www.nightvisionforumuk.com

Hi guys
Have been a member on here since feb this year but only just getting round to posting, work really does get in the way of things!
Anyway our first foray into DIY NV has been quite successful, a hand held spotter using the guts from a CCTV high speed dome camera and a couple of industrial IR illuminators fed to a 7" TFT screen, great for spotting from a vehicle with but my god is it heavy! On a clear night we're getting a good 350 or so yard range, Once we've made positive ID out comes the lamp to finish the job, hopefully!
Only problem is that from a inside a cramped car we're constantly getting tangled up in the wires from the spotter and lamp so are now working on an in-line scope add on which is nearly completed but really struggling with getting an eye piece that will allow us to focus on the screen? Anyway will try and keep progress updated and I'm sure i'll be asking a few questions along the way,

Cheers
Jez

Ps I have enjoyed reading many of the posts on here, all very informative

Welcome along, Jez.

Good to see that you've already jumped in and had a go at a DIY build Pics are always good. Go on, you know you want to

George

aye, we like pics on here

tell you what. post some up and i'll tell you where to get an eyepiece for it

Well I've tried to upload photos of the hand held spotter, not sure i've managed to do it correctly as never used photobucket before, if it doesn't work i will try again.

Anyway if it has worked you should be able to see that we have used a 6mm-50mm f1.4 zoom ir lens from a cctv dome camera, mounted in a housing from a pretty crappy all in one camera with IR LED's built in, luckliy the mounting brackets inside were very similar and so only needed a little work.
The IR illuminator is a Bosch 850nm spot, we had also mounted a wide angle IR but this made the unit far to heavy, it also seemed to reduce the range, too much ir maybe? used to get A LOT of white out of the the image when both IR's were used.
The monitor is a standard 7" TFT that we've left on a fairly long lead so that the monitor can be positioned on the dashboard while the spotter is used through the sunroof or windows etc...

Pics of the in-line add on to follow as its in my brothers garage at the moment,

Cheers
Jez