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Posted: 8/10/2014 6:30:00 AM EDT
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I had been shopping for a new night vision monocular / binocular of some type lately (years ago I owned a pair of Russian gen 1 binoculars, and a gen 2 monocular converted PVS-5). Any way I had been shopping for something more modern on ebay, and online when out of the blue I stumble upon a local brother in law sort of deal, and found out they were trying to sell their PVS-14 to raise money.
Now for the good and the bad, and the reason for this post: The good, they work, and seem to have a good image with no obvious flaws, and the price was right at about 2/3 of the lowest price I have seen a used PVS 14 sell for on ebay in the last month The bad, the battery compartment is cracked, it is a dual battery model, and the battery cap only holds on by one ear as the housing is cracked where the other one goes, the battery terminals are slightly corroded, the gain control knob shaft is slightly bent, and I don't know exactly which gen 3 tube is in it (previous owner had them for at least 7 or 8 years, so I suspect one of the earlier tubes). There are a few wear marks , but optics look good, can barely read the markings under bright light, but they are a mil set with an NSN. Now down to the question, I see I can get a replacement battery compartment for about $250 new on ebay, not sure of elsewhere, should I swap this out, change over to single battery, or just live with the wedged in but functional battery cap, and bent gain knob shaft? I |
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First things first
I would open it up and write the numbers down you see on the tube. Serial, cage code, or get a picture of the tube and post it up. If its an AN/pvs14 you want to make sure its not gov property since you don't know where it originally came from. There are lots of members here that can ID it for you and make sure everything is proper. If they don't want to let you take pictures just tell them you need to open it up to get the numbers for a replacement housing to fix it. If everything comes back clean, I would send it to TNVC and have the housing updated to the one AA version which will get rid of the cracked housing and battery terminals and have a fresh nitrogen purge. |
| +1 on opening it up. Nitrogen purge is way past its sell date by now, plus I personally would want to know what I just scored. I'd consult the sticky on top to see if you can get a positive ID on the tube, and if not one of the gurus would be able to help. Just to let you know, just because its 7 or 8 years old doesn't mean it isn't good. Omni VII came out in 06 I think and is widely viewed as some of the best available. I personally would do the battery conversation myself in this case. Its easy and the info is out there to show you how, and you'd learn a little something too. |
| I paid just over $1,000 for PVS-14, with J arm, head mount and canvas bag, I know the seller used it very little, I am not sure exactly when he bought it, but I have known him since 2007 and he bought it well before then, and probably only used it for few hours in his entire ownership, certainly less than a couple of hours in the years that I have known him. The lowest price I have seen on used PVS-14's on ebay in recent months is about $1,500 -$1,600 with tubes with no visible blemishes, I am not sure where to value the accessories, or how much to discount the broken battery tab on the case.. |
| Pics of the tube would help. Easiest way to tell if its gated is to listen for a slight whine on start up or when its running. Not all tubes whine, so you can check visually. Turn the IR illuminator on, and I've found the easiest way is to stand in a doorway. Scan the room and over to the doorway, when the IR hits the wall you should see it clearly but should notice it darken up in the background. Maybe not the most scientific, but it works. |
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Quoted:
Can someone help clarify if I have an autogated tube or not, based on what I have read in the Omni Classification guide I think I may have an autogated Omni IV, as mine is marked with NSN 5855-01-444-3916 hard to narrow down, we need more information. that particular NSN has two different contracts with 7 different manufacturers. If you had a cage code that will tell us the manufacturer and/or date code on the tube (DC xxxx) we could give you an exact born on date and a 98% guess on what omni it is. |
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Quoted:
Hope I'm not thread hijacking but does auto gating mean it reduces gain when in bright light? I noticed my 7s will do that if I accidentally expose them to too much light. this is strait from TNVC's website Auto-Gated Power Supply When the power supply is “Auto-Gated,” it means the system is turning itself on and off at a very rapid rate. This, combined with a thin film attached to the Microchannel plate (an ion barrier) reduces blooming. While “blooming” can be noticeably less on systems with a thin film layer, systems with thicker film layers can be perfectly acceptable depending on the end user’s application. Deciding which night vision goggle is better should not be based solely on blooming. |
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Quoted:
this is strait from TNVC's website Auto-Gated Power Supply When the power supply is “Auto-Gated,” it means the system is turning itself on and off at a very rapid rate. This, combined with a thin film attached to the Microchannel plate (an ion barrier) reduces blooming. While “blooming” can be noticeably less on systems with a thin film layer, systems with thicker film layers can be perfectly acceptable depending on the end user’s application. Deciding which night vision goggle is better should not be based solely on blooming. Quoted:
Quoted:
Hope I'm not thread hijacking but does auto gating mean it reduces gain when in bright light? I noticed my 7s will do that if I accidentally expose them to too much light. this is strait from TNVC's website Auto-Gated Power Supply When the power supply is “Auto-Gated,” it means the system is turning itself on and off at a very rapid rate. This, combined with a thin film attached to the Microchannel plate (an ion barrier) reduces blooming. While “blooming” can be noticeably less on systems with a thin film layer, systems with thicker film layers can be perfectly acceptable depending on the end user’s application. Deciding which night vision goggle is better should not be based solely on blooming. Thanks that makes sense now. |
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Ok, here goes the rest of the information from the tube: SERIAL 39XXXX CAD 9951 MFR 13567 ID NO 80063-A3256350 CONTR DAAB07-96-C-J209 interesting. the tube is indeed a tube made by ITT but the contract number on your tube does not match a contract awarded for that NSN. this means that at some point, the milspec tube that came in that pvs14 housing from the factory has been taken out and replaced by a tube created under the DAAB07-96-C-J209 contract (omni IV). If im off on my guess im sure Dino will be along shortly 
Should still be a solid tube and the specs should still be pretty high, it would be hard to notice the difference unless you had a higher spec tube in the other hand to compare them. all in all sounds like a good deal ETA: another thing I noticed is the warranty exp. date and the date code dont match up which is also kinda odd. but the born on date was the last week of Dec. 1999. I suspect the warranty date was on the housing and not the tube. and the tube was produced just as omni IV was being phased out for omni V |
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I'm pretty new to trying to interpret tube info, turns out there was actually a reason besides me being a half whit, that I was confused by that one? I'm getting it slowly, can you explain how you figured the rest out? sure looks like you have figured out that the cage code will tell you a manufacturer and you have the date code format figured out as well. I think the once piece of your research you are missing is nsn-now.com you can look up any nsn number and it will show you all the contracts for that NSN, and the companies (cage code) that manufactured products for those contracts. so I look up the NSN thats on the housing, so now i see all the contracts including dates for those contracts. then the OP posted the contract markings from his tube, well they didnt match any contracts for the housing NSN. so somewhere along the lines we know the tube from a different contract was put in the housing. then in the omni classifications it shows the contrats for each Omni and the one engraved on his tube was for omni IV
ETA: if you are wanting to learn be sure to check out this thread and have some fun looking stuff up http://www.ar15.com/forums/t_6_18/426658_.html |
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Post all the specs in my tube identification thread and we will sort it out.  Sticky at the top of the page.I posted it up for the OP here |
| To answer one of your earlier questions - yes you can replace the battery housing - it is easy to do. keep your eyes on eBay and pick up a newer housing. I actually like the old 2x AA style since it gives me a longer run-time. You can keep that style or move to the newer 1x AA style. If you can score a replacement 2x AA for ~$100, I'd go that route. The 2x AA generally goes for $200-250ish. |
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