Ever since I've learned of the PVS-14 many years ago, the term "Pinnacle" has been thrown around a lot. I've heard it as being some wonder technology that makes Gen3 systems that much better, but after much searching I have to find any description of exactly what the Pinnacle technology is. What is it? Why does it make it "better" than a system without? What differences would I notice between a Pinnacle equipped PVS-14 and a non Pinnacle equipped PVS-14? IS there even really that much of a difference to merit any type of consideration when looking at systems to purchase? Just curious to know what the deal with it is.

I feel like this product description from TNVC explains it well:

https://tnvc.com/shop/pvs-14-night-enforcer-gen3-pinnacle-night-vision-monocular/

I see. So does ITT makes other thin filmed autogated tubes besides the Pinnacle? Or all thin filmed tubes they make Pinnacle?

Dude you are barking up the wrong tree here.  Pinnacle has been surpassed by L3 filmless tech, namely in WP or white phosphor.  The thin filmed tech used to be the gold standard until recently.  I and lots of others still use it, but if you are looking for state of the art, read the descriptions at TNVC's website.  

But if it's pinnacle you still want, then yeah, I'd recommend it over the tech previously used.  I had a normal or thicker filmed tube, which was not auto-gated (you can tell by the slight whine), and it did not perform in mixed light conditions as well.  So if you are looking for something that preforms well in an urban area, that's what you want (PVS14-17) .  If you are in a more rural setting, then you might be able to get by with the older stuff (PVS14-under 17).  Or even the newer gen II stuff from NGI.

I doubt there is much more than Pinnacle being thin film and autogated, but what's actually happened inside has probably changed over the years. Would really surprise me to hear if they still used the same autogating tech that was in the first Pinnacles.

That explains the drastic price drop in gen 3 I've been seeing.

New pvs 14s going for around $1,600 and used gen 3 units going for $1,000 and less on eBay.

A used itt older gen 3 monocular just sold for like $560.

Pinnacle refers to the high end series of autogated thin filmed tubes that are made by ITT/Harris. Whether a tube is designated a pinnacle or not largely sepends on two things from what I can tell which are that it is thin filmed (tube has a thinner ion barrier film) and meets certain criteria for manufactured apecs defined by ITT and the other is lthat it used an autigated powersupply with a part number signifying it is a pinnacl autogated PSU. ITT/harris has since come out with the Everest tube and that is the new high end autogated tech. 

There hasnt been to much of a drop in pvs-14 prices in the real world night vision market, deffinitly not as dramatic as the one you are describing that is seen on ebay. Ebay is a false market when talking about used and especially new equipment. The way ebay is setup is to force sellers to have to compete to have the lowest prices on equipment that may vary widely in quality and other aspects that are important. When o used to sel some of the equipment and tubes I had on ebay I had to price them rediculously lower than I normally would to compete with someone selling a similar but inferior quality item. So that made the market for that item appear, to peoplee that saw my ad and the other ad(s) or the inferior item, seem to be at a certain price value which they tgen mistakenly assume that is how it will be for off ebay equipment sales. Not correct. Ebay sales are and will always be impulse buys, ecen if setup ad auction style sales, as a buyer can go onto ebay knowing what what they want and hope to find it but ususally will have to wait around forever for that exact item to go up for sale to purchase it or they end up settling on something else that comes up for aale on ebay. In the real world market a person knows what they want and they go to the business they trust and are loyal to, if repeat customers, to buy exacltly what they want. They are  going to pay the real world market price for such an item and will do so happily as they are getting what they want from a business they trust. Two things which are not going to happen to often on ebay because, one there is no reason for a person to be loyal on ebay to any particular seller as all similar items abd their prices are listed next to one another on the same search page and all from different sellers. Price would be the deciding factor here innmost cases and not who is selling it. Some might say well "im loyal to a particular ebay seller" to which I say then why not contact the seller directly then with ecery intwntion to buy from him and no one else idf you like his items? Because your impulse to buy a lower priced unit that is listed right next to his on ebay search page is far stronger than to be loyal as a customer. Its not your fault its just ebays method they employ to generate the most amount of money off of tge people who use the site. They pull some pretty sly tricks to make sellers think they reallcare about their success when in fact they dont. They set up ecerything in a way so that the seller gets the least possible recognition for their brand. Its pretty clever the way they do this.  and its messed up as so many dont realize  that when selling on ebay they are less building up their brand as a business but really only furthering EBays brand. Think about it. Ebay is a company who is looking to further their brand and it wouldnt make sense or be helpful to that goal if they were letting  millions of sellersnfurtger theirn own individual bran. If that were the case you would know all the sellers on ebay by name that you have dealt with and you would be like, "what is ebay?" When you saw the ebay logo somewhere on the site. Instead its really the opposite. I know for me and i have to assume pretty much everyone esle would be simolar on that I remember maybe 10% of the sellers ive ever bought something from on ebay. If even 10%. I just know I boutan item from a "seller on ebay" for tge other 90% or more of my total purchases. However I will always remember Ebay. No company would ever let another few million companies piggyback on it and come out with a higher level of brand recognition than their company. Let alone one. Forget about it. Well except for companies like ebay and amazon,;who piggyback off of the millions of people using their website, to further the ebay and amazon brands. 

