Quoted: How many of you out there have ever had a Night Vision Device of any kind fail? If so how did it fail and what were the circumstances? How were you able to get it fixed? Also has anyone ever dealt with either ITT or Litton with a warranty issue? If so how did it go? IPSC_GUY SIERRA II ALPHA

I've had a total of three units fail since I started working with night vision in 1994.  

The first was with a (top of the line at that time-1994) Gen 2 system.  One day it started to flicker upon pwoer up. I sent the unit back to NAIT and they promptly sent me out a new one.

The second was about a year ago, I had a PVS-14 adjustable gain feature not work. Turned the gain knob and nothing happened. Sent it back to ITT, and in about 3 weeks the unit was returned working perfectly.  

Third incident happened about 3 months ago....A Raptor 4X was returned. Afer the first shot from a .308, a large black spot appeared near the center of the tube. The spot also showed impact damage around the spot indicating the glass was mounted too close to the micro-channel plate! ouch!  This was sent DIRECTLY back to NVEC where they actually do the repair work at their (fairly new) Arizona facility. Return time about 3 weeks with a new tube installed.  

Other than those 3 items, I have handled, used, and sold lots and lots of units, and thus far I am impressed with the reliability of these systems. Also impotant to note, I've not had a single unit fail outside of the warranty period as well.  The turn around times could be a bit shorter, but when your talking about companies here who produce thousands of units each year, I guess that is the average.  Hope this helps.

Vic