong electric field and eventually hit a phosphor screen that glows with an image.
Gen 1 equipment uses an electrostatic lens to focus the image and turn it right side up. Their images tend to be somewhat distorted and the high voltage field in them can produce X-rays (hey, let’s strap a couple of X-ray machines to our eyes). This is particularly true of cheap Russian crap.
Gen 2 equipment replaces the electrostaics with a micro-channel plate. This is a dense array of hollow glass tubes that are coated on the inside with a magic coating. As electrons from the photocathode bounce down the tubes, they liberate more electrons that in turn liberate more electrons effectively amplifying the light. At the other end of the tubes is the phosphor screen. The image is turned right-side up via a “twister”. This is a bundle of fused optical fibers that twist 180 degrees along their length. Twisters and micro-channel plates are made by magic elves in hollow trees. Typical resolution is around 30 line pairs per millimeter.
Gen 3 equipment is like Gen 2 except the photocathode is a gallium arsenide compound. It is a little more sensitive than alkali-metals and has a wider response (covering blue light to deeper into the IR). The main advantage of Gen 3 equipment is the longer life of the photocathode (say 10,000 hours vs 2000 hours for Gen 2). They also can be had up to around 72 line pairs per millimeter.
There is also Gen2+ units that have a better photocathode than Gen 2, but not as good as Gen3.
Avoid Gen 1 stuff (especially Russian stuff), go with Gen 2 or Gen 3…
I should mention that the only night vision equipment that I would own are the US military models like the AN/PVS-5, PVS7, PVS4, TVS5, ANVIS6, and ANVIS9.
After the first gulf war, you could buy used parts and scrap for fairly cheap and build up some nice equipment… those days are pretty much long gone…
Since gen 2 & 3 is very expensive, the digital choice might suit you?
There are several brands I think, but you can have a look at this. yukonopticsusa.com - Užregistruotas domenas - Interneto vizija
Google it and there are reviews and youtube videos. I haven’t tried these, but I think I would buy something similar.
On this site I found a convenient gradation products by price, category and generation. Night Vision Goggles | NVG | ATN Corp This company supplies optics for the U.S. Army, so that product quality is the best.
Oh, that’a bad, my brother has one of those. Have you ever measured how much radiation is generated in one of these Gen I devices?
I think there is a shield for X ray
Hopefully there is, but to be safe I will take a dosimeter from work and check his Cyclop H3T1 this weekend.
Nope. Not all Gen 1 stuff runs at a high enough voltage to cause problems. I found out about the potential problem in some old document describing some tests that somebody did on goggles.
Another potential problem is thorium in the glass lenses. It is a rather radioactive mineral that can show up in glass. Probably not a problem for casual users, but if you are a soldier with these strapped to your noggin for hours every night, it might be. US equipment has specs for allowable thorium content of the lenses.
I seriously doubt it. It would probably be opaque. Or very thick barium glass.
The X-ray levels would be low and probably not show up on a dosimeter. Again, the problem is exposure over long periods of time.
Thanks all for your input on this, sts me in the right direction. Stuff is expensive. I never knew that my phone would do night vision, but I do see the remote IR blips in my samsung epic, interesting. Maybe I need an IR flashlight strapped to a 7inch tablet and mount it to a helmet. seems the most cost effective.
Those digital NV Monoculars are in my price range and look very nice. Im gonna have to find a way to test a set.
Thanks again everyone for sharing your knowledge of this subject!
Very intriguing project. I was wondering how to choose IR emitters or drop ins that would provide the maximum amount of illumination, and how to to figure out what sort of beam characteristics to expect. For example I was looking at this drop in and wondering what sort of range you’d expect from the beam.
PS: I also assume most IP and Web Cams would make for decent monitors as well. I had pondered mounting big IR floods on my RHD Japanese van and putting at PTZ zoom IP camera on the roof and controlling it from the dashboard with a touch screen tablet for wildlife road strike avoidance which is a huge danger where we are.
I haven’t played with IR light and video cameras in a long time. If I am doing IR stuff, I’m using the night vision equipment. Most color cameras have an IR blocking filter which greatly reduces their sensitivity to IR. You probably want to be using black and white cameras.
Since they used to use the Sony’s at the swimming pool they have placed that filter into the consumer video cams, however it appears that all my color capable IP Cameras will return IR images, if they didn’t then they wouldn’t be very good for the security purposes they are sold for, especially the ones with the IR emitters on them.