Sellers being forced to sell their items for exaggerated low prices to be competitive and have a chance of selling their item which also causes the lack of customer loyalty and tge highly restrictive selling policies thatbare detrimwntal to any companies brand recognition except for ebay  are the two main reasons why ebay market values and real world market values dont often correlate with one another although they often are mistakenly thought to correlate with one another.

Id say if you went to most any vendior and said you would like to buy a brand bew PVS-14 and want it for $1600, you will almost certainly be back searching around ebay and hoping to find that new 14 for $1600 within minutes after talking with te vendor. 1600$ is in most cases less than the vendor's  cost they pay to get the parts and tube to build a complete 14 from distributors.

I don't know how they are selling brand new gen 3 $1,600 pvs 14s ,unless the tubes are really filled with blemishes.

I was shocked to see those prices as well but I figured it was supply, demand
and the newer gen 3 driving down the price

Who os selling them? Id have to asume theybare highly blemished surplus tubes, which are not new tubes, and new knock off bodies and optics. I could see something like that selling for that price point maybe. But nothing close to quaity.

https://m.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_from=R40&_nkw=pvs+14&_sop=15&rt=nc&_pgn=7&rt=nc

Looks like blemished tubes but still.

https://m.ebay.com/itm/PVS-7-3rd-Gen-Night-Vision-Goggle-100-Made-in-the-USA-/253145760469?hash=item3af0a9c2d5%3Ag%3A-dYAAOSw49lZtVOS&_trkparms=pageci%253Aa49a53ff-98a6-11e7-bbe1-74dbd180c0d3%257Cparentrq%253A7c39c7df15e0aa4718876876ffe5a582%257Ciid%253A2

Used pvs 7

There has to be something wrong with the tube, otherwise why wouldn't  he show a pic of it?

I wouldn't touch that. Too good to be true.

Link went to the search page and not the item page. I tried searching but coudnt fond these $1600 14 units yournspeaking of

These say used not new and he doesnt specify whether he bought them used or new. Pvs-7 units go for less than 14's in general new or used. If he bought them used he coud sell them for that price and not lose to much money if at all. If he bought new he would be losing a good amount of money from the new price he paid for the umit only being a year old and everything working perfectly and in excellent condition. It would be logical that a picture of the tube image should be added to help chances of selling if tube is as good as it is supposed to be. But that doesnt always occur to everyone selling an item on ebay. So the tube may be good or maybe not. Another reason why its a risk when you buy used on ebay. But if you take the risk you may get a great deal. Thats what I did alot when I was first starting out. Got alot of killer deals but also got dissapointed a few times. Its true what they say "No Risk, No Reward". You just have to be willig to take the risk.

Scroll down. $1,699 .Several.

Click on the listing and you'll see the tubes. Blemishes.

I said they were used.

Type in pvs 14.  Then go to price low to high. Then keep going a few pages and you'll find them but I already did that


Trust me. They are there.

He probably bought them as a toy as he put it and I'm guessing did something stupid and damaged the tube.

Otherwise why wouldn't he put a pic of the view through the tube?

Most sellers do that.

Big red flag to me.


If he put a pic of the tube, it would inspire more confidence.

