Photon for a new boy.

[SikaStag]

That was the way I understood it - want one of the 5000 generations of Markylight, Contact Ian. I'm happy to be corrected though.
You don't sound gittish at all Anyway, stick and stones may break my bones, but internet posts can only annoy me.
So fire away and correct me as needed. I'll freely admit I'm the one eyed guy with a squint and a bad case of lazy eye leading the blind when I try to help out, so I'm more than willing to be corrected if needed.

your quite right mate. ian will certainly make you a crelant based markylight
i was just pointing out that he does ready to go oslon drop ins for the t20 rather than just supply an led and driver as you said


no offence meant fella's

For the record.

Marky gave me the drawings to make the 50mm Maghead illuminator, not the 66mm Crelant.

Mark's 66mm Crelant illuminator and my 66mm Crelant illuminator are two different illuminators. Sit them side by side and they are not identical. Yes mine has the sliding pill design that Marky developed. I make no secret of that. I give credit where due.
When I made the first 66mm illuminator, Poppy mae was the person that supplied the dimensions for the body of the illuminator. I changed those dimensions shortly after. I have recently changed the dimensions again.

I now have a 9.5mm threaded area for the Crelant head to screw onto. I have the pill not sitting 10mm inside the housing. The pill is virtually level with the end of the housing for the best results I have seen so far. Nothing I have made before gives results as good. A vast improvement from the pill sitting back 10mm into the housing.

The first person to get one of the new spec illuminators is Roland in the USA. He is doing a review on illuminators. I look forward to seeing the outcome of his review.

Also for the record, Marky sent me up a MK4 Markylight to reverse engineer. also a battery torpedo and lastly his mini ranger or what ever it is called. I have not made any of these to date. I am not knocking Marky in this post. I will always be grateful to him for the opportunity to get me started making illuminators.


Ian

[BRYAN3]

Thanks for the replies Folks.

Bryan.

[some bloke]

SOOOOOOoo back on topic then.

The arrival and very rapid uptake of the very affordable Photon has seen a bit of a conundrum for the Ir needed for it. It's gone so topsy turvy that I hear even one of the major NV players has apparently stopped ridiculously pushing the NM800ir for it and are rushing out a smaller/more sensible NM200IR illuminator for it because the 800 is so far over the top with its SFH 4715S Oslon black in it. An IR re-think is well warranted for the Photon.

One of the Photon's minor little niggles that reviewers have seemingly overlooked: The accessory weaver type rail is not parallel to the scope point of aim: It sends the beam to the left of the quarry. Knowledgeable members will have noticed that on a video recently. Any after-market IR mounted to it can be very simply shimmed though, so its not a big problem like if it had cost a lot more - and perhaps that's one of the reasons it is being sold so cheap for all we know.

Whilst an Ir illuminator that was designed to throw enough light towards nocturnal quarry to compensate for all the losses of light passage through a day-scope to a rear add-on rig can be de-focused or zoomed out - it's over gunning the Ir and simply not necessary to lay that much extra light down for the Photon because it can see so much better with less light than rear add-on rigs.

The less obvious bonus of less Ir being laid down is that the overall package can be more covert.

For anyone lacking the knowledge about the amount of difference between what a decent rear add-on NV scope sees and something such as the Photon sees - here is a comparison, watch it on Youtube to read the explanatory text:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VdCSwuAp8hw

[BRYAN3]

Thanks for the replies Folks but I have a question. I am a numb-nuts with the nv thing as have never seen or handled any of it.
I don't even know anyone with any kit.
People have talked about foxes,rabbits etc spooking at the nightvision as if they can see something. Some kit being more visible than other kit. What is it they see

One reason I want nv as opposed to nightlamp is to be stealthy and invisible to nosy members of the public.
Don't get me wrong-I am not a poacher or anything.
Its mainly my bosses wife not wanting to see the bunnywunnies being sent to Jesus.

Please,someone-educate a complete plonker.

Bryan.

[terry1001]

Thanks for the replies Folks but I have a question. I am a numb-nuts with the nv thing as have never seen or handled any of it.
I don't even know anyone with any kit.
People have talked about foxes,rabbits etc spooking at the nightvision as if they can see something. Some kit being more visible than other kit. What is it they see

One reason I want nv as opposed to nightlamp is to be stealthy and invisible to nosy members of the public.
Don't get me wrong-I am not a poacher or anything.
Its mainly my bosses wife not wanting to see the bunnywunnies being sent to Jesus.

Please,someone-educate a complete plonker.

Bryan.

It's difficult to know just what animals can see but most seem to be almost blind to ir light and not too bothered by visible red either. Even humans 'see' the dim glow from an ir light differently. As the wavelength of light increases from red through to near infra red it becomes less obvious to human sight but will be more easily noticed if the torch is being waved about. NV cameras are less sensitive to the longer wavelengths which may need higher power outputs to be effective. The most common wavelength for cctv and nv cameras is 850nm while the 900nm+ units are more covert. I would think that a 850nm lamp would be a reasonable compromise for most uses.
It would be good to have a NV meet in East Anglia, most are a bit too far away. There are several users on this forum who are based in E Anglia, if you're not too far away you could have a look at some of the bits I have but there are guys with some really sophisticated kit which is much more effective than mine ( as you might guess sophisticated = expensive).

[Marky610]

It would be good to have a NV meet in East Anglia, most are a bit too far away. There are several users on this forum who are based in E Anglia, if you're not too far away you could have a look at some of the bits I have but there are guys with some really sophisticated kit which is much more effective than mine ( as you might guess sophisticated = expensive).

I'm planning one around October/November time

[BRYAN3]

Thanks Terry.
The verdict is still out for me. I have the Photon on order so am waiting to get into it.
I was just wondering if I will be spotted walking the guvnors lawns. If I understand correctly,some people can see some IR.
Do they just see the lens if it is directed toward them,or do they see the actual beam. I always thought the things were actualy covert. Anyway its going to be very interesting in a few weeks time.
It was a bit disconcerting to read a post last night about some of the faults with the Photon. The most annoying being the fixing point for supplementary Ir being out of true causing the light to slew to the left,WTF.
You are correct in saying there should be a nightvission field meet in EA. We do seem to miss out a lot.

Bryan.

[BRYAN3]

Arise Sir Marky.

[sunndog]

bryan, its not that some people can see it mate. everyone can see a 850nm led its just not very bright

for an approximation get someone to puff on a fag whilst holding a magnifying glass in front of it and yer about there

ps.
note to other members (you know who you are)
no jokes about my use of the word "fag" please.....you're better than that

pps.
LMAO!

[terry1001]

Good news on the proposed local meet, I'm happy to offer any assistance I can if it will be any help.
I haven't tried using the accessory rail yet, it's not unusual to require an adjustable torch mount. The collimation of the scope is altered by zeroing to the rifle and therefore it is almost certain that the rail and scope won't be 100% aligned. Since the Photon requires very little extra ir it won't be essential to use a tightly focussed beam so if the torch is slightly zoomed out there should still be decent illumination on the target, if not then an adjustable torch mount will sort the issue simply enough.
As sundog has said the torch shows up as a dull red glow about an inch across, there is no chance of seeing a beam or illumination on the target unless you've got someone with nv equipment themself. Of course if you are wandering around on strange ground in pitch black darkness you may need some light to see where you're going so you might need a dim red torch, if you keep that pointed to the ground it won't be very visible from a few yards away.