How to make your own night vision device. We create a night vision device with our own hands

In this article I will tell you how to make simple night vision goggles. Of course, they will not be super powerful like real ones, but getting to the right place in the room in the dark will not be so difficult. All the necessary parts can be found at your home, you can order them from the Chinese, or you can just read this article for general development.

The design of the glasses contains an action camera; in fact, this is one of the main parts, so in the daytime they can be used as a first-person camera and shoot interesting videos.

You will also need an infrared flashlight with a light wave of 850 nm, since this is the light that the camera perceives best, but you can try replacing it with infrared LEDs with similar characteristics, if such suddenly become available. It’s convenient to use the flashlight because you don’t need to make a separate box for power supply and attaching it is much easier.

If you turn on the flashlight and look at the diode through the camera, you can see a lilac glow, this is infrared light. It is not visible to the human eye, but through a camera please!

But not all cameras alone perceive such radiation well, so the author used an action camera, since it coped with the task better than others, and besides, such a camera has many settings that will help improve the perception of radiation.

We will also need lenses for virtual reality glasses, which were purchased by the author on Aliexpress; they are needed to focus the eye on the camera screen, since the human eye is not able to focus on objects located directly in front of it at a minimum distance.

To fix the lens, you need to assemble a frame. Auto used a dark plastic drink bottle for this purpose.

The lens fits exactly the diameter of the neck, all that remains is to fix it there.

To do this, you don’t need to glue anything, you just need to cut out the middle part of the cork from the same bottle using a blade or knife.

Then we place the lens in it and screw it onto the bottle. It seems that the lens was specially made according to the diameter of the neck, since the stopper easily twists and fixes it.

Now you need to cut off the top part of the bottle, while choosing a comfortable length at which the focus will be set correctly.

Next, you need to come up with a holder for the camera, to which the assembled optics will subsequently be attached. The author used foamed PVC plastic, which is used when assembling models. It needs to be cut into pieces according to the size of the chamber to make boxes and glue them together with super glue.

Then you need to attach the optics from a section of the bottle to this viewing window. To do this, mark the edges of the window with masking tape and cut off all excess without touching the tape. You will get two protrusions that should easily be inserted into the edges of the window, after which we glue everything with super glue to fix it.

After assembly, the camera fits very tightly into the resulting box and there is a possibility that it will not be possible to pull the camera back out, so the author decided to make slots for fingers and a record button. After a little modification, the camera can be removed from the box without any problems.

To protect glasses from chips, we glue the glasses with masking tape. Take a crown and drill a hole in the center evenly on both sides. The author recommends not drilling all the way, leaving thin plastic, then finishing the hole with a stationery knife, this will help avoid possible chips and cracks when drilling.

After the hole is made, the optic should be freely inserted there, but as you can see in the photo, the camera is pointed to the side and needs to be aligned.

Then I sanded all the edges and used super glue to glue everything in place.

To attach the lantern, plumbing clips of the required diameter were used, which were selected based on the size of the lantern.

The clips are attached to the side of the glasses using bolts and a nut. After which the lantern is easily fixed and securely held in place. The infrared flashlight can be replaced with a regular one and, as mentioned above, you can shoot good first-person videos.

For a more reliable fixation, the author recommends securing the 32nd tube with nylon ties, since the camera is heavy and the super glue mount may not be able to withstand it. To do this, using a drill and a screwdriver, we make three holes in the pipe and three in the glasses opposite each other, insert the ties into them and tighten them, now it’s definitely secure!

Every physical body is capable of reflecting or emitting infrared rays (IR). It is this feature that is taken into account by the designers of night vision devices. Their action is based on the so-called internal photoeffect. When an infrared image is projected somewhere, then the electrical conductivity of the irradiated areas of the photosemiconductor (2) becomes different on the adjacent electroluminescent layer (4), and in this case there is a potential distribution, which, in turn, corresponds to the distribution of the brightness of the image on the photographic conductor. In order for this process to take place, it is necessary to provide the transparent electrodes located at the edges with an alternating voltage of electric current of 250-300 Volts at a frequency of 400-3000 hertz, and the current strength should not exceed 10 mA.

