I assume someone out there bought more of these as they came up on surplus, and since it was hard for me to figure out, it must be hard for others. So, since I have made mine operational, here we go:
First off, the manual. If you can't find it, here's one I found online:
http://shoobe01.homeunix.net/~shoobe01/Probeye/probeyeinstructions.pdf
This is off my home drive, so I am not linking to someone inappropriately.
Mine came with a similar manual. Basically the same, but I mean also with some marginal notes, and lots and lots of other operational paperwork. Like, how to transport it by air (the case says "ARGON" on all six sides, cause the service got in trouble for air transporting without proper labels once) and so on.
Oh, this was employed for wildland fire fighting by the Ashland District. Still has lots of marks on it about that, and the operations paperwork is around using it to find hotspots post forest fire and so on.
If you don't want to read the manual, it's basically got imaging electronics that spin around to generate a scanned image. There are two NiCd batteries (one for electronics, one for the motor that spins everything), in watertight compartments accessed from the bottom of the unit. They are not intended to be serviced, but can easily be accessed, and are attached with wires with connectors. They are still in great shape (though the unit was serviced in the early 90s) but overall should be trivial to upgrade or replace when when they go bad.
There is a charger with a many-pin plug. Charging takes overnight (cannot recall if it's 8 or 12 hours, but it's got leeway). The battery lasts so long I get bored timing it, so have never figured it out. Longer than three gas cylinders fully charged, so certainly longer than I need, and longer than it should.
The unit came with three small gas cylinders. These are clamped to the bottom of the imager unit, then attached with a gas fitting. A wrench is required to get it tight enough. There is, usefully, an arrow to remind you which way is loose (and therefore, the other way is tight). The gas cools a Cryostat, which keeps the sensors at whatever temperature they need to be.
The cylinders use super-pure Argon. This is available from Airgas, but they often do not know this, so you have to insist they do have it. It's then suddenly easy to get. The cylinders originally were rated at 5000 psi, and with the size (and the part where the certification is years out of date) means anyone who deals in gas freaks out and wants nothing to do with you. I have lately noticed that the cylinders are now certified for 3800 psi.
At 5000 psi, you supposedly get 4 hours of operation, but I now believe I get more than that at lower pressures, so this is good, but drove me to try to get to original specs for a long time. This was a mistake. Also, the fittings are annoying. It turns out what the cylinders have is a compression fitting. Since each compression is a destructive fit, there is a thing called a Port Converter or Port Connector. Google it. It's a machined stub of steel that fits just like a piece of pipe and a compression ring. Any 1/4" one will fit to fill the gas cylinders.
I have now settled on argon in a convenient tank (cannot recall the size, but it's like 2 ft tall) which goes to 2450 psi when new, and use that to fill the cylinders. To get to 5000 psi from the tank needs one of those 5 ft tall ones you need a dolly to move. And may not be necessary, as well as presumably is more dangerous pressure.
I have a pressure gauge and some downfittings and a hose I got from a nice set of guys who equip the bar industry and so on (Foxx, on SW Blvd here in Kansas City). Actually, for a lot of this work, I drove around and saw a dozen different industrial suppliers, and got some of the obscure $25 fittings for free, because I want ONE, and it's closing time.
The hose was for the theory of running it with a remote setup. Just plugged the hose into the imager body where the gas cylinder goes with a female compression fitting. This worked... poorly. Some latency thing I don't get means it needs forever to get to operating pressure and cool the unit, and it only works down to about 2300 psi tank pressure.
Instead, I finally got enough high pressure stainless port converters and adapters on sale to fill the tanks. This works much better. I am not totally done with my checking of pressures, but so far filling a zero pressure tank (some idiots opened the valve) to 1550 psi does operate the device. So, that's good and it's much less twitchy than I thought it would be.
Okay, onto the imager review proper:
First, OH MY GOD IS THERMAL COOL!!!!! It's everything I expected, and is in no way related to any other night vision type of imaging. It's so weird seeing heat, but not light (at all!) and not seeing through glass, and so on. But to specifics.
* Clarity / focus - The operating controls are odd. Soft dials, much like a 70s Hi Fi control focus, brightness (gain) and contrast (white level, I think) over very wide ranges. Means you can do some neat things, but also means small changes have huge effects. When dialed it, amazing. You can see individual furs on the pets, and how their fur works as an insulator, seeing heat coming off different layers.
There is a bit of suspension of disbelief; the six LEDs scanning the visible image leave a notable gap between them. And the total line count is insanely low. If you look at it directly, it makes no sense, but somehow becomes a fully-resolved image if you look through it.
Field of view is low, so it's hard to use at close range. That also means its effectively zoomed, so it's easy to watch a single vehicle at a hundred yards, and find aircraft at a few miles.
The images shown at the links or embedded are in NO WAY representative of the imager. It's very... odd in some way, no one I know (better photographers than me) can manage to get a good shot through it.
Focus is a little more forgiving than PVS-7, MiNi-14 and D300. An out of focus image is clearly an out of focus image, vs a total blur festival. You can see enough to center the interesting area in order to get focus.
* Image constrast under various lighting conditions - External conditions do not have the usual effects, but in full heat of summer people can disappear. In general, it is very difficult to use to walk around, say in full darkness. On 100° days, or 0° days, when there has been time for everything to soak to the temperature, it can be hard to differentiate between items. However, it is generally possible to use the brightness and gain controls to get this worked out; sorta like the way you have to constantly change focus with a normal head-mounted NOD as you look at your feet, vs. down the trail.
* Ergonomics of the unit - Poor! It's large, heavy and ungainly. There is a handle on the right side, and holding it by that, and then sorta having a hand on the left is the only way to hold it. The focus control can be found on the right, but is not exactly under hand naturally. To move from power to contrast to brightness requires moving the left hand.
The eyepiece lens is very recessed, so you have to shove your eye into the eyecup. A setup more like a spotting scope, with an extension and the option for angled extensions, would have been more sensible. It does not work if you wear glasses, but the general imager focus is on the observer side, so functions to adjust to your eyesight and has, as I said, much range, so should work fine.
The tripod mount is mis-machined. Though it's a normal 1/4" screw, it's drilled too shallow, and is into a protrusion that prevents any normal shoe from gaining traction, so it wobbles constantly. I intend to make a special adapter to solve this.
* As great as it is, do you notice any flaws in the unit -- Clearly, piezo-cooled units are gonna be easier to use, and more compact, but they are still $8000 and up, and this is apparently impossibly rugged and forgiving of much abuse. Now that I am feeding it well, I could not be much happier for the relatively tiny amount of money spent on it.
* If you have a camera adapter take some pictures and upload them to the forum - My few photos are up here:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/shoobe01/tags/probeye650/
I am still working on getting good photos thru the unit. And... I ran out of gas last night, and Airgas has no weekend hours, so I have to wait till monday to experiment more with photography. If interested, respond here or PM and I'll post more stuff. Else, I will probably forget about it.
