cj7hawk

People are willing to drop whatever coin they have to if they are professional pest controllers. If you want to break out of that market and into the masses, you're going to need to find a product you can sell at a reasonable price. Gen2 and Gen2+ are usually the starting point for any remotely serious night vision devices. Gen1 and much current digital is mostly limited to maximum ranges of around 100m and low gain levels. They can sometimes use bright moonlight too, but then, so do the bunnies. Gen2/2+ is useful under slight moonlight - eg, 1/10th moon. That works fairly well. Or if near a major city. However Gen3 or Gen2 SHP ( Super Second Gen ) is required for most other purposes. Even then, you're going to have to sell a lot before the market gains momentum though. Until people start using it, few will realize the benefits. This is true whether you're charging $500 or $5000. Also, your friend will need to build up the necessary expertise and repair kit to look after his customers. Does he have a purge system? Does he have a NOD Test unit ( to confirm acceptable function ) - and can he assemble and maintain the scopes, remove dirt and perform other tasks as customers may need fro time to time. These are all critical aspects to running a NV shop over here. Some stock is necessary, but more important is being able to demonstrate the kit. Will he have loan equipment? Can people take it away and try it out, to get an idea how they will benefit from using NV? Will he conduct local "come and try" evenings? Does he have the expertise and contacts to buy tubes separately and assemble them into low-cost NODs to sell to people? It's possible to buy Gen2+ and SHP tubes within Australia at the moment, at very good prices, so it is possible to make and sell a reasonably cheap NOD. But even then, the market will take time and effort over here to develop. Regards David

Hi Tezza, SNVG make some good stuff ( though, ROFL, just checked their webpage and one of their products has been assembled back to front ). But it's probably not enough to say "expand to the general public" because most of what they sell that can be sold here, already is. Can you elaborate on what your friends are planning on selling? And what sort of costs they are thinking to charge for common items? Are you talking about FOM-limited Gen3 or Gen2 ( often Photonis ) gear also? I myself use it on the farm, mostly Gen3 and thermal , but even Gen2 here is fairly expensive compared to US prices. And even then, most Australian's I find wouldn't dream of paying even the sort of prices the US shooters would for the same piece of kit. Riflescopes are useful, but in the US, even the cheapest ( eg, Litton M-845 2.5x magnification Gen2 ) costs around $2000 and a good riflescope ( eg, Gen3 D-740 ) costs well over $3000. That's a fair bit over here, given that we have such a small shooting community, and that's even before you add on another thousand or two for "Australian prices". Add to that that most Australian's have only ever seen Gen1 equipment and have never hunted with Gen2 or Gen3. It leads to a misunderstanding about how well it can work. For many, it's a case of a new spotlight costs $100... Why spend more? So mostly, it's a quiet market over here, though professional shooters who do tender work for the government do purchase top-end equipment and are willing to pay for it. However, for those who have used it, it's difficult to go back to just spotlights. I have been showing people NV gear for years and showing them how to make NV spotting scopes with similar performance to early Gen3 systems out of surplus Gen1 cascade tubes. Not bad for a few hundred dollars. A few people on this forum will have made them and probably still use them. Great for spotting, then switch to spotlight to take the shot. Some will even remember the thread we made here for it. Then again, some are even wanting to avoid image intensifiers altogether and just use thermal. Once more, the price puts it out of what most people here are prepared to pay. So overall, yes, people do buy it and use it and some of us even repair the stuff. But there's not a lot of it going around and it's not like the US market, where people will get an AR15 and PVS-14 monocular as their standard shooting kit. I think that will change over time as more people get to use the better kit. I guess it also depends on what kinds of shooting people do. But for the moment, the market for civilian NV in Australia is pretty small. Anyway, if your friends are going to bring it in, please let me know and I'll add a link to them on my website. Regards David

I just bought a secondhand one for $150... Needed to clean the burner, but it works OK now. Won't freeze stuff but forms ice on the heatsink. Will stop a frozen milk from defrosting for a week though so would be close to zero. Has 3-way power... 12v, 240v or Gas... Runs for a month of a bottle if I believe the previous owner. Also known as absorbtion fridges, 3-way fridges (if they take power too ), Gas fridges and Continuous cycle fridges. Have to be level to work properly. Was that of any help? I'm about to take mine on a trip with me. Regards David