How to make a night vision device yourself.

Let's start! In order to construct a night vision device yourself, you need to take chemical elements from the chemistry classroom at school or in the chemical laboratory of a separate plant or factory. They will be needed to make it.

First of all, we take two small glass plates, as well as the chemical compound Sn Cl2 (tin chloride), silver (Ag), ZnS (crystalline zinc sulfide) and Cu (copper). The glass pieces need to be heated for about 4 hours in a solution of strong acid H2SO4 and potassium dichromate K2Cr2O7, and then dried thoroughly. Then you need to take a cup - preferably made of porcelain - and pour it into it. Then take a porcelain cup, put tin chloride SnCl2 in it and put it in an electric stove. Above this stove you need to attach pieces of glass somewhere at a distance of no more than 7-10 centimeters. Next, you will have to cover the porcelain cup with a metal plate. Turn on the electric stove.

As soon as the stove heats up to about 400-480˚, you will have to take a metal plate from there. Make sure that there is an extremely thin conductive coating on it. Then you need to turn on the oven again and put the glasses on the table and let them cool completely. You will need to check this very coating with a tester. Next, you will need to apply a photosemiconductor to one of these plates. To do this, it is necessary to prepare the same amount of a three percent solution of thiocarbamide Na4 C(S)NH2 and a 6% solution of lead acetate. These solutions must be poured into a glass vessel. Using tweezers, insert a glass plate into the solution, holding it upright. Before this, you need to apply varnish to the side that is not covered with a conductive coating. Wear rubber gloves and carefully pour the concentrated alkaline solution into the vessel with the plates to the very top. Carefully and carefully stir the resulting mixture with a glass rod, being careful not to touch the plates. After 10 minutes, the plate will need to be carefully removed and washed with a stream of distilled water. Next you need to dry it all. Turn on the stove and pour silver (Ag) into a clean porcelain cup. Repeat the process we described at 900˚. Coat the photo semiconductor wafer. In this case, it will be necessary to ensure that there is a mirror film there. To make a phosphor, you need to prepare pure crystals of zinc acetate ZnS. It should be noted that in the presence of impurities, the brightness of the glow will drop significantly or disappear altogether. Prepare the stove. Place Cu in a porcelain cup. Its copper crystals and ZnS zinc acetate crystals should be as small in size as possible. The proportion must be observed as follows: ZnS - 100%, copper - 10%. Copper vapor must circulate in the stove and pass through the gaps between the crystals. Do not grind the resulting crystals under any pretext! You will then have a colorless powder. Mix the varnish with the crystals. Use as little varnish as possible. Pour the mixture onto the silver plate and wait until it spreads completely and forms a smooth surface. Place a second strip of conductive coating on top of the varnish and lightly clamp it. When everything dries, the resulting night vision device must be sealed. After all these manipulations, having applied a conductive coating, solder the wires as leads along the edges of the plates.

Assembling a night vision device

All that remains is to assemble the high voltage generator and put it all in the same housing. Its shape is arbitrary, but we recommend the one proposed by most developers of night vision devices (in the figure). The lens in it can be taken from any photographic camera, but best of all is a short-focus one (say, from a Smena-8M or FED camera. Any biconvex lens can act as an eyepiece. When you put it all together, you need to check everything connections for strength and correctness of connection. When you turn on your new night vision device, you will definitely hear a thin squeak. This is the squeaking of the transformer. If you don’t see any image, don’t be upset - you can change the level of the supplied voltage or the frequency of the generator. Set the maximum sensitivity.

Enjoy your observation!

1. glass plates;
2. photographic guide;
3. silver (Ag) layer;
4. electroluminophor;
5. photographic lens or lens.

Resistor R2 changes the frequency of the generator.
The transformer is wound on any core and contains:

• Winding I contains 2000 - 2500 turns, wires - 0.05 - 0.1 mm;
• Winding II contains 60 turns;
• Winding III - 26 turns, wires - 0.3 mm.

A device that allows effective observation in conditions where there is no light at all or there is not enough light to construct an image with the naked eye. Similar conditions can be observed both outdoors (moonless cloudy night) and indoors (basement without windows or electric lighting, attic, etc.)

