The ability of each physical body to reflect IR lies. This action is possible due to the internal photoelectric effect, which appears under certain conditions.
Knowing this feature, you can make a night vision device with your own hands. To do this, you should stock up on certain chemical elements.
How to make a night vision device at home?
You need to take two small glass plates, as well as the compound SnCl2, silver, ZnS and copper. It is necessary to heat the glass in a solution of sulfuric acid and dichromate for about four hours. After this they should be dried thoroughly.
Then you need to put tin chloride in a porcelain cup and place it above it at a distance of 10 centimeters, you need to attach pieces of glass, cover the container with a metal plate and turn on the heating device.
As soon as the oven warms up to 450 degrees, you need to take the plate and make sure that a conductive thin coating has formed on it. The glasses should be placed on the table to cool.
We continue to create a night vision device with our own hands. Next, you need to apply a photosemiconductor to one of the plates. To do this you will need a certain solution. You can make it as follows: take three percent thiocarbamide and six percent lead acetate. These solutions should be placed in a glass vessel. Using tweezers, dip a glass plate into the mixture, holding it vertically. But, before doing this, you need to apply varnish to the side not covered with a conductive coating. Next, after putting it on, pour the alkali solution into the container with the plates to the very top and carefully stir the contents of the container with a glass rod. In this case, it is advisable not to touch the glass. After 10 minutes, the plate must be removed and washed in distilled water.
To further create a night vision device with your own hands, you need to thoroughly dry the pieces of glass. To do this, turn on the oven, place Ag (silver) in a clean porcelain cup and repeat the above process, but at a temperature of 900 degrees. After this, the wafer with the semiconductor should be coated so that a mirror film is formed.
We prepare the phosphor. Again you need to turn on the oven and place copper and zinc acetate in a proportion of 10 * 100 into a porcelain bowl. It is very important that the crystals of the elements are as small as possible.
Under the influence of heat, copper vapor will circulate, which will then be able to penetrate into the spaces between the zinc crystals. The resulting substance should not be broken under any circumstances. The result should be a white powder. Next, you need to mix the varnish with the crystals, pour the solution onto the plate (on the silver layer) and wait until the mixture spreads evenly, forming a smooth surface. Then a second plate with a conductive coating should be placed on the varnish. When everything is dry, the practical ready-made night vision device with your own hands needs to be sealed. After this, it is necessary to apply a conductive coating and solder along the edges of the wiring plates for the leads.
How to make a night vision device? Assembly
All that remains is to purchase a generator and place all the components in one housing. Its shape can be arbitrary.
The lens for the device can be borrowed from any camera, but it is better to use a short-focus lens (they can be found in Smena-8M and FED cameras). Any lens is suitable for the eyepiece, but it must be biconvex.
Having put everything together, you need to check all connections for strength. When the device is turned on, a thin squeak should be heard. It is also necessary to adjust the voltage level, generator frequency and sensitivity.
Do you dream of seeing in the dark like a cat and remaining invisible to others? Night vision goggles will help you fulfill this desire. This device is used in various fields, for example:
- for all kinds of search operations;
- for the professional activities of security guards, police officers, military personnel and drivers, who often have to repair equipment on the roads in complete darkness;
- for those who like to photograph or videotape wildlife at night.
Night vision goggles can be bought at the store, however, they are very expensive. An alternative solution is to make them yourself at home. Try to recall your knowledge of chemistry and physics, and then it will be easier for you to understand how to make night vision goggles yourself. Find literature, read information, prepare.
Step-by-step instruction
Take 2 glass plates and immerse them in a solution of sulfuric acid (for about 4 hours). Then dry the glasses and fix them above a porcelain cup at a height of at least 10 cm (you should put tin chloride in the container). Now place all this in the cup. First place a metal plate on the cup.
Preheat oven to at least 470 degrees Celsius. Remove the plate quickly. Now carefully monitor the changes occurring in the glass. They will gradually begin to become covered with a thin film that conducts current.
Turn off the stove and let the glass cool. Apply varnish to the side of the glass where there is no conductive film and dip the glass in a solution of thiacarbamide and lead acetate. Then pour the alkali concentrate here, gently stirring the resulting liquid. After 15 minutes, carefully remove the glasses from the cup.
Place the same cup in the oven, but now pour the silver solution into it. Place glass above it.
Preheat the oven to 900 degrees. A mirror film should gradually appear on the plate.
To obtain a colorless crystalline powder, mix copper and ZnS (10:100) in a cup and heat the mixture in an oven.
Take Tsapon varnish (for the binder) and mix with the powder. Now drop this mixture onto the plate and let the drop spread. Make sure the coating is even. Connect the two plates by slightly squeezing them, dry them, and at the end of the process, check the sealing of the resulting device. Night vision goggles are ready.
Don't forget to assemble the high voltage generator circuit!
