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Posted: 4/17/2024 10:17:18 AM EDT
I've only had 14s with manual gain. Buddies lookin to get into this and I suggested he check out the tantos which are "auto gain". So does auto gain basically mean its cranked all the way up all the time? It's dark as shit here so I suggested he go filmless which I'm thinking would work better with auto gain. I'm thinking with thin film it sucks in a dark environments where you'd wanna back it off a bit to decrease scintillation.
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Originally Posted By GreenMushroom: I've only had 14s with manual gain. Buddies lookin to get into this and I suggested he check out the tantos which are "auto gain". So does auto gain basically mean its cranked all the way up all the time? It's dark as shit here so I suggested he go filmless which I'm thinking would work better with auto gain. I'm thinking with thin film it sucks in a dark environments where you'd wanna back it off a bit to decrease scintillation. View Quote Although "auto-gain" is most commonly used, a name to better describe it is fixed-gain. The gain level will essentially be at the tube's maximum gain. The "auto" part is the tube's ABC (automatic brightness control). ETA: So, even manual gain 11769 tube's have "auto-gain" if that makes sense I always recommend having manual gain with a monocular but it is the user's choice. Manual gain allows you to lower the brightness which will make it easier for our brain to use the image from the unaided eye. |
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Sales Manager
Tactical Night Vision Corporation - TNVC, INC. http://www.tnvc.com [email protected] (909) 796-7000 Ex. 610 |
Originally Posted By TNVC_Will: Although "auto-gain" is most commonly used, a name to better describe it is fixed-gain. The gain level will essentially be at the tube's maximum gain. The "auto" part is the tube's ABC (automatic brightness control). ETA: So, even manual gain 11769 tube's have "auto-gain" if that makes sense I always recommend having manual gain with a monocular but it is the user's choice. Manual gain allows you to lower the brightness which will make it easier for our brain to use the image from the unaided eye. View Quote View All Quotes View All Quotes Originally Posted By TNVC_Will: Originally Posted By GreenMushroom: I've only had 14s with manual gain. Buddies lookin to get into this and I suggested he check out the tantos which are "auto gain". So does auto gain basically mean its cranked all the way up all the time? It's dark as shit here so I suggested he go filmless which I'm thinking would work better with auto gain. I'm thinking with thin film it sucks in a dark environments where you'd wanna back it off a bit to decrease scintillation. Although "auto-gain" is most commonly used, a name to better describe it is fixed-gain. The gain level will essentially be at the tube's maximum gain. The "auto" part is the tube's ABC (automatic brightness control). ETA: So, even manual gain 11769 tube's have "auto-gain" if that makes sense I always recommend having manual gain with a monocular but it is the user's choice. Manual gain allows you to lower the brightness which will make it easier for our brain to use the image from the unaided eye. Which is better for duals? |
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Originally Posted By TNVC_Will: Although "auto-gain" is most commonly used, a name to better describe it is fixed-gain. The gain level will essentially be at the tube's maximum gain. The "auto" part is the tube's ABC (automatic brightness control). ETA: So, even manual gain 11769 tube's have "auto-gain" if that makes sense I always recommend having manual gain with a monocular but it is the user's choice. Manual gain allows you to lower the brightness which will make it easier for our brain to use the image from the unaided eye. View Quote So basically crank my gain all the way up and it will approximate a fixed gain device for him to try. |
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Originally Posted By Greenspan: Which is better for duals? View Quote Better is subjective and so for new users (or users in general) who haven't developed a preference from the experience of using both, then the better choice is a quality housing with manual gain control. There are some good options this year such as the DTNVS-MG and the Manticore-R. We don't have them listed yet but we are building these systems. Speaking for myself, I used to strongly believe that manual gain was 100% necessary. This was when all I had used was manual gain and with what what be considered "lower spec" tubes by today's standards. After getting much better unfilmed WP tubes (whose specs most would now consider to be "low" LOL) I found that I always left them on maximum gain. So, I put them in an "auto gain" housing and since that time they've been installed into about 4 different "auto gain" housings. This was before I joined TNVC. I've used many systems now of both types (manual & auto) and I still prefer "auto" but that is my personal preference. I have co-workers who will only use manual gain. |