Modern NVGs mainly use two operating principles:

• Passive. They capture a few quanta of visible light, amplify them many times with an electron-optical converter (EOC) and create a visible image. Such devices do not illuminate the target with any radiation, so the fact of observation cannot be detected. The main disadvantage of this design is its complete uselessness in the dark.
• Active. They illuminate the target with radiation belonging to that part of the spectrum that the human eye cannot see. Most often, infrared radiation plays this role. The illumination device can be an infrared illuminator, LED or laser. A device with infrared illumination can work even in conditions of complete absence of natural light. However, the flow of infrared radiation (although it is not visible to the naked human eye) can be detected using another NVG, and the fact of observation will be detected.

Many devices combine both principles, acting as passive devices in the presence of at least some natural radiation, and in the complete absence of light, switching to infrared illumination.

It is easier to implement a home-made design using the active principle, so further we will talk about such devices.

How to illuminate a target with an infrared beam?

There are also two main schemes here. The first assumes that a laser or LED is used for illumination, which emits infrared light with a wavelength invisible to the normal eye. The laser generates a very narrow beam, in addition, it operates in short pulse mode, which makes the illumination noticeably less detectable.

Such schemes are quite compact, but illuminate the area only within a fairly narrow cone. The visibility of such a scheme is limited, so it will be more difficult to detect targets against the background of the landscape. Such devices are better suited for tracking targets that have already been detected.

A much wider field of view can be achieved by using an infrared spotlight to illuminate targets. In this device, the lamp is placed in a reflector cone, and the cone aperture is covered by a lens made of material that cuts off all waves except infrared radiation. This type of spotlight illuminates the surrounding area with a wide cone, creating a sufficient field of view. The range at which you can notice a target and distinguish it against the background of the landscape depends on the power of the lamp and can reach up to half a kilometer for the best factory samples.

How to convert infrared rays into visible light or see the invisible?

Once we have created an area of ​​infrared illumination, the question arises: how to detect the IR rays reflected from the target if we cannot see them with our eyes? To do this, you will need a device called an electron-optical converter (EOC). The image intensifier performs the following actions with infrared light:

• Collects infrared radiation emitted by the illuminator and reflected from the target.
• Converts captured light into a stream of electrons.
• Strengthens the flow of electrons using an amplifier (not all image intensifiers have this capability).
• Converts a stream of electrons into light visible to the eye of an observer or recorded by a video camera.

Today, several generations of image intensifier tube designs have already changed. Each subsequent generation gives an increasingly better picture, but the price also increases significantly, which is associated with the use of increasingly complex and expensive components in the design. At the same time, even first-generation converters create an image of quite acceptable quality, suitable for solving many problems.

What will you need to make it yourself?

To make glasses we need several components:

• Device that captures IR light. Any camera that has a night mode can play this role. It is clear that the camera should not be too expensive, otherwise its use in the design will be unprofitable. For a night device that lacks stars from the sky, a webcam is suitable, but it will require a little modification. You need to remove the infrared lens from it - an IR wave filter. Now the camera can be used in night mode using infrared illumination.
• Infrared wave source. To do this, you can use a ready-made infrared flashlight (the simplest, but most expensive option). If you don’t have enough budget, you can use a regular LED from a TV remote control as IR illumination. Its power is not enough for constructing an image at long distances, but for illuminating, say, a staircase or other similar space, the light will be quite enough.
• Power supply. It is desirable that it be sufficiently scarce and provide decent autonomy for the device. AA and AAA batteries or accumulators look good in this role. For more complex stationary devices, you can also take care of a device that provides power from a household electrical network.
• Auxiliary elements- the last group of things needed to create homemade night vision goggles. They are not directly involved in creating the image, but they protect the circuit from dust and dirt or increase the comfort of use. It is worth taking care of some kind of pencil case as a case and a bracket for attaching to glasses or a helmet-mask from a headlamp. The bracket can be made, for example, from parts of a children's metal construction set.

The details are ready. What's next?