I found the 14's your talking about.  Was able to just look at them and know why they are that cheap. The 2 main reasons for the low cost are:

1. Best case scenario is that the housings and optics are made by Carson Industries. they manufacture parts for the pvs-14, pvs-7 and avs-6/9 legacy systems. These are milspec but theyusually only just meet the requirments  They are much less expensive than actual housings and optics from ITT and L-3 source, but they lack the very high quality of the ITTz and L-3  and it is quite noticable. If you want to see what im talking about compare the pictures of those ones on ebay with the pictures of the high quality high performance milspec pvs-14 unit I built and have listed in the EE right nowm you will notice a difference. the housing I used to build that is more expensive to buy at cost than a carson unit is at retail. So just that tells you something in and of itself. Worst case scenario is you get a foreign manufactured knock off. I dont even have to go into the problems that can be had with the quality of some of those foreign made units.

2. Those are deffinitly used surplus blemished tubes. I have a bunch of those and, although some are sellable to a person intending to use for recreation, most are torn down for the power supply and other parts so that I can use them to build tubes with good modules. Any system using these used surplus blemished tubes and a new housing(either low ot high quality) should not be listed as new as the tube is the main component in any night vision system and the tubes in those units are used.

I could build a carson 14 and put a used blemished surplus tube in it and maje a little money for sure. And make even more if using a foreign made housing unit. so I can see thise going for that price. However as I said they are blemished pretty good and shouldnt be considered new. Look at the higher priced actually brand new units in the search. There are white are both filmless 14's and pinnacle 14's for sale and you can see that allthoughthe filmless tubed units arenmore the pinnacles are still way more than the $1699.00 new/used units you are looking at. And those higher priced bew units are most likeey going to be high quality ITTor L-3 units at those prices. 

Lets just be real for a moment here, most of the people who purchase night vision that are not military or law enforcement and are not buying it specifically to use it for anything other than a tool to help make a dangerous and potentially life threatening job a little bit safer for them while they are on the clock, is is, for all intensive purposes, buying themselves a "Toy". So that means little to me in regards to the condition of the item, in fact id likely take that as a clue that they are in very nice condition as these are not the "tool' used hard abd in sime cases abused by military and law enforcment. The 7's in the ad probably havevspent most of their life in a safe or closet. Like I said it doesnt always occur to everyone to put fully descriptive pictures in their listings. I dont know why that is,  but I have bought many used systems with out seeing tube pics an was pleasanly suprised by the tubes and quality in some of the units. So It may not have an issue at all. before assuming something, ask the seller for a pic of the tubes image. If it really is not as he described it then he will likey have an issuue with sending you a picture or might give excuses to why he cant get a picture. If its good as described you should have no problem receiving the picture of the tubes image as requested.

Good points Sir.

Sir, is it possible that those are in fact new tubes that are blemished?

Now you've got me curious. I'm going to email the seller?

I send him a message and got an almost immediate reply.( Below)

"The housing are the industry standard Carson, and the tubes are just blemished."

There you go. Looks like a good deal to me.

Blemishes are defects in the image and can happen during manufacture of the tube but you will find that most blemishef tubes are surplus tubes that are used. Commercially sold tubes that failed to pass the milspec criteria to be sold under contract to the military because of blemishes that occurred from the manufacturer are usually just small spots that are a little to large for the zone they are in, as per milspec minimum requirments, or they are just lightly blemished in other ways. Id say most blemished tubes are former military tubes, that got the blemishes while in service and are not blemishrs that happened during manufacture. The blemishes are most often burnspots in the center of image from being inside a unit mounted behind red dot sights or other burns elswhere in the image from various other causes that tubes in service may encounter when in use by soldiers.

Sort of off topic from my OP but has to do with ebay. You do have to be careful. This sellers description does state Gen2, but they also say that the C grade means hand selected better performance. They also state it may be autogated. Shows that people may not be trying to screw people over, but may just be ill informed. Or they could be, idk lol.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Used-Armasight-By-FLIR-PVS-14-Gen-2-Autogated-Night-Vision-Monocular-w-IR-/272790918193

I bought and sold a pair of pvs 7s several years ago. I paid around $2,600 and sold it on eBay about 3 years later for $2,350. It came with an itt data card and had high specs.

The tube had no spots but there was like a spider web that was visible throught the entire tube. Don't know what causes that but it concerned me and I wasn't using them that much.

