nvgs

[Dfarm01]

I don't see anyone talking about wizard eyes here. I'm sure that some folks have them. What do you guys use to play in the dark?

After lusting after a pvs14 for many years, the funds finally became available about a month ago so I found a deal on parts and built one. Tonight was only the second time I've been out for more than putting the chickens away.  I took my dog out to a park and walked around a bit. I think I'm going to bring a ball for the dog next time and try to play fetch with her. Lol



ETA: is there anything I can do to rotate the picture?  It is right when you click on it, and it's right on my phone. Lol

[KensAuto]

Looks good on my end.

[TexasRedNeck]

Congrats. Tell me about “parts”. Are they serviceable?


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[JR]

Did you gas it? Looks good, gen? I have a PVS14 but went phosphor.

Not sure about the pics, its seems to be a phone thing. I take all my pics in landscape, no issues.

[Dfarm01]

Congrats. Tell me about “parts”. Are they serviceable?


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I shopped around for a while looking for a deal. You can buy a whole "parts kit" from various places that includes everything but the intensifier tube.  You normally see these for around $750, then for tubes, you can get deals on used stuff if you shop around.   I went for a slightly riskier option and bought what was basically a whole pvs14 that was completely disassembled from a user on another forum. I watched a couple of YouTube videos and put it together. I ended up having to disassemble/reassemble a couple of times, once due to an error on my part and the second time to install a lock ring that was missing from the stuff I bought. By the time I got the lock ring I had a pretty good handle on disassembly/reassembly. There just isn't that much going on in there parts wise.

Did you gas it? Looks good, gen? I have a PVS14 but went phosphor.

Not sure about the pics, its seems to be a phone thing. I take all my pics in landscape, no issues.

When I assembled it the last time I made sure to clean everything inside really well because I saw some dust specs when I was playing with it while waiting for the lock ring to show up. I used canned air/duster stuff and lense wipes. The last part that you install is the ocular lense so I sprayed the duster inside for a bit with the ocular lense just out from where the orings starts to seal in the hopes that the duster would blow any ambient air out.  I then threaded the lense in and stopped spraying the duster then quickly put the plug for the purge port in.

It's far from perfect, but it hasn't fogged up yet. If it gets to be an issue, I'll send it in for service.

The tube is  gen 3, Omni 8 specs.   It's pretty cool stuff to me. Before I got mine, the only NV stuff I had any experience with was vehicle mounted thermal stuff., So it wouldn't have taken much to impress me. The picture above doesn't do it justice. I was trying to hold the IR light and line up my phone and the nvg all at the same time. Lol

I'd like to get a look through some other units, white phosphor, dual tubes, ect, but I'm scared that it'd ruin what I have. Comparison is the thief of joy and all. Lol. Already I can see a benefit from duals, but they are significantly more expensive. I'm still under $2k including my helmet and mounts and I haven't seen any flavor of duals for less than $5k.

The biggest downside to having this one is that I'm the only person I know with any kind of nvg, so anytime I want to go play in the dark the only company I can bring is my dog. Lol.  I'm probably going to see how cheaply I can put together another unit as a loaner or for the wife or kids. I'm thinking I'll do a pvs7 for the next one because they can be had for a bit less money, and I'm not convinced at this point that having a free eye is that critical, because it doesn't really see anything in the dark anyways.

Good point on the pic. I was holding the phone vertical so I had enough hands for everything. Maybe I should mount my IR light to my helmet.

[JR]

I got mine from optic planet for well under 2K, but it is just gen 2+. Like looking at a old black/white TV.

Ilum are great, but think animals can see them. I know they say no, but something spooks em.

Just got an ATN scope to, great sale for under $500. Need to do the upgrades now.

[Flyin6]

OK, several things on Nods in general

Dust specs may not be dust at all. The phosphor screens degrade, flake, whatever and that causes what looks like a dark spot of a spec of dust. It is not dust, but a bad screen.

