Putting together a zero-generation night vision device. Do-it-yourself night vision device - is it possible? How to make a night vision device with your own hands

Any body has the ability to emit or reflect IR (infrared) rays. This principle is the basis for the "PNV" (night vision device) developed in 1984 by the German company "Elektrisch Manufactur". This device is based on an internal photoelectric effect. When projecting an IR image, the electrical conductivity of the irradiated sections of the photoconductor (2) (see Figure 1) changes and a potential distribution corresponding to the distribution of the image brightness on the photoconductor (2) is created on the adjacent electroluminescent layer (4). To implement this process, it is necessary to apply an alternating voltage of 250-500 Volts with a frequency of 400-3000 Hz and a current strength of no more than 10 mA to the extreme transparent electrodes.

So, let's start making NVG. The chemical elements necessary for the manufacture of the device can be obtained in any chemical office of a school or a chemical laboratory of any enterprise. To begin with, take two glass plates, tin chloride SnClz, silver, zinc sulfide ZnS (crystalline), and copper. Hold the glasses for 4 hours in a mixture of H2SO4 and K2Cr2O7 (potassium dichromate). Dry. Then take a porcelain cup, put SnCl2 in it and put it in a muffle (or electric) oven. Fasten the glass over it at a distance of 7-10 cm. Cover the bowl with a metal plate and turn on the oven. As soon as it warms up to 400-480 degrees, remove the metal plate. As soon as the thinnest conductive coating forms, turn off the oven and leave the glass in it until it cools completely. Check the coating with a tester.

Then apply a photosemiconductor to one of these plates. To do this, prepare equal amounts of a 3% solution of thio-carbomide Na4 C (S) NH2 and a 6% solution of lead acetate. Pour both solutions into a glass jar. Use tweezers to place a glass plate into the solution and hold it upright. But before that, apply varnish on the side free of the conductive coating. Wearing rubber gloves, pour a concentrated alkali solution to the top into a vessel with plates / carefully !! / and stir very gently with a glass rod, without touching the plates. After 10 minutes, remove the plate (carefully) and wash it under running distilled water. Dry it.

Turn on the oven and place the silver in a clean china cup. Repeat the above process at 900 deg. The coating is applied to the photosemiconductor plate. Get a mirror-like film. To prepare a phosphor, prepare pure ZnS crystals. If there are any impurities, then the brightness of the glow drops sharply or disappears. Prepare the oven. Place pure copper in a china cup. Crystals of copper and ZnS should be as small as possible. Observe the proportion of ZnS - 100%, Cu (copper) - 10%. In the oven, circulate copper vapor and pass it through the gaps between the crystals. Do not grind the resulting crystals. You should get a colorless powder. Mix zapon varnish with crystals. Take the minimum amount of varnish possible. Pour the mixture onto a silver-coated plate and wait until it spreads completely and forms an even surface. Place a second sheet of conductive coating on top of the varnish and press lightly. After drying, seal the resulting NVB. Before all these operations, after applying a conductive coating, the wires should be soldered as leads along the edges of the plates.

Now you just have to assemble the high voltage generator circuit and assemble it all into a single case. It can be of any shape. But it is still recommended by the developer (see Figure 2). The lens can be from any camera, preferably a short-focus one, for example from "FED", "Smena-M". Any biconvex lens can serve as an eyepiece. After final assembly, check all connections for correct fit and tightness. After turning on the NVD, the transformer should be quietly energized. If the image does not appear, do not despair. Change generator frequency or voltage level. Set the sensitivity to maximum.

Resistor R2 changes the frequency of the generator.
The transformer is wound on any core and contains:
Winding I contains 2000 - 2500 turns, wires - 0.05 - 0.1 mm;
Winding II contains 60 turns;
Winding III - 26 turns, wires - 0.3 mm.

In this article, I will show you how to make simple night vision goggles. Of course, they won't be super powerful like real ones, but getting to the right place in the room in the dark won't be so difficult. All the necessary details can be found at your home, you can order them from the Chinese, or you can just read this article for general development.

There is an action camera in the design of the glasses, in fact, this is one of the main parts, so in the daytime they can be used as a first-person camera and shoot interesting videos.

You will also need an infrared flashlight with a light wave of 850 nm, since this is the kind of light that the camera perceives best, but you can try replacing it with infrared LEDs with similar characteristics if such are suddenly available. It is convenient to use the flashlight because there is no need to make a separate box for power supply and it is much easier to mount it.

If you turn on the flashlight and look at the diode through the camera, you can see a lilac glow, this is infrared light. It is not visible to the human eye, but through the camera, please!

But not all cameras of a lonely person perceive such radiation well, so the author used an action camera, since it coped with the task better than others, in addition, such a camera has many settings that will help improve the perception of radiation.

We also need lenses for virtual reality glasses, which were bought by the author on Aliexpress, they are needed to focus the eye on the camera screen, since the human eye is not able to focus on objects in front of it at a minimum distance.

To fix the lens, you need to assemble the frame. Auto used a dark plastic drink bottle for this purpose.

The lens fits exactly the diameter of the neck, it remains only to fix it there.