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Sales Manager
Tactical Night Vision Corporation - TNVC, INC. http://www.tnvc.com [email protected] (909) 796-7000 Ex. 610 |
Originally Posted By GreenMushroom: So basically crank my gain all the way up and it will approximate a fixed gain device for him to try. View Quote That'll do it. You can demonstrate the ABC with Moon light by stepping under over hang to block it and then stepping out you'll notice it dim, or looking into a dark area and then quickly looking into a bright one. L3 tubes transition pretty quick so you may have not noticed this before but once you spot it you'll know what is now. I've seen many folks including industry people mix up ABC with autogating |
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Sales Manager
Tactical Night Vision Corporation - TNVC, INC. http://www.tnvc.com [email protected] (909) 796-7000 Ex. 610 |
make sure he does not mean "auto-gated"
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Originally Posted By TNVC_Will: Better is subjective and so for new users (or users in general) who haven't developed a preference from the experience of using both, then the better choice is a quality housing with manual gain control. There are some good options this year such as the DTNVS-MG and the Manticore-R. We don't have them listed yet but we are building these systems. Speaking for myself, I used to strongly believe that manual gain was 100% necessary. This was when all I had used was manual gain and with what what be considered "lower spec" tubes by today's standards. After getting much better unfilmed WP tubes (whose specs most would now consider to be "low" LOL) I found that I always left them on maximum gain. So, I put them in an "auto gain" housing and since that time they've been installed into about 4 different "auto gain" housings. This was before I joined TNVC. I've used many systems now of both types (manual & auto) and I still prefer "auto" but that is my personal preference. I have co-workers who will only use manual gain. View Quote ETA: And to clarify, when I say I prefer "auto" that also applies to using a manual gain housing but leaving it at maximum gain. |
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Sales Manager
Tactical Night Vision Corporation - TNVC, INC. http://www.tnvc.com [email protected] (909) 796-7000 Ex. 610 |
Crank your gain and have your buddy judge how much more 'Eye-Splash' there is, vs normal. Then after looking through 'Max Gain' for a few minutes, flip them up and judge your natural night vision, vs normal. Totally personal pref, but no way *I* would want an un-adjustable device.
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Originally Posted By TNVC_Will: That'll do it. You can demonstrate the ABC with Moon light by stepping under over hang to block it and then stepping out you'll notice it dim, or looking into a dark area and then quickly looking into a bright one. L3 tubes transition pretty quick so you may have not noticed this before but once you spot it you'll know what is now. I've seen many folks including industry people mix up ABC with autogating View Quote I've noticed the auto adjustment thing but I'm very much an end user type and have never given much thought to how it works. Use a coti most of the time which has its own auto adjustment and have seen the 2 play havoc with each other on occasion. Wife has a fancy L3 tube he can try to compare with my Elbits. Honestly wouldn't recommend thin films to anyone who lives around here unless mostly urban. My elbits are both 30+ snr and her L3 stomps all over them in the dark dark. |
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www.jrhenterprises.com
Over 30 Years in business- Thank you for your business! Quickest ways to contact us- 912.375.1480 [email protected] |
Originally Posted By mickdonaldson: Crank your gain and have your buddy judge how much more 'Eye-Splash' there is, vs normal. Then after looking through 'Max Gain' for a few minutes, flip them up and judge your natural night vision, vs normal. Totally personal pref, but no way *I* would want an un-adjustable device. View Quote This is my personal take on this as well but want to offer options for him to try. He's got the $ and is serious bout shopping but I don't know how much use it'll get outside of camping trips. He does prs and fancy pistol shit so it could be he wants NV super simple as a just in case. |
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Originally Posted By Lowdown3: GreenMushroom has a ton of time under NODs and thermal, I think he definitely means auto gain aka "no gain." View Quote I've seen you post about the katana but do you have much time with the tantos? I know there's a company doing a tanto like setup with manual gain but obviously doesn't have the track record of Nocturn. He wants to bridge but wants to be able to separate so wife/friends can use. You also do a lightweight 14 right with the push buttons? How does that stack weight wise with the tantos? |