The insides of these things are ultra sensitive. Do as little monkeying around in there as is possible.

and nitrogen purge. If you can purge with Nitrogen every 90 days to maybe as far out as 6 months. Should you not purge and it develop a spec or droplet of moisture inside, you'll be out one intensifier tube PDQ.

Next step is AnVis-6, you'll like them!

[Dfarm01]

In my case the specs were dust for the most part, they'd be different every time you looked through it until I cleaned it up. Lol  The pic is what it looked like when I first got it  plenty of opportunity to get dust in there  lol.  There's two tiny blem spots in the tube that you only notice if you are looking for them.

In a previous life I had access to the stuff to n2 purge optics. I don't anymore unfortunately.  I'm sure that there are places to send them for service, but I'm not sure where to send it or the cost. It seems like most civilian folks who have them don't usually worry about purging them regularly. If it was inexpensive and fast, I'd probably do it.

I'd love to play with some dual tube units, but unfortunately cost is an issue for me. Lol.

[JR]

Nice job on the build though. I thought about it, but by the time I got it all and built the $$ didn't make sense for me.

[Dfarm01]

Thanks. It took patience and discipline to hold off until the right deal came along.

[cj7ox]

Looks good! The thing I like about the PVS14 is that I can adjust the gain to the point that it is dim, but still provides clear detail. I like having the other eye free to maintain normal night vision and peripheral (which is what our normal mod-1 eyeball night vision really is. The PVS7s aren't adjustable for gain, and they always gave me a raging headache.

[JR]

Haven't tried mine mounted on the old noggin yet or through a scope (yep, illegal here) 

I did just get a dig scope though, have to do the upgrades and try it out.

[Dfarm01]

It has taken some getting used to.  I find that I end up pretty much ignoring my unaided eye in really dark places. I thought that id be able to use the night sites on my pistol with my right eye and look through the nvg with my left. Boy was I wrong. Lol. I think that the nformation from each eye is too different for the brain to deal with and it didn't work out for me at all.  Lol

[cj7ox]

It has taken some getting used to.  I find that I end up pretty much ignoring my unaided eye in really dark places. I thought that id be able to use the night sites on my pistol with my right eye and look through the nvg with my left. Boy was I wrong. Lol. I think that the nformation from each eye is too different for the brain to deal with and it didn't work out for me at all.  Lol

I found that if you turn the gain way down on the NVG, it helps. Then again, I'm left eye dominant, so I don't know how much it'll help you.

[Flyin6]

It has taken some getting used to.  I find that I end up pretty much ignoring my unaided eye in really dark places. I thought that id be able to use the night sites on my pistol with my right eye and look through the nvg with my left. Boy was I wrong. Lol. I think that the nformation from each eye is too different for the brain to deal with and it didn't work out for me at all.  Lol

I found that if you turn the gain way down on the NVG, it helps. Then again, I'm left eye dominant, so I don't know how much it'll help you.

^^^Big deal here

One of the problems we have in training Apache pilots, or any pilots with a monocle HUD.

Your brain does use each eye differently, however rolls them together through  a learned "Program" in our subconscious. The more you learn about that the better you'll be able to cope with divorcing eyeballs and essentially dual tasking a brain which you taught to ignore its two halves and work together.

[JR]

Firebirds? Nicolas Cage had the same issue.

[dave945]

Your description of the problem has me wondering how my brain would do, Don. For years I’ve been living with a “lazy eye” that would cause me double vision pretty often. I was able to switch between the different view from each eye pretty much whenever I wanted to.  My thought is that since my brain is so used to integrating and using two totally separate views from my eyes, I might be able to handle a NVG monocular and night sights on a pistol.   Now I gotta try it out an Doug my money where my mouth is. ;).  “ Its science honey, I gotta buy some NVGs.”


