- Joined
- Jun 26, 2012
- Messages
- 3
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Hello all, first of all let me applogize if I have posted in the wrong section, as this is my first post. I have been researching building my own long distance night vision (looking for something that will reach out to no less than 100yds, preferably more in the range of 300yds - the wider the view the better). I'm not terribly worried about it being eye safe, as I don't plan to ever employ it in an urban environment (I would like to use it for predator hunting - something that is legal at night in my state). I am very experienced in the various realms of electronics and mechanics, so repackaging digital camera internals into an eye apparatus (or preferably a dual eye apparatus) should be quite easy for me. This however leaves me with the choice of the IR light source that I will use.
When first tossing around ideas in my head I decided that normal IR LEDs would be insufficient for much more than lighting a large room, which lead me to think that an defocused IR laser would be my best bet. So here I am wondering what the best source is. I have read that CD writers generally have an IR laser diode in the 60mw range (I have since gutted 3 spare ones here at work and have been playing with them a bit), but then I have to source optics as well and good optics are not cheap, especially when you don't know exactly what you need, not to mention the fact that I'm not sure if 60mw is bright enough for what i'm trying to do. The other obvious option would be to get an IR laser pointer with an adjustable lens, which would offer several advantages: possibly brighter than 60mw, built in optics, built in driver. I do not know, however, if the built in optics would even spread the beam to the width that I'm looking for.
Any recommendations?
When first tossing around ideas in my head I decided that normal IR LEDs would be insufficient for much more than lighting a large room, which lead me to think that an defocused IR laser would be my best bet. So here I am wondering what the best source is. I have read that CD writers generally have an IR laser diode in the 60mw range (I have since gutted 3 spare ones here at work and have been playing with them a bit), but then I have to source optics as well and good optics are not cheap, especially when you don't know exactly what you need, not to mention the fact that I'm not sure if 60mw is bright enough for what i'm trying to do. The other obvious option would be to get an IR laser pointer with an adjustable lens, which would offer several advantages: possibly brighter than 60mw, built in optics, built in driver. I do not know, however, if the built in optics would even spread the beam to the width that I'm looking for.
Any recommendations?