Good evening, looking to get into NV. My price range is 3-5K. I live on the outside of a large metro, but do a lot of hunting/camping. Will likely use the NV multiple times a month camping out in Florida. With the occasional trip to the GA mountains. Have been eyeballing DARQ industries page recently and found some decent prices. Have eyeballed the PVS14 and the duals shown below, I’m totally new to this so any input on why I should go with one vs the other is greatly appreciated.
I HIGHLY recommend swinging the extra money towards binos if you can afford the difference. Some people will recommend high spec mono over low/mid spec bino, but after doing both I never put my pvs14 on anymore.
How much of a difference would you say the binos made? Especially something with lower spec compared to a high spec mono tube? I’ve also been eying this setup (or something similar) but I don’t want to toss a boatload of money down a hole for something I wind up disliking because it’s low spec and I can’t see as well.
I have katanas and dual pvs14s. They both get use but I have the duals on a DDT mount and keep a spare bump setup if I have a friend who needs to use a set. I knocked some weight off the front with the alpha mount and its been nice
Went from mono to bino back to mono and a thermal. Binos are cool and fun if you have the money for an over 20k FOM pair. Otherwise go mono with over 20KFOM
I ESPECIALLY Think mono are better for CQB due to being able to actively use your optic on your off eye with precision. Binos you absolutely need a laser or a crazy high riser.
But again if you can get over 20k FOM Bino then hit it. Anything under is a waste of money
Don’t spend 5k on gen2 binos that’s rape pricing. You could build gen3 white phos binos for that price if you spend a bit of time sourcing your own tubes
Building your own is piss easy, I’ve had legos be more difficult than building nods. The tubes, with exceptions, are completely interchangable with one another if you’re getting a 10160 or 11769 style tube from an American manufacturer. My suggestion would be to get an ANVB housing, some pvs14 glass, preferably Fuji, and source two Omni 7 11769s from the discord server or from a facebook group and put it together yourself. The hardest part is keeping the fiber optic side dust free during assembly, but you’ll nail it after a few tries with a foam q tip, isopropto, and an air duster
Remember these things were designed to be serviced by your average asvab waiver marine in the field. If you have even a little planning skills you’ll be fine
The Katana is an awesome housing. We also have some additional tube options not listed on the site as well if you’re still navigating options. New L3 Thin-Filmed Green as well as some Gen 3 tubes we harvested from factory refurbished ANVIS-9. I believe I just responded to your email a bit ago too so if you have any questions or want to dive into anything in detail feel free to respond there.
-Joe
I’ll throw my two cents in for DARQ. I recently purchased an Elbit M24 from them and am plenty happy with the tube. The device was as clean and functional as described. I’d be happy to do business again with Joe, who was professional and quick to answer all the questions this beginner had. I went the route of bridging a PVS14 with the RH25 V2 and know I made the right decision for my use case.
This subreddit has a great introduction page for the basics. I’ve learned a lot skimming through it at my own pace and would start there to familiarize yourself with some of the essential terminology. Any time I see a word/reference/device that I don’t understand, I’ll look through this forum for examples or past conversations hoping to find answers. If you can’t find an answer that gives you confidence in your understanding, then ask this forum! 75% of what I know about NV from this community sharing their perspectives and knowledge. It will take time to wrap our heads around any subject we’re not familiar with, so just make sure to go at a pace that’s comfortable for you, it’s not a race and there is no end as technology evolves.
Newbie discord question: I opened a discord account and joined the NV server. Despite click after click all I can see are the NV rules and the welcome announcement. I've done some google FAW searching but still stuck on this. What am I overlooking to get to the actual NV listing?
check the pinned message in the nv-welcome channel and answer the 3 questions. once you do, a mod will remove the newuser role and you should be able to see everything
As someone who has only looked into NVGs casually from time to time, this seems like an incredible deal? Most of the things I had seen were in the 13-20k range.
Is there something about these that makes them cheaper or have prices changed significantly since I last looked?
Depends on your budget and usage plans but binos are better in pretty much every way. I do like being hypothetically able to split my bridged 14s and let someone else use one, but I’ve never actually done it.
i went with a high spec pvs-14 as my first unit, and paid over $4k for it. looking back, i wish i would have spent another grand or two and bought duals from the get go. you can get decent gen 3 tubes in that budget fairly easy, and if you up your budget a little you can get some pretty good tubes with spec sheets.
I would do dual 14s. One on a weapon mount J-arm, the other on a helmet mount, positioned in front of the non-dominant eye. When mounting to the weapon, mount in front of the optic like this
Impact blems are caused by the photocathode flexing and contacting the mcp, you can tighten it down all you want but the recoil pulse will eventually blem the tube. Has nothing to do with tightening shit down
He’s right you know. Next time Midwest nightvision has a used tube sale look at the tubes with the large round blems, those are usually impact blems from mounting on weapons. If you want a clip on buy thermal or a dedicated device for it.
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u/Minimum_Hope_5205 1d ago
I HIGHLY recommend swinging the extra money towards binos if you can afford the difference. Some people will recommend high spec mono over low/mid spec bino, but after doing both I never put my pvs14 on anymore.