A black and white micro camera, for example, JK 007B or JK-926A, can be used as a device that will catch IR light. We are looking for a simple video finder for the camera. If you don’t have anything suitable in your supplies, you can pick up an inexpensive part from a consumer electronics repair service. It is important that the video finder receives video using the same protocols in which the microcamera creates it.

We purchase IR LEDs in a store or online. The purchased diode must be checked by looking at its light in a dark room with the naked eye and using a night camera. In the first case, the light should not be visible, but in the second, it should be clearly visible. Now we mount the tested LEDs in any box that will serve as a housing (for example, a children's plastic pencil case).

Foreign amateur designers recommend a circuit of two garlands of six diodes each. As a shunt - a resistor with a resistance of 10 Ohms for all diodes. Now you can supply power from a regular battery. When using another LED, check the shunt value using reference books.

The camera lens must be placed in the same plane as the LEDs (in the same housing). We attach the video finder to the side, connect the power and place the assembled device on the frame or helmet mask. Now our device is ready, and we can try it for night monitoring.

As you can see, with a little skill and knowledge of how to get down to business, you can assemble a fully functional night vision device with your own hands. Of course, before assembling, it’s also a good idea to familiarize yourself with the prices of commercially available devices, so as not to reinvent the wheel, but to use a factory solution if the cost benefit is not too large.

Optics/NVD

Today we will not touch on the medieval alchemical method to make a night vision device with our own hands. This is, of course, simple if you have sulfuric acid and a little tin chloride at home, but we think this approach is somewhat dangerous. Therefore, the work plan for today is as follows: we will briefly discuss the principle of operation of a night vision device, we will tell you what it can be assembled from if you cannot sit still, perhaps we will make a short excursion into the topic of what is available in the store in this area.

The night vision device includes:

1. Converter of infrared radiation to video signal.
2. A kind of eyepiece that could display the signal in real time.
3. Backlight.

The store has many devices that allow you to shoot in the dark. A night vision device should obviously be based on one of them. A black and white micro camera will do just fine. It is not very cheap, but you can use it for something else if you get tired of the night vision device. An example of such devices is JK 007B or JK-926A. The main thing is that the device has a video output, and any camera has it, otherwise why would it be needed at all! The purchase price should not greatly exceed the store price of the night vision device (see above), otherwise greed will stifle it. Take comfort in the fact that our device will be able to record, and this costs even more money on the counter.

You need to find an old viewfinder. To do this, you can go to a salon that repairs household appliances if you don’t have suitable equipment at home. The viewfinder must have a video input using the same protocol as the camera transmits.

This question can not only be clarified with local professionals, but also checked there by connecting the devices with a cable. If everything works, then all that remains is to buy the backlight. Order LEDs online or buy them at your nearest market. How to check? We also have a video camera for shooting at night. Go into the dark, turn on the power and see if the radio element glows. To do this, just point the video camera at him.

A foreign do-it-yourself enthusiast recommends combining a dozen LEDs in garlands of 6 pieces per branch. They must be equipped with a 10-ohm shunt for the entire bunch, after which power can be supplied from a regular battery. It is difficult to reverse the polarity, but just in case, use a special reference book for LEDs. The backlight block is ready. LEDs are mounted on any case, it can be an ordinary children's pencil case or something else of the same kind.

Actually, everything is ready. It is necessary to connect the camera and viewfinder with a video cable, and place the lens in the same plane as the LEDs. Considering the size of the devices, they can fit into one pencil case. The viewfinder is mounted on the side. For the recording device, you will need to install the appropriate connector into the housing. Night vision devices from China cannot compare with ours! Here's how it works:

1. The night camera captures your surroundings.
2. LEDs illuminate objects for better visibility.
3. The viewfinder begins to receive an image visible to the eye.
4. If necessary, registration is carried out through a special connector.

Don’t be surprised if distant objects are not visible; the LED beams cannot reach them. Such a night vision device also has disadvantages: there are no glasses, the cost of new all components is quite high, it is necessary to purchase batteries and place them in the housing. But we explained in simple language the principle of operation of the device. Our goal was to show how to make a night vision device from improvised materials. However, there are probably a couple of reagents lying around in the chemistry lab. Try talking to the teacher!