Just adding to my last comment - Sheep at somewhere between 250m and 300m away... Effective zoom is around 80x. (20x optical, 4x digital) I've reduced the image resolution, but it's the full frame. I don't normally use digital zoom, but it is handy for checking stuff a long way away. Regards David

They do make it in both camcorder and still format. Same internals, just different shaped housings... All the original models were camcorder shape only. There are a lot of reviews ( and video clips ) for them on Youtube. Regards David

Have a look at the Casio Exilim. Some models like the EX-FH20 are fast enough to show your bullet in flight in a spotlight ( 1000 fps slow motion ) and the 20x optical zoom lets you recognize faces at 400m. Casio doesn't have a great name where Camera's are concerned, but with the Exilim, they are in a class of their own - probably the best sports camera in the world, without any other manufacturer even coming close. Can also take 40 fps @ 8 Megapixels - or shoot SD resolution continuous video. Price? $1000. Market price on Ebay for NEW cameras - Around $300 to $500. Pictures aren't as perfect as with some other models, but that's due to the very high speed CCD sensor. Which means that it's possible to crank up digital zoom to 60x and take a picture of someone's number plate at 100m while driving on a bumpy road - And I can tell you that it's luck as to whether the number plate is even in the image or not, but if it is, you'll probably be able to read it. I even took a picture of Jupiter and Jupiter's moons with mine... without a telescope. Nice camera. Never regretted the purchase. David.

Typically heat is MWIR or LWIR - but even if SWIR can't see "heat" it can see through the obscurants like smoke or steam, so you can see what is causing the smoke. It can also see what's around it and many things that are hot enough to cause smoke will show up on SWIR. For example, my soldering irons were very bright under SWIR. Also, even normal Gen1 is very good for spotting embers and hot spots in the bush. Again, it can't see heat, but it will amplify the NIR from the source and make it easier to spot - and it will see NIR reflections too - something thermal won't do. If you're reading heat levels, LWIR/MWIR is better. If you're looking to see through smoke, SWIR is better. Regards David

They are not that expensive to buy... OK, that's not true, but they are worth what they cost. Fireman_DJ - It's a shame our fire departments don't have their own R&D Budget, because I bet they could make their funding go a whole lot futher... SWIR is good too, but I don't know if they use it much over here... It sees straight through most smoke and water vapor - Regards David

That's my Daughter ! LoL! Yeah, it wasn't all that hot, but it is Perth over here... Early evening. Even now, it's a nice comfortable temperature outside. She wasn't too happy with me I dragged her outside to stand and move about. The core resolution is 320x240 - Many thermals are 160x120 and are a quarter of the resolution. 320x240 @ 30Hz is pretty good and much of what is around there is around the $10K mark. Very high resolution cameras are around 640x480 but are not cheap, usually up above the $20K mark. A little bit of resolution is lost to the codec. But generally the recorder can handle 320x240 and 640x480 so it's the core. I down-sampled through Movie Maker to edit a quick clip and that lost a bit of quality too - and dropped the frame rate 50%. It's not Commodore's you need to recognize It's Foxes from Sheep and Dogs, and Rabbits from Lambs and Cats. Image intensifiers are much better to confirm the target and take the shot, though if you have a spotter or you know what you're shooting, you can shoot off thermal. Snipers do anyway. Here's a middle-of-the-day video. This one was recorded at 320x240 and looks a little less sharp IMO, or it might just be the contrast is much higher. Anyway, you clearly have some experience with Thermal... Do share Regards David

Those two cats at 1:08 are hidden. I spotted the first about 80m away and couldn't work out what the bright spot was... When I walked closer, it turned out to be a cat hiding behind a railway sleeper and as soon as I got around the side a little, the second one became apparent. The closer one is actually hidden in tall grass and it was late afternoon when I took that footage. I could not see either cat with my eye until I got much closer. So as long as a part of the animal is visible and there is a temperature difference between the two, you will see them... I can see canaries through a piece of heavy plastic and two layers of shade cloth where I would see nothing with a torch or a NV scope. The easiest way to explain whether you'd see something - would you spot it ( Rabbit, Fox, whatever ) if it was painted High-Vis Green, yellow or red? If so, then you would spot it on thermal. Often, the grass or crop growing provides camouflage more than anything, as does the ground. Thermal won't help identify what you see though - It helps you spot them, but doesn't help you know what it is. Regards David

