How to make a night vision device

Hi all! This is the composition lying on my table. And what do you think is all this for? Yes, yes, I decided to assemble a night vision device. Let's say, to watch owls at night. I find this very interesting.

I will need

• 3D glasses with lenses;
  
• car monitor good quality with a small diagonal (it cost about $13);
  
• 4 batteries from a video camera, Samsung type;
  
• two video cameras, one of which has very good sensitivity for working at night;
  
• two LED lights.

Here's the monitor.

Two cameras, one for close-up viewing and the other for far-viewing.

Infrared illumination, which I will convert to glasses like this:

The monitor will be mounted into the glasses something like this:

Manufacturing of night vision devices NVD

I 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. Wires from LEDs secured with ties and guided into the body 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:


Like this! I was pleased with the result.

Watch the video