Pretty much just as I predicted, but he didnt give the general source of tubes without going into specifics.. Saying tubes are just blemished still doesnt confirm they are new. But as I also said I could do that price for carson housings with the better used surplus tubes I have and make a couple hundred dollars on the unit as well. Id just have to go with my gut that the tubes in those units are used surplus tubes as tube manufacturers are aiming to make milspec tubes out of every tube they make. So the chances that a newly made tube will be blemished like surplus tube,s that got blemishes after manufacture,  is probably not likeley, but not impossible. They just arent in the habbit of making tubes with larger blemishes. But im sure they have a mess up everyonce in a while. However id think thered be a point at which potting a tube with too many blems or large blems with new somewhat pricey power supplies and other consumable parts becomes economically illogical and the tube is probably scrapped and the fiber optic bundles are reused and maybe some of the other components possibly. I know when it comes to building and repairing tubes, that is true. There are times when a tube module I test is far too blemished for me to justify spending the time and cost of materials/parts to rebuild it into an image intensifier tube assembly and I must find some other use for it. I figure that something similar happens if a manufactured new tube has a defect that makes it not worth while to make it into an image intensifier assembly. 

I asked him specifically if the tubes were new;   so he either is telling the truth, lying or just thinks they are new.

Like the pvs 7 I used to own. It was supposedly new but was looking through webbing under certain lit conditions.

I am by no means an expert like you are but I have read numerous times that there are new tubes that are rejects and not permitted in aviation goggles and or sold commercially.

https://m.ebay.com/itm/192298325299?_trksid=p2141725.m3662.l6403#vi__app-cvip-panel
That's the Gen 3 unit that just sold for $580.00


Like was mentioned ,eBay is a crap shoot.

Edited to add

https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B06XKDSXNH/ref=mp_s_a_1_2

They are selling the same blem spec pvs 14s on Amazon for $100.00 more.

I'm going to say that these are new tubes that are blemished.

I followed the amazon link. Its the same seller selling them on amazon who is selling them on ebay for a hundred less. You would exoect any new blemished tube to sell for more than a used surplus tube so from my figuring of the price breakdown justbfrom my experience with both carson units and used surplus blemished tubes that price is about right for what one could sell a new carson housing and a used surplus blem tube and make a few hundred bucks. If it were a newblemished tube it would likely be a bit more. I had a customer send me a unit recently ghat he bought new with a new blemished photonis gen 3 that had a few small spots in zone 2 and 3and the price was around $2400 but both tube and housing were new. So factor out the import costs on the photonis tube and you will still be a few hundred dollars more than the ones your looking at. So I could be wrong, but without asking the seller what the condition of the tubes are, new or used, and the source in general, dont ask for specifics just ask if they are surplus or another , source, and theres no reason you shouldnt get an answer as giving the source in a generalized way wouldnt compromise his business inversely, and would give the buyer a little more info to have adddnpiece of mind on the purchase. If you simply assume that the  tubes are new and just go buy one without askinf to maje sure, then you may as well just take a risk on one of the used units that is described as having a clean image that are often up for sale on ebay from one of the many individual private sellers that may have one listed for a similar price. 

Thanks for the good advice Sir.

If you can answer one more question please?

What kind of tube defect causes the spider webbing I was seeing in the pvs 7 I sold years ago?

I'm just curious for knowledge sake.

I sent him a follow up question.

When you say "spider webbing" theres s few things that come to mend as defects that could be possibly be described as such. Since "Spider webbing"isnt a common term for a defect that im familar with i cant be sure of which one of the defects im thinking of will fit the bill as to what the 10130 tube in your pvs-7 was exhibiting in its image. Can you elaboratenon what exactly you can remember of how the defect appeared when viewing the image or better yet if you could draw a representationon a piece of paper of the defect as it looked in the image to the best of your memory of how you remember it to look andbsenme an email with pic attached I can likely tell you what it was that your tube was experiencing as a defect in its image.

Spider webbing, informally, means the black lines that occur when a DC based tube is panned past a bright light, and a black trail follows it and remains in the tube image for some time.

However I think the original poster is actually referring to fixed pattern noise, more commonly called "Chicken Wire".

I'm only guessing though-

David.

Double post

Chicken Wire. That's it! What causes that?

Btw, no reply yet to my follow up questions.
. Makes me think that the tubes are in fact used or maybe he just didn't get back with me yet?

I was thinking fixed patern noise. Butwasnr sure as spider webbing is just mor a term ive heard used much to describe a  type of blemish. It would make more sense that it be the black trails left after moving the image past a bright light source in a DC based tube and is temporary for the most part and goes away after a few minutes. I have some Omni Iv modules at the moment that all exhibit such a phenomenon. Im sure you know better than I, but wouldnt that be from channels in the MCP where secondary-electron emission has severly decreased or stopped temporarily due to a weakened or depleted chargewithin the affected channels of the MCP which the channels regain after a short time and secondary-electron emission is able to take place again? 