Shop night vision devices

The Cyclops night vision device is so named because it has a monocular instead of glasses. This would be just what a one-eyed giant would need. Like all others, this night vision device is characterized by three parameters:

1. Resolution in arc minutes. That smallest part of the viewing sphere that can still be distinguished from the neighboring one.
2. Gain.
3. Line of sight.

For the devices to work, at least a faint reflection of the stars is enough, and if the Moon rises in the sky, the picture will become completely clear. These celestial bodies will illuminate the landscape no worse than the LEDs we talked about above. Of course, if you look at the sky, you can study Ursa Major and Ursa Minor, but all this will be filled with a whitish glow.

The Zenith monocular night vision device has a built-in backlight and a piezoelectric energy converter for power supply. There are also scopes under this brand, so don’t confuse one with the other. There is a lens adjustment especially for people with poor vision. These are already night vision goggles for reading in the dark!

NPF Dipol also produces night vision devices, but they are not affordable. However, you need to look at what exactly the device is for. If you have the opportunity to pay about 190 thousand rubles for glasses, then for this money you can buy from Belarusians a real cool device for viewing the surroundings at night.

Operating principle of a night vision device

The eye is a passive radar, that is, it receives radiation that comes from objects. But the visible spectrum is only a small range of vibrations on the body of the universe that surround us. In particular, the predator from the film of the same name could switch ranges, but even he could not see the whole picture! The eye cannot see in the dark because we cannot observe infrared radiation. All bodies will emit waves, especially at low temperatures. Therefore, the first night vision device is emerging. He has nothing to do with the military. Builders use it.

Meet the thermal imager, which receives thermal radiation from objects. The device itself is not designed to see in the dark, but you can see something on it. It has a number of settings, but in a typical state:

• temperature of about 10 degrees Celsius heat appears orange glow;
• the walls of the houses look reddish;
• The surrounding inanimate nature can have a variety of shades, even black.

It is unlikely that you will be able to assemble a thermal imager with your own hands, but it is quite possible to buy it for 50 thousand. And for seven thousand you can buy a night vision device (NVD) in a store. Usually there is no point in taking a thermal imager specifically for vigil in the dark, because it serves builders, for example, for the purpose of assessing the quality of thermal insulation work. But if you find a foreman you know, then you can, of course, admire nature in the dark.

The circuit of the night vision device is also based on these processes, but in order not to irritate the eye with such an unusual rainbow, inside the factory product there is a transparent plate covered with semiconductor material, which, due to the internal photoelectric effect, allows you to “see” infrared radiation from objects.

For reference. The photoelectric effect is the phenomenon of the transition of electrons in a material to new energy levels under the influence of photons of light. Strictly speaking, it is incorrect to use this term for invisible radiation, but this is how it is used in the literature, so we will not contradict other sources in any way.

Under the influence of invisible “photons,” the electrons in the plate gain energy. Information can be read by changes in the transparency of the material or its conductivity. In particular, microchannel technology for manufacturing sensitive elements makes it possible to avoid illumination on neighboring pixels. The Nazis were the first to approach the solution of the problem. Many talented scientists worked for them. Some voluntarily, others, according to some sources, were forced. A scope was even created for a rifle weighing 2.25 kg with a suitcase of batteries (13.5 kg). This would probably have made it possible to accomplish many feats (or crimes) if Soviet troops had not taken Berlin in May 1945.

Sometimes the radiation is further amplified, for example, by photomultipliers. This allows you to get a brighter and more contrasting picture in a night vision device. But often there is not enough external radiation, and then illumination in the infrared range is used. Lamps can also be used for this, but most often semiconductor diodes of a special type are used. You can find these in any store. By the way, the coherence of LED radiation is very high. This means that interference will not affect the picture quality.

For reference. Coherence refers to the concept of being in phase with a wave. It doesn't matter what this means - we need to know that such light is concentrated in a very narrow part of the spectrum, and in addition it is easily combined, giving greater brightness than any other sources of radiation. As a result, you can get high-quality illumination at low power. (See also: The principle of operation of a night vision device)

So, night vision devices are divided as follows:

1. By the nature of the impact on the environment:
   1. Active with LED backlight.
   2. Passive, receiving only radiation from other objects.
2. According to the method of processing the received signal:
   1. With amplification.
   2. No gain.
3. Based on the presence of a drive:
   1. Registrants.
   2. Not registering.

