Posted: 1/20/2015 10:21:50 PM EDT
| Anybody have any experience with these? Are there better thermal devices for the money? |
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Anybody have any experience with these? Are there better thermal devices for the money? It is a great unit. Get that or a FLiR T70. T70 has color palette which can be a little helpful. There are things I like about both. I personally would buy the either dependant on the better deal. |
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Quoted:
Anybody have any experience with these? Are there better thermal devices for the money? While not "experienced" with this unit, I did a comparison between the LWTS, Flir T70, and a couple of IR Defense offerings (Hunter II and Patrol). I have a FLIR LS64 hand held, but I want a clip on for hog hunting. My impressions. The LWTS and T70 are both built milspec tough. That's a huge plus in my opinion, as I'm getting old and somewhat more abusive of my gear. To my eyes, the LWTS had a better display and clearer picture. The T70 had more display color options. Both had easy, ergonomic menus and controls. The LWTS has a cool battery compartment that handles 4 AA batteries to make field battery changes quick and easy The T70 uses either 3xAA or 2X CR123. Both have digital zoom and look like they're optimized to work well with ACOGs and up to about 6 power optics. Higher than that they both started to get pretty pixilated. They both have a 30hz 640 core. but The IR Hunter II and IR Patrol have a BAE 12 micron core 640 core with a 60 hz refresh rate that gives an even sharper image than the ones above. They have an "edge detect" mode that is pretty neat in highlighting heat signatures to help ID what you're looking at. The eyepiece is very similar to a PVS-14. Runs on 1 or 2 CR-123. They have still image capture in some models (80 images) and are about half the price of the above. That said, they don't look nearly as tough as the milspec units. So the tradeoff in my view is a better display and core against non-milspec. The IR Patrol is also helmet mountable and a PVS sized package. BAE also has a new unit coming out with the 12 micron core. I don't know if it is civilian available or what the price point is, but a milspec unit like that at a competitive price would have my attention. FWIW |
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They are decent,
They zoom, but not very well, Target identification can be difficult sometimes due to the zoom limitations The front rings have a habit of breaking, and they spent a lot of time in maintenance With money not being an object I would go with one of the v3 variants, but they have their own issues, like the front sections breaking off For a rifle, and non military use, I think they would be pretty great Down range they were better than the no thermals we had before they showed up, but they could have been a little more rugged Also, they can eat the shit out of some batteries, and be careful with the battery latches, they like to break |