Video... First attempt. Regards David

Local conditions? All snow and rain up Geraldton isn't is? LOL! I haven't been to Geraldton since my Twelvth Birthday... back around when the Fulong 11 "fishing boat" was intercepted. Got a Prop-shot for my present. Remember those? Truth be told, it's really hard when making stuff out of surplus parts to know how it will perform, but so far, this thermal has exceeded my expectations... It can spot tiles on a roof at 100m no worries. It can spot a canary at better than 20m ( no idea max range ) through plastic and shade cloth. I am very impressed. And all my neighbors are losing heat through their air conditioners on their roof. Great for summer, not so much for winter. And the cores themselves are commercial but as good as anything military I've seen from about 10 years ago. Maybe not the best now, but they have better than 0.2 degrees C separation from what I can tell. And it's amazing how long cars stay warm for. Anyway, this thermal core is designed to be left outside in the rain, has a heater for snow and is waterproof, because they self-clean with water spray.... It doesn't get much better than that. Even the plugs are supposed to be waterproof, but I'm waiting on the proper one. The only "not so great" part is the screen. I just use whatever I have but am planning on making it finally with a 2.5" high resolution screen. The batteries and controls I can seal up and I can probably put the screen in a sealed see-through container too. These thermals have moving parts, but are still an uncooled focal plane array and work really well. They are intended for external mounting on vehicles ( and so sometimes have road chips ) and can be mounted on a pole next to a spotlight if you want to spot thermal and track spotlight ( and of course, they still work after the spotlight is turned on... ) so would be very good as a spotlight mod and would let you drive in the dark too, as long as you know how ( watch out for star pickets and other things, but if you can follow the road, you can drive on thermal ) They come originally with a mounting bracket anyway. Price? If you budget around $3K, you're safe... You might even get one under $2K all up, especially if you were mounting it next to your spottie and using a screen in the car... Doesn't get any more comfortable than that does it? You could even get the heads-up display and integrate to your dashboard so you can drive with it *and* spot roos... They are worth it just for that. Works OK during the day, but really suited for night. Great for having the passenger spotting roo's on the way home too... Seriously, these are fantastic projects... Not all that cheap but work well and you can probably get them new here too. No idea how much they cost. Anyway, no video yet, but I know how much you guys like cats... But be nice to my cat... He's a guard cat. Goes for walks with me and takes showers and baths... Plays chicken with cars. And besides, he's my model for such pics. He's only about 30m away, but it's not really in the depth of field until 50+ so he looks blurry. David.

Well spotted.. Yes and no.... Yes, as in, sure, it's possible and even trivial. No as in not yet, because when I pulled my pocket DVR out of the box, it was stuffed and needs a new battery... So until that arrives ( maybe a week away? ) I can't do any video. I haven't had enough time this weekend that rewiring it was an option. I was just fortunate I had a spare screen to hook up temporarily. It's just a 2" low resolution, so the screen doesn't quite match the thermal output. It also lacks recording functionality. But as soon as I get the new battery, I'll make a recording for you - Given I set my goals to produce a high-frame-rate thermal DIY kit though, the project is going pretty well. I'm using a surplus Ratheon core, but a friend is also doing the project and is using a FLIR core. It's running off of a car battery at the moment ( cig lighter plug ) but I'll modify it for Lithium's over the next few weeks and given time, will add a few more interesting features to it. Regards David

Just letting everyone know this project is progressing... "First Light" - or should that be "First Heat". Current specs - 30 hz, 320x240 resolution, UFPA. More details to follow in coming weeks. David

I usually buy these... http://www.dealextreme.com/p/flood-to-throw-zooming-cree-p4-wc-3-mode-100-lumen-led-flashlight-3-aaa-26798 Price around $10 and takes 3xAAA batteries with good life. Works well, with flood to zoom. The only annoying thing is 3 modes of operation, bright, dull and flash... Although sometimes it's nice to have the dull setting. Tighten it up for a narrow spotlight. Widen it for a general beam... Great stuff, very bright and many uses. Hard to beat and because it uses normal batteries, you can keep a few handy ( cost about 20c each in bulk ) and will never find it flat when you need it. 100 Lumens. For how often I use it, it's not worth the bother charging batteries for it. I just use alkalines. Regards David.

