Drone pro issues?

A place to introduce yourself, chat about anything and put forward suggestions.
Instructions on how to add your location and photographs.
phoenix
BRUCE ALMIGHTY
Posts: 9536
Joined: 09 May 2012, 14:40
Location: Aberdeen

Re: Drone pro issues?

Post by phoenix » 28 Jul 2017, 17:35

Rule 1 - Don't buy a laser!!!!
Buy an 850nm LED illuminator which uses the Osram Oslon AS LED with more than one power setting.
3 mode (lo/med/hi) are common and allow you to match the brightness to the range you are shooting at.
Also, most IR illuminators have adjustable front lenses so that the beam produced can be altered from flood to spot.
Normally you would adjust the tightness of the beam so that all the IR being produced falls within the field of view of the scope.
However, for long range targets it's likely that the beam would need to be tightened to it's maximum so that there is enough IR to illuminate the target satisfactorily.
You'll see illuminators frequently marketed with a number in their description eg TR38/B52/T66/TR70/T74
The number refers to the diameter of the lens at the front of the illuminator and, as a general rule, the larger the lens, the tighter the beam can be made, and thus the farther it can illuminate potential targets.
The downsides of big lenses are price and weight, so you need to decide how far you want to shoot - and more importantly see far enough to ensure that the shot is safe
I hesitate to specify a single illuminator because there are several people making very good illuminators that will work well with the Drone Pro
Here are some you might want to consider (there may well be others that I'm not familiar with)
Night Vision Store - click on the ad at the top of the page
Ludicrous Lumens https://www.ludicrous-lumens.co.uk/coll ... torches-ir
IR Light builds https://en-gb.facebook.com/Ir.light.builds/
The mount should fit onto a Picatinny rail (there are two sections of rail on the Drone Pro - top and side) and it should have some means of adjustment so that the illuminator can be aligned with the scope. it should also be high enough so that the lens of the illuminator doesn't hit the body of the scope.
Burris Signature Zee rings are very good. Once the illuminator is correctly aligned and these rings tightened onto the illuminator, the repeatability is excellent. There are other similar types of rings but I can't remember all the names.
These are also very good http://www.customriflescopes.com/shop.h ... y=13698045
Avoid this type of adjustable mount, they don't keep the illuminator in a fixed position once adjusted http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Adjustable-Fl ... Sw4A5YxRAP
Hope that helps

Cheers

Bruce
LAND ROVER - THE WORLD'S WORST 4X4 BY FAR

6.5shooternv
Posts: 32
Joined: 11 Oct 2015, 14:00
Location: Northern Ireland

Re: Drone pro issues?

Post by 6.5shooternv » 26 Aug 2017, 08:16

Bruce,
Reading back theough this thread im just curious to why you dont recomend a laser illuminator over an led illuminator?
Thanks

phoenix
BRUCE ALMIGHTY
Posts: 9536
Joined: 09 May 2012, 14:40
Location: Aberdeen

Re: Drone pro issues?

Post by phoenix » 26 Aug 2017, 09:43

Two main reasons
1. Eye safety
2. "Dirty" beam

The human eye is not sensitive to the wavelengths we use for NV - all we see is a dull red glow that does not in any way represent how powerful is the actual light entering our eye.
With normal visible light, a strong light makes us blink or close our eyes to protect them.
Because our eyes are not sensitive to typical IR LED and IR laser wavelengths, we don't blink or close our eyes when we see the dull red glow resulting in the full power of the LED or laser entering our eyes and in the case of a laser probably burning the retina.
Point a laser at a piece of paper and it will soon burn a hole in it. Point an LED at a piece of paper, and you can stand there all day and it still won't burn a hole in it
IR lasers are far more dangerous than IR LEDs because laser light is coherent, while LED light is incoherent.
What that means is that all the photons in a laser beam are "in step" with each other which greatly concentrates the power of the light.
In a beam of IR LED light, the photons are not in step so the power is not nearly so highly concentrated and is much less likely to cause damage to the human eye - although long term repeated exposure will have a detrimental effect
Direct exposure to IR laser is one thing and, if the user is suitably aware, it can be avoided. But there is also the potential problem of exposure via laser light reflected from shiny surfaces, which is much more difficult to avoid.
I know plenty people use IR lasers (particularly with tubed NV) because they're small, lightweight and produce a lot of light for their size.
I've tried several and still have several which one day will be destroyed rather than be sold on.
The safety aspect really worries me and even when out shooting using one and there are cattle and sheep around I worry about blinding them
As I said, I have used IR lasers and putting the safety issues to one side, I always found that the beam they produced was not clean. There would be light and dark spot and swirls of brightness and darkness within the beam
The "dirtiness" of the beam is a function of the quality of the lens used to make the letter box shaped source of laser light (the laser diode) into a circular beam - and in all the lasers I've seen that conversion from rectangular source to circular beam has been far from perfect.
LEDs produce a much cleaner beam because the LED is so small it acts as a point source which is simply pumping IR light into the rear of an aspheric lens. The lens just bends the light so that it comes out of the front of the lens in a parallel beam
In my opinion, there's simply no need to use a laser with digital NV
some tubed NV works better with 780/810nm lasers, but only because there are no LEDs of suitable power available at those wavelengths
We have many fantastic inexpensive IR LED illuminators based on the Osram AS LED which, with the right lens, can provide illumination out to ranges far beyond anyone's capability to shoot safely.
Everyone to their own, but I'm sticking with LEDs

Cheers

Bruce
LAND ROVER - THE WORLD'S WORST 4X4 BY FAR

Durber
Posts: 1
Joined: 14 Dec 2017, 16:00
Location: Lancashire

Re: Drone pro issues?

Post by Durber » 14 Dec 2017, 17:04

Hi guys, can anyone tell me how to connect a drone pro 10x to a pv500 lite 3. I've tried using the av out cable supplied with the pv500 connected to the drone pro cable but the dvr just says "no signal". Any help would be appreciated.
Many thanks
Steve

NATO
Posts: 10
Joined: 16 Nov 2017, 15:25
Location: Essex

Re: Drone pro issues?

Post by NATO » 22 Dec 2017, 08:16

Hi Durber,
I got the same Lawmate DVR and the cable supplied does not work :( nothing wrong with the Drone connection, I ended up cutting an AV lead and soldering on a 2.5 mm AV Jack plug I have a sketch somewhere of which pins to solder it to, but have not worked out a way to upload it :oops: all the references seem to point to photo bucket?

Post Reply