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Check out the RVM-14
We have those listed online and housings in stock |
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Sales Manager
Tactical Night Vision Corporation - TNVC, INC. http://www.tnvc.com [email protected] (909) 796-7000 Ex. 610 |
Originally Posted By GreenMushroom: I've seen you post about the katana but do you have much time with the tantos? I know there's a company doing a tanto like setup with manual gain but obviously doesn't have the track record of Nocturn. He wants to bridge but wants to be able to separate so wife/friends can use. You also do a lightweight 14 right with the push buttons? How does that stack weight wise with the tantos? View Quote If he is looking for just a monocular, I would look at a standard PVS14 or a LW14 if the weight savings is important. I'll build a Tanto up and weigh it in the next few days. I think we have a Tanto housing in stock (we don't normally carry them). Any reason he doesn't want to bridge two 14s? |
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www.jrhenterprises.com
Over 30 Years in business- Thank you for your business! Quickest ways to contact us- 912.375.1480 [email protected] |
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Originally Posted By Lowdown3: If he is looking for just a monocular, I would look at a standard PVS14 or a LW14 if the weight savings is important. I'll build a Tanto up and weigh it in the next few days. I think we have a Tanto housing in stock (we don't normally carry them). Any reason he doesn't want to bridge two 14s? View Quote It wouldn't surprise me if he ends up going with standard 14s for the parts availability. He's a technical guy and I'm going to put together some options and let him try what I have in the field a bit and then he will do his own research from there. |
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Originally Posted By GreenMushroom: It wouldn't surprise me if he ends up going with standard 14s for the parts availability. He's a technical guy and I'm going to put together some options and let him try what I have in the field a bit and then he will do his own research from there. View Quote That's the big one for me. Let me know if we can help him, have thin filmed high grade WP and Unfilmed 20UM high grade WP in stock and shipping out same day ordered. |
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www.jrhenterprises.com
Over 30 Years in business- Thank you for your business! Quickest ways to contact us- 912.375.1480 [email protected] |
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The tube will sit at the maximum brightness it can go to without being damaged. If you enter an area with more light or bright lights the brightness of the image is reduced so you don't damage the tube (as much). You can always use an adjustable iris to manually reduce the brightness if you feel like it.
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Originally Posted By GunnyFitz: Good point. I like manual on PVS14 but auto on DTNVS. View Quote View All Quotes View All Quotes Originally Posted By GunnyFitz: Originally Posted By Untrust: t's worth pointing out here that auto gain and auto gating are two different technologies, and it's likely the OP isn't talking about autogating as he is weighing it up against manual gain. Good point. I like manual on PVS14 but auto on DTNVS. Same for me. Manual gain on a monocular and autogain on my RNVGs. Now that they have single gain control binos I might lean that way, but I've been happy with my L3 UF WP tubes with autogain. Manual gain is also just one more expense and thing that can break. |
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Originally Posted By towerofpower94: Same for me. Manual gain on a monocular and autogain on my RNVGs. Now that they have single gain control binos I might lean that way, but I've been happy with my L3 UF WP tubes with autogain. Manual gain is also just one more expense and thing that can break. View Quote Are there reports of manual gain housings failing in any significant way? Specifically the manual gain function causing a systems failure or the feature failing to work? It's purely personal preference. If I was issued a system without manual gain I would run it. If I had my choice in the matter, there is no planet on which I would run anything but Manual Gain. I have light sensitive eyes and I almost never run my tubes at full blast. |
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Mike_Golf says: "You're not an ethical hunter and likely an asshole to boot."
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I spoke about my solution to being brightness adverse/overwhelming peripheral vision with auto gain in the “navigating dark woods” thread.