To do this, you don't need to glue anything, you just need to cut out the middle part of the cork from the same bottle with a blade or knife.

Then we place the lens in it and twist it onto the bottle. It seems that the lens was specially made according to the diameter of the neck, since the plug is easily twisted and fixes it.

Now you need to cut off the top of the bottle, while choosing a comfortable length at which the focus will be set correctly.

Next, you need to come up with a holder for the camera, to which the assembled optics will be attached in the future. The author used foamed PVC plastic, which is used when assembling models. It needs to be cut into pieces according to the size of the camera to make boxes and glue them together with super glue.

Then you need to fix the optics from the bottle segment to this viewing window. To do this, mark the edges of the window with molar tape and cut off all unnecessary things without touching the tape. You will get two protrusions that should be easily inserted into the edges of the window, after which we glue everything with super glue to fix it.

After assembly, the camera fits very tightly into the resulting box and there is a chance that it will not be possible to pull the camera back out, so the author decided to make slots for the fingers and the record button. After minor modifications, the camera can be easily removed from the box.

To protect the glasses from chipping, we glue the glasses with molar tape. We take a crown and drill a hole in the center evenly from both sides. The author recommends not drilling completely, leaving thin plastic, then finishing the hole with a clerical knife, this will help to avoid possible chips and cracks when drilling.

After the hole is made, the optic should be freely inserted there, but as you can see in the photo, the camera is directed to the side and needs to be aligned.

Then, using sandpaper, I smoothed out all the edges and using super glue I glued everything in its place.

To mount the lantern, we used plumbing clips of the required diameter, which are selected based on the size of the lantern.

The clips are attached to the side of the glasses with bolts and nuts. After that, the flashlight is easily fixed and securely held in place. An infrared light can be replaced with a regular one and, as mentioned above, you can shoot good first-person videos.

For a more secure fit, the author recommends securing the 32nd pipe with nylon ties, since the camera is heavy and the super glue mount may not withstand. To do this, with the help of a drill and a screwdriver, we make three holes in the pipe and three in glasses, opposite each other, we run the ties in them and tighten them, now it’s definitely reliable!

In this video tutorial we will show you how to make a simple and inexpensive homemade night vision device, we will cope with this task in 5 minutes. The author of the idea demonstrated the whole process of its creation in the video.

In the first minute of the video, shooting in the dark using a conventional camera with artificial light is demonstrated. Then the light is turned off and the device is switched to night vision mode. In this state, nothing is visible without special infrared illumination. From the second minute it turns on and you can see that the night vision device is functioning well.

Webcam - the basis for infrared vision

In order to make a device for night vision, you need a regular webcam, which needs to be slightly modified by removing the infrared lens from it. As a result, the camera will begin to transmit infrared radiation. We use an infrared flashlight for illumination. In the video, the author of the video mentions the power of the flashlight, but in the commentary he reports his mistake when he calls it power. In fact, its power is 3 watts. The infrared filter is transparent, it stands on the camera lens. After assembling the webcam without a filter, you can watch night views, but only with the use of such a flashlight.

If you need a factory-made high-quality night vision device, then you can purchase it from a Chinese online store. There you can also find out the range of prices for goods, as well as find an infrared light source (if necessary). The site has reviews, read it when you make a purchase decision.

Next, see how this DIY camera works, backlit with a TV remote. With the remote control, infrared lighting works only at close range, but for example, it will be enough for a staircase.

A device that allows effective observation in conditions when there is no light at all or there is not enough light to build an image with the naked eye. Similar conditions can be observed both in open areas (moonless cloudy night) and indoors (basement without windows and electric lighting, attic, etc.)

Modern night vision devices mainly use two principles of operation:

Passive... They catch a few quanta of visible light, amplify them many times with an electron-optical converter (EOC) and create a visible image. Such devices do not illuminate the target with any radiation, therefore the fact of observation cannot be detected. The main drawback of this design is its complete uselessness in the dark.
Active... The target is illuminated with radiation that belongs to the part of the spectrum that the human eye cannot see. Most often, infrared radiation plays this role. The illumination device can be an infrared illuminator, LED or laser. The device with infrared illumination can work even in the absence of natural light. However, the flow of infrared radiation (although it is not visible to the naked human eye) can be detected using another NVD, and the fact of observation will be detected.

Many devices combine both principles, acting in the presence of at least some natural radiation as passive devices, and in the complete absence of light, switching to infrared illumination.

It is easier to bring a homemade design to life on an active principle, so further we will talk about just such devices.

How to illuminate a target with an infrared beam?

There are also two main schemes here. The first assumes that a laser or light-emitting diode is used for illumination, which emits infrared light with a wavelength invisible to the ordinary eye. The laser generates a very narrow beam, in addition, this one works in the mode of short pulses, which makes the backlight noticeably less detectable.

Such schemes are quite compact, but they illuminate the terrain only within a rather narrow cone. The view of such a scheme is not great, so it will be more difficult to detect targets against the background of the landscape. Such devices are better suited for tracking those targets that have already been detected.

