I live part-time on a pretty remote island that has a historical rat problem. One of my hobbies is shooting them at night with a Trijicon REAP-IR 35mm on a Savage B17 precision. It's fun, 1200+ kills over the past two years.  Most of the town is abandoned and in disrepair.  Sometimes, we'll drive around looking with the scope out the window, but this is cumbersome, especially when I'm hunting alone.

If I had a camera system mountable on my Tacoma that gave a 180* field of view with a screen in the cab, it would really up my game in locating the little bastards. Does anyone have any experience or recommendations on what systems I should look at?  I would want something with at least the same thermal sensor quality is the REAP-IR, which is 640x480.


Before anyone jumps on me about driving around with the scope out the window, the entire road system on the island is considered "off-road" by the state. The island is 25 square miles and has a population of 30. People pretty much do whatever they want.

I made my own version of a "Spydabot" and mount a monocular to it. Then broadcast the signal to a tablet in the cab of the truck.

Spydabot

Here is a video of the one I made.

DIY "SPYDABOT"

That's pretty neat!!   After posting the thread I learned about the iRay M6. I ordered one of those and it should be here next week. Only has an 80* field of view but it will rotate with a joystick to pan around. Hopefully it works well.

That looks like a badass unit! Post about it when it arrives.

That M6 looks sweet. Expensive. Found a you tube video on it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0myKVMwZLME

Thats the video that made me order it!! Should be here wed or thurs and I can test. Wont be able heading back to the island for a couple more weeks but very excited to try it out there

What about mounting a RC thermal to a RC gimbal and sticking that on the roof? You can include a RC video transmitter, than sit in the comfort of the vehicle, while moving the thermal around with the RC controls. It's all COTS too. And you can just mount it and a battery to the roof magnetically.

They sell that stuff ready made for drones, so it's just like a drone mounted to your roof and no flying skills required.

As for 640x480, well you don't really need that - You can get the same image from a smaller unit with more zoom. Hence the lens choice  and angular resolution is perhaps more important than the resolution of the camera for those kinds of applications, though if you have the money, double the resolution is double the cost, so let the budget decide the sensor resolution :)

I find my 320x240 thermal sometimes outperforms my 640x480 thermal up close due to better focus and lens.

Where did you buy the M6 from?

I plan on cutting down the arm of one of these. So far, they seem to be pretty strong with decent torque and position locking.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0BX6ZWFYK

You ordered a $6k iray M6? Fuckin baller.

Iray image processing blows away all the rest.

That’s cool. I have the same thermal. Didn’t realize it could stream in real time.

It works pretty good. Hopefully get out and use it more soon.
I added some rubber bands around the top to hopefully reduce some of the up and down slop while driving. I got the remote video head (zifon YT-2000) for around 90 bucks. The magnet feet were about 15 bucks. Used a piece of steel, from an old atv winch mount, for the center section. Then got a stick of 1"x1/8" steel for the legs, and some stainless hardware to bolt it together.

No problems with it holding on while driving down the road. It isn't on the level of the dedicated vehicle mount thermals, especially the one the OP purchased. I was tempted to go with one of the nightride units, but ultimately wanted something dual purpose. So I can put the monocular on the, spydabot and vehicle mount it, as well as use it for a handheld scanner.

Will have to test my drone out to see if my thermal is too heavy for it. Would like to see what distance I can get before I lose connection.

RSR Group

I've played with it and drove around at night with it on my F350. It's pretty good for what it is. Speeding up, the image can get a bit fuzzy. Field of view is much narrower than I would prefer, but I'll have to get used to it.  Joystick movements are too sensitive when you want to pinpoint something or use the range finder.   Driving blacked out using the iray as your only eyes is very difficult, especially in corners. Will take a LOT of practice with the joystick. Obviously not what its designed for, but some of the youtube reviews made it look a lot easier than it is.

The image quality is not as good as my Trijicon REAP-IR, but it'll be good enough for my purposes.

The camera overall is a lot heavier than I expected. A LOT heavier.   I also noticed with image stabilization turned on, if you go over a bump, the camera goes up and down a ton. With it turned off you can drive a lot easier.