 

Does this happen only with DC PSU's or with autogated that perhaps aren't gating at the moment? I am talking about the effect when panning past lights shortly after tube has been powered up and the rather fat & blurry lines that it leaves behind. I've seen this in 3 autogated tubes from ITT.

I faintly remember once seeing thin "spider web" style lines appear also shortly after power up that also faded away, but cannot remember how long they lasted or if my memory serves me correct here at all. I have no recollection what tube that was and/or if I was looking straight into a light source at that time or not.

As far as I know tubes were taken off DRMO in 08. I have a bunch of blemished tubes that have CAD numbers of 08xx and earlerm most are omni VII with bad blems. Some are barely blemished at all or have tolerable blems for someone using tubenin a recreational unit. The rest of them have recoil damage in the form of large burns in the center of the photocathode in the shape of mcp channels and an even larger smear of the aluminum oxide film laquer around the burn itself. Some of these are rediculousy large,very ugly and render the tube totally unuseable, althoughtechnically it still operates to a certain degree. The recoil damage is just too large to see anything sometimes like 1/2 the image up to maybe 3/4 of the image is obsured completely from the center outward. I tear down any tubes with recoil damage to sallvage their good PSU's and boots to use for rebuilding tubes with good modules.. I then salvage the FO inverters(AKA FO twist) and have sold them to others needing them for optical experiments they run that need a fiber optic inverter. 

Also ive had lots that had the PC input windows racked and the tube modules are totally destroyded, but have some good power supplies and parts that cannbe salvaged. I heard that alot of these arentubes that werw made for export and then didnt have over seas buyers or they were attempted to be exported but cstoms found issue with paer work or maybe the lack of pper work and they are renderedninoperable by destroying the tube modules in on way or another. 

Its been a long time but when I looked up chicken wire, I saw what I remember seeing. It was a faint but noticable
honey comb pattern in the entire image.

The blemishes in the tubes the guy is selling are significant but the tube, in my opinion would be more than useable.

Plus taking pics almost always makes the blems appear bigger then they are in person.

I'm just wanting to know if they are used or just new rejects?

I've looked through older ATN stuff in the past that looked that bad and worse.

That chicken wire pattern is normal when looking through the tube in bright conditions. At least the ones I've looked through have it.

This one was very noticeable. I've looked through other tubes where you can't see it at all

Btw the guy answered me and says the tubes are NEW.

New tubes should have a warranty.

What if they are nos? ( new old stock)

Say they were produced like 5-10 years ago but never used? Would they still have a warranty?

I dont see them being new old stock tubes that are that old. And as stated any new tube will have a warranty and if in fact they arent used surplus but new commercial blem spec tubes they will still come with a tube spec data sheet from the manufacturer.

Maybe they do come with a data sheet?

Either the guy is lying or telling the truth

Edited to add...

I asked the guy because you got me curious and I gots to know!

Those tubes are pretty blemished though.

Got a quick reply.( Below)


"they don't not have data sheets. We could have them tested, and data sheets generated, but that would be extra."


Then I asked him another follow up questiion and his reply. ( below)

"They don't bother with data sheets on blem tubes. They aren't with the extra time and expense to them, but not all tubes come with data sheets in general. The only company I know of that provides data sheets with all units is Night Vision Depot. Aramasight, Night Optics, and ATN don't provide them at all"

I have no idea if what he's saying is true but his explanation sounds plausable.

Ask him if they come with a data sheet and a warranty period.. if they are in fact new, they should have both or a the very least one of them for whatever reason, but they should be able ro provide both the warranry info and a data sheet for any new tubes from the manufacturer.

Also i saw a bit of info in the ad when i looked again, that i didnt see before hand. Dont kniw how i missed it the first time as its like one of the first parts of the description. It says that they dont have  manual gain function so your not even looking at a true pvs-14 anyways your looking at a 14 housing with a 10160 blemished tube. 

Also did a google search of the company name and the first site that came up was the business' website and although it may not tell everything and could be some folks who are part of a small group of unsatisfied customers of a business that may be more than decent, but the next two hits in the search seem to be complaints and or warnings to stay away posted by individuals on other forums. So idk. Just something to think about.