A much wider field of view can be achieved by using an infrared illuminator to illuminate targets. In this device, the lamp is placed in a reflector cone, and the aperture of the cone is covered by a lens made of a material that cuts off all waves except infrared radiation. Such a spotlight illuminates the surroundings with a wide cone, so a sufficient field of view is created. The range at which you can see the target and distinguish it against the background of the landscape depends on the lamp power and can go up to half a kilometer for the best factory samples.

How to convert an infrared beam to visible light or see invisible light?

After we have created a region of infrared illumination, the question arises: how to detect infrared rays reflected from the target if we cannot see them with our eyes? To do this, you need a device called an image intensifier (image intensifier). The image intensifier performs the following actions with infrared light:

Captures infrared radiation emitted by the illuminator and reflected from the target.
Converts captured light into a stream of electrons.
Enhances the flow of electrons using an amplifier (not all image intensifier tubes have this opportunity).
Converts a stream of electrons into light visible to the eye of an observer or recorded by a video camera.

To date, several generations of IIT designs have already changed. Each next generation gives an increasingly high-quality picture, but the price also rises significantly, which is associated with the use of more and more complex and expensive components in the design. At the same time, even the first generation converters create an image that is quite acceptable in terms of quality, suitable for solving many problems.

What do you need to make your own hands?

We need several components to make glasses:

IR light catching device... This role can be played by any camera that has a night mode. It is clear that the camera should not be too expensive, otherwise its use in the design will be unprofitable. For a night vision device that is missing stars from the sky, a webcam is suitable, but it will have to be slightly modified. From it you need to pull out an infrared lens - an infrared filter. The camera can now be used in night mode using infrared illumination.
Infrared source... To do this, you can use a ready-made infrared flashlight (the simplest but expensive option). If you do not have a budget, you can take a regular LED from a TV remote control as an IR illumination. Its power is not enough for building an image at long distances, but for lighting, say, a staircase or other similar space, light will be enough.
Power supply... It is desirable that it is not scarce enough and provides a decent autonomy of the device. AA, AAA batteries or rechargeable batteries look good in this role. For more complex stationary devices, you can also take care of a device that provides power from a household electrical network.
Auxiliary elements- the last group of things needed to create homemade night vision goggles. They are not directly involved in creating the image, but they protect the circuit from dust and dirt or increase the comfort of use. It is worth taking care of some kind of pencil case as a case and a bracket for attaching to glasses or a helmet-mask from a headlamp. The bracket can be made, for example, from parts of a children's metal construction set.

Details have been prepared. What's next?

A black and white micro camera, for example, JK 007B or JK-926A, can be taken as a device that will catch IR light. We are looking for a simple video finder for the camera. If you don't have anything suitable in your inventory, you can find an inexpensive part at a consumer electronics repair service. It is important that the video finder receives video using the same protocols in which a microcamera creates it.

We buy IR LEDs in a store or on the Internet. The purchased diode must be checked by looking at its light in a dark room with the naked eye and using a night camera. In the first case, the light should not be visible, and in the second, it should be seen well. Now we mount the proven LEDs in any box that will serve as a body (for example, a children's plastic pencil case).

Foreign amateur designers recommend a circuit of two garlands of six diodes each. As a shunt - a resistor with a resistance of 10 ohms for all diodes. Now you can supply power from a regular battery. When using another LED, we check the shunt value according to the reference books.

The camera lens must be placed in the same plane as the LEDs (in the same housing). We attach the video finder to the side, connect the power supply and place the assembled device on a frame or helmet-mask. Now our device is ready, and you can try it during night observation.

As you can see, with a little skill and knowledge of how to get down to business, you can assemble a fully functional night vision device with your own hands. Of course, before assembling, it's also a good idea to familiarize yourself with the prices of commercially available devices, so as not to reinvent the wheel, but to use a factory solution if the cost benefit is not too large.

This article focuses on zero-generation night vision devices. What exactly are these devices? Zero-generation night vision devices are the simplest types of the family of these devices that have an active backlight. These devices operate in the near infrared range. It should be noted that remotes from TVs and household appliances work in the same range.

Let's finish the introductory part on this and start assembling the device, but before that we suggest watching the video

What we need:
- old webcam;
- 4 infrared LEDs;
- 4 resistors of 50 ohm each;
- a piece of plastic;

At the very beginning, you should clarify the features of some materials. Infrared LEDs can be removed from old remotes. The author advises against using more than four LEDs. And the plastic that we will use in the assembly should be translucent with infrared rays, but not translucent with ordinary light. The best option would be overexposed film. If not, you can simply plug in the camera and look through different pieces of plastic. According to the author, Erich Krauser's soft black folders are perfect. Let's get started.

First of all, we disassemble our webcam and unscrew the lens from it.

Next, we look at exactly where the filter is located in the cameras. Sometimes the filter we need is in the lens holder and is installed inside. That is, in order to remove it, you need to unscrew two screws on the back side, remove the holder, or simply break the filter and screw the holder back. The author has a filter installed in the lens.

To do this, he simply lifts the upper retaining ring and pulls out the light filter itself. This filter allows only visible part of the light to pass through and blocks infrared rays, which is not acceptable if we want to use just infrared radiation.