So, there i was using my Armasight Co-X, and all of sudden the screen turned white (WP tube). A uniform white, no image just white. Pulled it off the rifle and there is a very bright white "blob" in the center of screen. I'm assuming the tube failed somehow, but I can't figure out exactly how.

Sounds like it bloomed. I dont have much experience with the armasight unit you statedtge tube was in but was wondering if it is a unit that has manual gain?

Variable gain WP tube. It was cranked all the way up gain wise. CO-x is a clip on. And just looking at it there seems to be a bright "blob" mostly centered in there, kind of like made up of point light sources, I guess it might be something optical went tits up but its pretty bright even with the day cover on or off (at night), but I find that unlikely. It was on a .223 with a can on it so no real muzzle flash.

Sent armasight/FLIR an email a day ago and no response yet.

If a tube blooms then usually the screen will show only the phosphor color even if the tube is looking at a scene. Also it will usually leave damage as you described afterwards. Maybe the power supply malfunctioned and caused it to happen. Like what would likely happen if one were to power a 11769 without a pigtail or resistor attached in a brightly lit area. Thats my guess.

Whatever Gen2+ WP tubes they use, maybe photonis or russian is my guess. Yup, under .223 recoil mk12mod0 with a can, 6 whole shots to failure (but it did group nicely for those 6).

So just so I'm clear. It's a point/blob of light in the middle of the screen. 95% of the screen is black. I'm wondering if it might be optical...

Its got a very bright "core" blob, but all you can see is the bloom, and is not quite optically centered.

Super helpful as usual I see...

I'm hoping I'm covered by warranty mainly. I sent in an RMA request so we will find out soon I hope.

But I'm also quite curious as to how a tube could fail like this, every other tube fail I've ever seen generally just deaded the tube. Clearly it has power, and quite a few electrons are hitting the phosphor at least in part of the tube. But its pretty clear they aren't coming from the PC. So I'm really curious where the electrons are coming from, and why they are point source.

Yeah, I've seen recoil damage, shading, tubes going to air etc. but yeah nothing like this. Since I'm totally unfamiliar with the back end optics on this and how they might be affecting the image, thats a possibility too. Thats the main reason I bothered to post it. If it had just died I wouldn't have bothered.

Looks like the MCP is touching the screen causing current to flow directly to the screen.

I had a very old Omni 1 tube that the screen would light up brightly with no image.

Does the bright area stay bright even when all light is blocked from entering the tube? If so then what Falcom suggested might be similar to whats happening with this tube. usually if a bright point stays bright when all light is blocked it is an issue of current that is transferring from one conductive surface to another within the tube. This causes the bright point or area and no light is needed because its all happening inside the tube. One example is an emission point. Does the bright area darken when you have the unit powered on in a bright environment while the tube is allowed take in the light uninhibited?

Please keep us posted on your customer service expierence with Armasight/Flir. I've heard since Flir took over CS has really been lacking.

Yeah didn't want to turn this thread into that. Thus far I'm not exactly impressed, but at the same time I'm not upset yet.

Yup, tube with the daylight cover blocking 100% of light on looks just like it did at night with the cover off. same thing in a "Bright" environment, and my recollection was that it looked pretty much the same in the dark (fullish moon) as it does with the daylightcover on. So, its not like an emission point where you have a bright spot on the tube and also an image. There is no image at all, and just the bright blob vaguely near the center of the FOV. I guess I could see a situation where the MCP broke off somehow and is hitting the phosphor though, but given what it looks like it would have to be a "center" part of the MCP somehow rather than an edge which seems more likely to me I suppose. I also find it a bit horrifying that very mild .223 recoil (its a heavy gun) would cause this level of damage.

I had one of their gen 3 rifle scopes that did the same 4 shots in with a .223.  Sent it back.

I've had some of their stuff do really well and some of their stuff not so much.

Sorry for bringing it up Reason I asked is I have a Zeus Pro and crossing fingers I never have to use their warranty work now.

Was this a Co-X? And same weird type of fail?

Well I'm hopeful they fix it. Dude on the phone told me repair time might be a month or so, which is fine by me as long as it gets done.

No, it was a scope instead of a clip on.

Damn! A month for a simple tube swap? Cus thats what is going to happen. The tube on your unit is almost as useless as a tube can get without actually being a dead tube. Are they going to cover the repair under warranty?

It sounds like maybe the gain circuit may have been damaged somehow and been left open so its gain has infinite resistance and if thats the case i could see where it may have had damage occur to the aluminum oxide conductive layers on the MCP and have a massive concentrated arc of current jumping to the area of damage due to the little flaked up pointed pieces of the aluminum oxide layer acting as lightning rods. So it could be abd sounds like a giant EP. I have dobe experimenting on vare tube modules that had blemishes to find out how and why an EP can form and when i soldered the screen connection and MCP in connection i made the solder joints each have a little point of solder protruding from the joint abd leaning slightly in the direction of the other point on tge other solder joint. When i applied the power from tge HV power source almost instantly a very large and brightarc shot from tye SCREEN solder joint across the creamic surfaces and blasted the MCP In connection and created an EP on the MCP that looked to be about half to 3/4 of the size of the bright area that is in your tube from tge picture you posted earlier in this thread. Yours could have had sometging similar happen but maybe the current arc is inside the tube or something? Idk tube damage is hard to pin down exactly when it comes to type and cause of damage alot of the time when dealing with any damage that isnt any of the commonly known types. In this case though, like pretty much every ohger case where a tube sustains heavy damage, the tube is not ever going to be usable again so i guess at this point it doesnt really matter what type of damage it is or what exactly caused it to occur. It only matters that the tube gets replaced and hopefully the new tube and the labor for the swap is covered by the warranty.

Thats what I was told, I still haven't gotten the RMA permission to send it in yet. As for "simple" since its a clip on its gotta be collimated, no idea how simple that is.

I should have said simple tube swap for Flir/Armasight to perform. Shouldnt take more than an hour or two to swap tube and put the unit on an optical collimation bench and make neccessary adjustments. A month is a long time. They must be getting a ton of warranty repairs coming in or something to cause a such a long wait.

Pretty sure that it is not the tube itself that is the problem.
If it is the version of the CO-X using the Russian "shortie" format tube, at the very front of the tube they fix a small compensation lens to alter the focal length.
I think that this lens may not have been glued properly in place, and has slid forward and to one side, which is why you are seeing the weird off-centre white blob.
In theory a simple enough fix, but in practice the whole unit will have to be stripped, the compensation lens replaced and everything re-collimated to make sure that focus and alignment is 100%.
Best of luck with the customer service.

If it doesn't respond to charges in lighting conditions, your image intensifier tube is now a very expensive, overly-complicated lightbulb.

Every functional tube I have ever handled responds noticeably in one way or another to significant, rapid charges in light conditions. If it isn't doing that, light coming into the tube is not running the show. A short or something is.

Update.

Well it got replaced under warranty. Can't say I was really impressed with their Customer service as I inquired about upgrading/replacing the tube with something other than the WP that was in it that I didn't like and I heard 0 from them until I got a UPS notification in my inbox. But the unit once again works, and It will be a few months until I can try shooting with it unless I can sweet talk the local indoor range into turning the lights off for me.