Yes, Thermal is quite expensive... But then a commercial unit costs more than $10,000 and military upwards of $20K. So a sub-$3K unit in Australia is pretty cheap... But only if you wanted a thermal. Regards David

All thermal cameras play up on a hot day, though these should handle it reasonably well. Anyway, they will work during the day but most thermal is intended to work at night. Layby? Maybe, maybe not. I'm not actually selling them so it's not like I can choose to sell that way. It's more about travelling the path and documenting what I did. Locating hardware and other parts. Determining how to build the components. Much like the P8079HP spotter scope project we had here. Response? Might be 10hz, might be 30... Depends on the core you buy... Used car parts... Modified parts from BMW's and Cadillacs and the like. Cars with Thermal Night Vision intended to pick up animals ahead of headlight range. Some have 30 hz, some only 10. But it's a reasonably solid design for car use. I am just taking a vehicle design and converting it to non-vehicle use. Regards David.

OK, a quick question... If I were to make the next project "DIY Thermal Imaging" providing a thermal night vision device suitable for finding game and the likes, but it cost around $3000 to build yourself, would anyone be interested? It would involve secondhand parts and would be quite a bit more risk than the original spotter project, but it would give you thermal. And just in case you were wondering, no, I was not thinking of producing a crosshair version. This would be a handheld spotter, not a rifle-mounted device. It's just that it's a load of work to produce detail and instructions for a DIY thermal scope with built in video recorder and maybe low-light CCD for dual-band operation - though if enough people really want to go this way and the price doesn't put anyone off, I will consider it. Keep in mind though that thermal is only really used for spotting animals... You still need an intensified rifle scope to shoot them. Though I guess you could go-spotlight too. Regards David

I can't think of many NODs that would cost as much as a house though... hard to get, sure, but usually not quite all that expensive. Still, more than I can throw around. There are others too - The COTI - Clip On Thermal Imager - very nice. http://www.youtube.com/user/cnoct#p/u/28/AdoNJhJvH-E And just straight thermal... http://www.youtube.com/user/cnoct#p/u/42/GGKyG6_NEA0 Regards David.

That's because I accidentally said $20 instead of $20K. I am guessing you are probably talking about the AN/PSQ-20 or something like that - ( Also known as the ENVG ) -

LoL! They are not *that* expensive, just hard to get... I've seen fusion add-ons sell for around $5K secondhand before with regularity. New I think it's around the $20 mark in the US. Actually, I'm watching some cheaper thermal projects at the moment and there are some alternatives. Some are quite clever and dirt cheap, though not suitable for what we're doing. And others... If I get anywhere, don't worry, I'll post here. David

Hmmm... Something you may not have considered, cheap Gen1 NV is actually really good for spotting hot coals at night, even when they are hidden. Cheap Gen1 NV isn't much good for a lot of things, but spotting fires and aurora's are two things they are very good for. And you don't always need line of sight. I've spotted a buried fire before with Gen1... A small vent through a tiny crack in the sand, but it was like a beacon to the Gen1 scope. Would have been too small with thermal except up close and was invisible to my eye until I almost put my eye right up to it... but it was like there was a bright light under there to the Gen1. The Gen2 also saw it, but it amplified the surrounding area so much that the effect was lost. But to Gen1, it was like a 100w light bulb in the dead of night. Regards David

Thermal will show you where something is, but will not show you what it is and long grass can still obscure it. Even the professional thermal hunters in the US often use thermal to locate, then switch to intensifier to identify, though some will then shoot with thermal once they confirm their target. Unfortunately, thermal is pretty expensive so it's not widely used. As for me? I'd love to add a thermal to my kit, but it's a little too expensive at the moment, so until I get a big chunk of spare budget or one comes along at the right price, I will have to do without. However if I could only have one? I'd go intensifier. Regards David

Hi Jase, The PS22 is made by a company that originates from the Ukraine known as ATN. It has a rather poor reputation in the US for holding zero and better clip-on NV scopes aren't very cheap and are difficult to get hold of. For distances out to 200m, I would recommend a D740 or D760 dedicated scope with SHP Gen2. ( also known as the NVA740 over here ) What sort of NV riflescope pictures did you want? I can post a few, but they are of a PVS-4. Regards David

Hey Optic, Have you had a play with your new toy yet? A wander around the local park with the headgear or mounted the monocular behind your reflex sight? Let me know how it went David