Now all that remains is to connect everything. Take the lens for the device from the camera, and for the eyepiece - a biconvex lens.
After checking all connections, you can start connecting. You will understand that everything is working normally by the characteristic squeak of the transformer.
For a clearer image, it is necessary to change both the generator frequency and voltage levels several times.
If you succeed, then you won’t have to spend a lot of money on night vision goggles buying them in a store.
In this article you will learn how to make a real night vision device with a monitor with your own hands. This homemade device has quite good characteristics and will definitely come in handy in the household, well, almost anyone can assemble it!
To make the device you will need:
- 3D glasses with lenses
- Car monitor good quality with a small diagonal.
- Rechargeable batteries from a video camera, Samsung type 4 pcs. 3.5 V each.
- Two video cameras, one of which has very good sensitivity for night work
- Two IR illumination
You can watch the homemade video at the end of the article!
This is what the monitor we need for homemade looks like:
Two cameras, one for close-up viewing and the other for far-viewing.
The IR illuminator, purchased on Aliexpress, consists of a round board with a hole in the center and two rows of IR diodes. I left a link to them at the beginning of the article. By the way, you can purchase a backlight in a frame, and then disassemble it if you can’t find a suitable one. These boards will be attached to the glasses as shown in the photo below.
The monitor will be mounted into the glasses as follows:
Manufacturing of night vision devices NVD
We first check how the equipment works. I connect a small video camera to the monitor, supply 12 V - everything is fine. The monitor shows the image transmitted by the camera
I install the monitor from which the stand leg is removed into 3D glasses. I remove the partition, excess filling and lenses. I used a 3D printer to print an extension for the frame of the glasses to make it comfortable for my eyes to look at the monitor. The surface of the extension was not entirely smooth due to the printing speed of the printer, but this does not really matter.
I burned holes in the body of the glasses and secured the entire structure with plastic ties. For reliability, I fixed it with “Second” glue.
I carefully cut off the fastenings that were on the body of the glasses and transferred them to the lid so that it could open and not fall down. I also secured the hinges on the lid with zip ties. I also screwed in a small screw to give additional strength to the structure and the ability to unscrew it and get inside the device for repair or replacement of parts.
On the front side of the device I attach a small video camera between two LED lights. I fix the larger camera on top using mounts printed on a 3D printer, into which I screw small screws. Everything is held securely.
For the LED backlight, I also 3D printed mounts in such a shape that the side partitions would cover the camera and prevent it from being blinded by the LEDs.
The front camera and LED backlight are mounted on glue. The wires from the LEDs are secured with ties and routed into the housing through a drilled hole. I installed control buttons on the body (on/off and switching to the far or near camera), and connected the wires to them. On the body I also placed a joystick, which is responsible for the settings of the distant camera.
As a power source, I used 4 batteries from Samsung video cameras, each 3.5 V.
The batteries are fixed with tape into a single block, the wires from them converge in the connector. The connector indicates which wire is which, as well as the plus and minus. The battery is connected to the device using a homemade plug, in which the wires soldered in series are fixed with glue and tape. The plug is connected to the battery connector, the plug is connected to the night vision device.
There are still some problems with recharging batteries. First, the first battery in the block is charged for an hour, then the charger is rearranged and the next one is charged. We still need to think about this problem.
First short-range camera:
I tested the device at night. If the near camera does not produce a good quality image, then the far one does its job perfectly. Houses, passing vehicles, and people are clearly visible. And in the forest it will be perfectly possible to see a hare, a wolf, and our owl. Actually, I'm going to watch the owls.
Long range camera:
Similar
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.
How to make a night vision device from a mobile phone? Surely your friends will be very surprised when you show them that your mobile phone camera works in complete darkness.
Necessary materials:
1. Mobile phone;
2. Screwdrivers, sewing needle or pin;
3. Infrared diodes and resistor;
4. Power supply 9-12v.
And so, let's get to work. First of all, we disassemble the mobile phone and get to the camera, which we will also disassemble.
In this phone model, the camera has autofocus, they are more difficult to disassemble, but I can tell you that I carefully disassembled everything with a knife (yes, yes, there were no screwdrivers of such small sizes).
Now the main thing is to find the infrared lens. Practice has shown that they are easy to identify by their shape. They are square or rectangular, the rest of the lenses are round, so you won’t get confused.
I removed the lens with a needle. Everything turned out to be much easier than I thought. The lens itself was not glass, but plastic, and I removed it with a needle very easily, without even damaging it.
After removing the lens, we put the camera and phone back together.
Now we need infrared light for the camera to work in the dark; the human eye does not perceive it, but your converted mobile phone now does).
The simplest option I used was to buy 4 IR diodes, connect them in series with a resistor, and power them from 12V. Well, I put them in a box for beauty.
For those who don’t know, such IR diodes are found in TV remote controls and other remote controls. Well, if you have an IR flashlight, then this is simply ideal, since the camera will see tens of meters.