I used two 30-37mm adapters and some photography lens variable neutral density filters on the ocular side of my set up. They are designed to reduce the amount of light entering the lens of a camera when coupled with higher exposure times/apertures to prevent the photo from being overwhelmed. The variable nature of the ones I used means you can adjust the dimming factor by twisting them. This allows you to dial in your brightness, and contrary to the objective side irises/apertures, they don’t actually reduce the amount of light entering the system, which increases scintillation, but instead just decreases the amount of light entering your eyes. As a bonus, they do reduce the appearance of scintillating even when dialled all the way back to the brightest setting because by nature/construction of two polarized lenses, they do dim a little. On a bino, auto gain system, they allow you to dial things in for your eyes - like if you do a half hour adjustment period, you dial them way down and not screw your natural night vision by hitting it full blast. . |
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Originally Posted By Magsz18: Are there reports of manual gain housings failing in any significant way? Specifically the manual gain function causing a systems failure or the feature failing to work? It's purely personal preference. If I was issued a system without manual gain I would run it. If I had my choice in the matter, there is no planet on which I would run anything but Manual Gain. I have light sensitive eyes and I almost never run my tubes at full blast. View Quote To be clear, the actual failure rate of modern, quality night vision devices not related to user error or external “trauma” is extremely low, so in terms of overall failure rate, no, I would not call manual gain failures statistically significant. However if you are going to have a true system failure, again, not related to use or physical damage, it is almost always going to be related to the gain control and/or the power supply / battery compartment, and we do see a slightly higher rate of failures (again, still extremely low) with manual gain systems, though to be fair, most manual gain-capable goggles tend to be a little bit more complex in general. In comparison, tubes and tube power supplies (which controls the ABC function, as opposed to an external circuit) are actually extremely reliable, again and not to sound like even more of an ANVIS-cheerleader, again short of external factors ANVIS systems which have no manual gain and no onboard battery compartment, and is basically just a frame for a set of tubes with some wires that apply external power to them very rarely have any kind of systemic failure, to where I would say that tube failures are more common than system failures. All of that being said, while I am and have long been a fan and advocate of ABC goggles for my personal use, I have also come to find that I may be kind of a freak insofar as loving my tubes to be as bright as possible at almost all times, even with 3000 FOM SuperGain. I also keep my iPhone screen at full blast 99% of the time. As tubes have steadily increased in performance, including the wider and wider adoption of SuperGain tubes both in the private sphere as well as DoD, the number of people who may find tubes “too bright” due to light sensitivity has also increased—not just as a matter of preference, which many people have already had, but to the point of actual pain and discomfort. This, coupled with the increasing use and adoption of fusion systems and HUDs, the intensifier gain control has also become an important factor in maintaining proper contrast of the display. While some fusion systems and HUDs do also have their own brightness and contrast control systems, they tend to not be anywhere near as reliable or effective as the analog ABC, which can cause visibility issues with the signature and symbology, particularly in transitional environments, a HUD / fusion display that is clearly visible and has good contrast in a very dark environment, like movement to the objective, may end up being too dim once you transition into a more brightly lit urban or suburban area and get washed out by the overall image brightness, and it is easier and more effective to simply reduce the analog I2 gain so the display “pops” more, versus fiddling with the display brightness and contrast because it adapts far better to changing light conditions. In fact, the F-BINO / BNVD-FUSED is designed as standard to power up at 50% gain, which actually kind of annoys me personally, as it breaks my streak of “I rarely ever touch the manual gain,” because I immediately need to crank it up to full every. single. time. as a part of normal startup procedure. However again, this is done primarily so that you can properly adjust the display contrast and brightness to a good, median level for most environments, so that it will still be generally visible in higher light conditions, but will not be so bright that it blows out the I2 image in extremely dark lighting conditions. ~Augee |
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Tactical Night Vision Corporation - TNVC, INC.
http://www.tnvc.com [email protected] (909) 796-7000 Ex. 201 |
Originally Posted By na1lb0hm: I spoke about my solution to being brightness adverse/overwhelming peripheral vision with auto gain in the “navigating dark woods” thread. I used two 30-37mm adapters and some photography lens variable neutral density filters on the ocular side of my set up. They are designed to reduce the amount of light entering the lens of a camera when coupled with higher exposure times/apertures to prevent the photo from being overwhelmed. The variable nature of the ones I used means you can adjust the dimming factor by twisting them. This allows you to dial in your brightness, and contrary to the objective side irises/apertures, they don’t actually reduce the amount of light entering the system, which increases scintillation, but instead just decreases the amount of light entering your eyes. As a bonus, they do reduce the appearance of scintillating even when dialled all the way back to the brightest setting because by nature/construction of two polarized lenses, they do dim a little. On a bino, auto gain system, they allow you to dial things in for your eyes - like if you do a half hour adjustment period, you dial them way down and not screw your natural night vision by hitting it full blast. . View Quote This is definitely a solution. For me, it's not ideal as its adding another layer of glass that can and will fog or collect condensation to the point where it may as well be fog. Afterall, fog is just very dense condensation. I think the "best" solution to your workaround would probably be the Phokus Research caps. They dont have a lens, merely an aperture system which should accomplish the same thing. Lastly, I've never been a fan of the new wave of iris adapters. They're yet another thing to fiddle with on the goggles that I don't want to deal with. The last thing I want is to have to adjust the iris and I move my focus instead. The seconds it takes to get the goggle to where I want it to be could be costly. To each their own. Everyone's use case is different. Unless you need sacrificial windows, I prefer to run nothing but the natural lenses on my NODS with rubber flip caps present to protect the lenses. |
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Mike_Golf says: "You're not an ethical hunter and likely an asshole to boot."
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