Well, that’s all we need to know to assemble a night vision device with our own hands.

Any body has the ability to emit or reflect IR (infrared) rays. The “NVD” (night vision device) developed in 1984 by the German company “Elektrisch Manufactur” is built on this principle. This device is based on the internal photoelectric effect. When projecting an IR image, the electrical conductivity of the irradiated areas of the photosemiconductor (2) (see Fig. 1) changes and a potential distribution is created on the adjacent electroluminescent layer (4) corresponding to the distribution of image brightness on the photoconductor (2). To carry out this process, it is necessary to apply an alternating voltage of 250-500 Volts with a frequency of 400-3000 Hz and a current of no more than 10 mA to the outermost transparent electrodes

So, let's start making NVGs. The chemical elements necessary for the manufacture of the device can be obtained from any school chemistry laboratory or chemical laboratory of any enterprise. To begin with, let's take two glass plates, tin chloride SnClz, silver, zinc sulfide ZnS (crystalline) and copper. Keep the glasses in a mixture of H2SO4 and K2Cr2O7 (potassium dichromate) for 4 hours. Dry. Then take a porcelain cup, put SnCl2 in it and place it in a muffle (or electric) furnace. Fix the glass above it at a distance of 7-10cm. Cover the cup with a metal plate and turn on the oven. Once it warms up to 400-480 degrees, remove the metal plate. As soon as a thin conductive coating is formed, turn off the oven and leave the glass in it until it cools completely. Check the coverage with a tester.

Then coat one of these wafers with a photosemiconductor. To do this, prepare equal amounts of a 3% solution of thiocarbamide Na4 C(S)NH2 and a 6% solution of lead acetate. Pour both solutions into a glass container. Using tweezers, insert a glass plate into the solution and hold it vertically. But before that, apply varnish to the side free from the conductive coating. Wearing rubber gloves, pour concentrated alkali solution to the top into the vessel with the plates /carefully!!/ and stir very carefully with a glass rod without touching the plates. After 10 minutes, remove the plate (carefully) and wash it under running distilled water. Dry.

Turn on the oven and place the silver in a clean porcelain cup. Repeat the process described above at 900 degrees. The coating is applied to the photosemiconductor wafer. Get a mirror film. To make a phosphor, prepare pure ZnS crystals. If there are any impurities, the brightness of the glow drops sharply or disappears. Prepare the oven. Place pure copper in a porcelain cup. Crystals of copper and ZnS should be as small as possible. Maintain the proportion of ZnS - 100%, Cu (copper) - 10%. In the furnace, circulate copper vapor and pass it through the gaps between the crystals. The resulting crystals should not be ground under any circumstances. You should get a colorless powder. Mix tsapon varnish with crystals. Take the minimum amount of varnish possible. Pour the mixture onto the plate with a layer of silver and wait until it completely spreads and forms a smooth surface. Place a second sheet of conductive coating on top of the varnish and press lightly. After drying, seal the resulting NVD. Before all these operations, after applying the conductive coating, wires should be soldered as leads along the edges of the plates.

Now all you have to do is assemble the high voltage generator circuit and assemble it all into a single housing. It can be of any shape. But the one proposed by the developer is still recommended (see Fig. 2). The lens can be from any camera, preferably short-focus, for example from "FED", "Smena-M". Any biconvex lens can serve as an eyepiece. After final assembly, check all connections for correct connection and tightness. When you turn on the NVD, the transformer should beep quietly. If the image does not appear, do not despair. Change generator frequency or voltage level. Set sensitivity to maximum.

Resistor R2 changes the frequency of the generator.
The transformer is wound on any core and contains:
Winding I contains 2000 - 2500 turns, wires - 0.05 - 0.1 mm;
Winding II contains 60 turns;
Winding III - 26 turns, wires - 0.3 mm.