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Post by cqbr on Dec 29, 2014 18:44:55 GMT -5
If you're looking to cobble together your own unit, you should check out the night vision forums as several guys over there have built their own units for dirt cheap using old or blem'd Gen2 and 3 tubes. One even out of an old, crappy, Leapers red dot housing. You can end up saving the money you'd be spending on the housing and put it into a nicer tube that will actually function like it's supposed to instead of just being toy grade.
That being said, the toy grade stuff like the MW2 style stuff and Ghost Hunter series are basically just toys. I would never bring them to a game and try to use them as you're more likely to trip and break your ankle than actually see in the dark with them. That and illumination issue like Gunny mentioned, anyone with real NODS will see you coming a mile away with those things and eat you alive.
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Post by luke213 on Dec 29, 2014 19:00:23 GMT -5
I've been looking at buying a tube and going that route, but it's priced a little more than I'd like to spend on the project. I feel ya on the toy grade, that said when I can't see 50ft, 50ft sounds pretty good;)
I know it would be suicide in airsoft to run them with anyone else with any sort of NVG's etc I've played around with some of the gen1 stuff in the past and the first guy to light up his IR usually got shot since he stood out like a sore thumb. That said I'm playing with some younger kids where a $100 AEG is expensive, and until they either upgrade gear etc, I don't expect they are going to get night vision via any of the expensive mechanisms.
Really they likely are seeing better with just their eye's than I will with a cheap toy or anything inexpensive. That said if I've got good camo, using a bolt action and not running around there is a pretty good chance I can stick with stealth and have some fun in the dark;) I nearly did that last game, really my only tactic was pretending to be a tree until they got close enough to see and shoot, that worked well since as I've gotten older I've got more patience than I used to;)
So we'll see where the project takes me, I think I'm going into it with eye's open to the limitations but I still see some options there that might be interesting.
Luke
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Post by cqbr on Dec 29, 2014 19:35:21 GMT -5
If you're planning on using it with a bolt action gun your only real choice if you're piggybacking it on a day optic would be something Gen2+ or higher. The unit I have below that I use with my bolt gun is a Gen3 and even with that I still need a lot of illumination to see 180-220 feet away. I can't imagine what one would need for Gen1 stuff. Even a really blem'd up Gen2 tube isn't going to be a whole lot more than a toy grade Gen1 product that's just readily available. I would highly suggest just saving the few extra bucks and going that route as it'll be more fun to snipe with in the long run. To each their own though, good luck with the project and happy hunting those kids! L O L
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Post by BoredKender on Dec 29, 2014 19:58:47 GMT -5
As was stated, on the military NV monocles essentially it is very similar to closing one eye and looking through a toilet paper tube with the other. The magnification is almost a .5 i would say? Its hard to gauge but I can tell you that the pot holes looked like they were a couple feet away still as i stepped in them. Also makes driving a real pain but I am sure that will not be something to take into consideration.
One thing we do to "fight" the tunnel vision is keep one eye closed, and alternate between which one is open and which is closed so you can try to match up distances without blinding yourself (you will be blind in the NVG eye for the first few seconds after taking it off).
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Post by luke213 on Dec 29, 2014 20:03:45 GMT -5
Well I'm considering something along these lines but more like his previous revisions: www.youtube.com/watch?v=EOWMgMRL-ysBut from what I'm seeing the image on some of the better setups like that supposedly rivals or surpasses gen 3 gear though it requires IR. He mentions in one of his videos that he has a friend using a similar setup on a regular rifle and took something like a 400 yard shot on an elk with it successfully. Granted that setup is more expensive without doing the exact math I was seeing it coming in around the $400 mark depending on the gear used. I'm leaning more towards using an existing camera since I've got a couple security cameras that I need to test with additional IR and see how they work. Right now tossing a 7in. LCD on for proof of concept, then likely swapping down to something like a 3in. and building some sort of enclosure to seal off the light escaping so that I could put my eye to the scope, turn it on take a shot or more than one, shut it down and pull off the scope. At least for that portion. Though I also might play around with mounting the same type of optic to say a Protech or something like that, then adding a LCD screen and likely the same type of lenses they are using for things like the Google Cardboard demo, or a Fresnel lens to get the feel of some depth. I've used those lens in simracing cockpits and they do allot of making things feel deeper, and it might help with that feeling of disconnect. Either way it's just an interesting project for me, even at the end of the day if it shakes out to be not useful I haven't built something like this for fun in quite a while so it's time to try something a bit crazy since this tech has gotten so dang cheap. I'd be happy with gen 1 results and maybe a little better with illumination, and even if it didn't work for airsoft it will work great for picking off coyotes etc around the coup at night. Right now on that I've gotta use flashlight or motion lights and it's just too tough to catch them in the act. I figure I'll setup a small array of IR security cameras linked to Zoneminder, then setup alerts on the phone, when it picks up movement check the cameras then be able to setup at a distance so I can take them out without disturbing things. Should work, it's just an extension of the system I've already got setup around the shop and house anyways;) Just would be nice to get night vision back, it's been probably 8 years since I sold the gen 1 setup and even with it's limitations it worked great for that type of thing attached to an AR. And in that application I wouldn't even have to fiddle with IR lasers, I can just use visible since the coyotes won't care one way or the other. Luke EDIT: I also wanted to say that's a heck of a nice setup on your rifle. Right now until I get my gun upgraded we're talking stock TM ranges so it's maybe reaching out to 150ish max probably less but I haven't honestly shot the gun more than a hundred or so rounds in the years I've owned it. I actually need to order some higher weight BB's since all I had laying around anymore were very light .20 Excels from way back when and wind does terrible things to them outdoors. Likely they were leftover from indoor games since all my .25 that I normally used were MIA. Either way I'll be playing it by ear on the upgrades with the rifle, at this point I've resurrected my M15A4 which right now outranges the G-spec anyways, so likely I'll just use an AEG primarily as a bit of a longer range gun until funds and time permits to upgrade the bolt gun to play around with.
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