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[Flyin6]

Your description of the problem has me wondering how my brain would do, Don. For years I’ve been living with a “lazy eye” that would cause me double vision pretty often. I was able to switch between the different view from each eye pretty much whenever I wanted to.  My thought is that since my brain is so used to integrating and using two totally separate views from my eyes, I might be able to handle a NVG monocular and night sights on a pistol.   Now I gotta try it out an Doug my money where my mouth is. ;).  “ Its science honey, I gotta buy some NVGs.”


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Yea, I'm no expert on the subject, I just know the Apache community has had a problem adapting to become "the machine man"

I flew a HUD, but it was done differently in our spec ops machines. The information was overlaid over your field of view. Across the top was 60 degrees of heading tape. On the right side was a moving bar that increased with altitude above the ground. in the middle of that was the actual number like 260, meaning 260 feet above the ground. the airspeed was on the left and the two numbers below that were the engine torques. In the middle of the FOV was the artificial horizon well actually a hybrid thing called the IFI (Integrated flight instrument.)

There was a reticle in there for aiming guns when so equipped and a strange thing that would reveal more information like ground speed, course to next waypoint and even ground track if you moved your eyes around to scan for that stuff. I felt like the bionic man with all that crap out there. I'd turn down the gain of all that and stare at green earth and dream about something I'd rather be doing.

So, ya, been there but didn't quite do that.

Funny story though. Once this W2 Apache instructor pilot talks me into flying the apache sim. He wanted to show me how bas a$$ those guys were, and I was a lowly Chinook pilot. So I bit and we met at the sim. He suited me up and I climbed into the Apache and took off. I was shocked to see that the symbology was very much like my MH47 so I could immediately fly the thing like my hook. THis guy was shocked and started giving me all this difficult stuff to do, like come to a position hover at 500 feet AGl and fire a hellfire at something. I could because their precision hover mode was the same one I used out in the ocean, while hovering at 30 feet while I picked up mermaids from the swells.

Sorry for the warrr stor-ee

You could add or de-clutter what you saw by selecting or deselecting features. Here's some examples. Flying always scared me, so I'd just add everything so as to white out the image so I couldn't see anything to frighten me!

Or not...

[Dfarm01]

That's awesome.

At night, would you see all of that stuff on both eyes, or was it just in front of one?  And aviators always wore binocular nvgs, right?

[Flyin6]

That's awesome.

At night, would you see all of that stuff on both eyes, or was it just in front of one?  And aviators always wore binocular nvgs, right?

Both eyes.
Our goggles make an attempt to provide binocular cues, however the information is still just monocular in terms of how the brain uses it. The tubes are suspended well ahead of your eyes so you can easily look beneath them to view flight instruments. And the selectable fields display the same in either tube these days, I believe. I did fly HUD nods with single tube flight information. Anytime you divorce what one eye does from another you are setting yourself up for headaches, loss of sleep and other weird things.

With the aspect of flying very expensive hardware with very valuable soldiers in the back, engineers pay extra attention to try to lower the working stress for pilots.

I can't show you the really good stuff, but suffice it to say you are looking at stuff a decade and perhaps two generations behind what is in use in some cockpits.

[JR]

Those pics are great, sure it is better now.

[TexasRedNeck]

Should have told the instructor “ the reason I fly the Chinook is because the Apache isn’t big enough to carry my balls”. 

Takes some guts to fly such a big target




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[Flyin6]

Should have told the instructor “ the reason I fly the Chinook is because the Apache isn’t big enough to carry my balls”. 

Takes some guts to fly such a big target




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Maybe that applies to some guys, Not me. I am just a big chicken.

I flew the Chinook because I can stretch out and sleep in the back. I flew it because i could pack in a shower and a coffee maker. I flew it because I had to fly all the food out to everyone else, which allowed me to "Tax" some things for my crew. And most of all, Chinook pilots get more flight time!

[Dfarm01]

Very cool.

I have always wanted to take a ride in a helicopter.

My house is on a .mil flight path where they fly to get hours. I see black Hawks, Chinooks and Apaches pretty regularly.