Night Vision What's the scoop on the Sig Sauer ECHO3 Thermal Reflex Sight?

Glassaholic

Optical theorist and conjecturer
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  • Nov 30, 2012
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    Announced earlier this year - https://www.thetruthaboutguns.com/s...hermal-reflex-sight-with-bdx-system-reticles/ I thought for sure there'd be a thread but I can't find anything.

    I am a noob when it comes to thermal's and hoping someone in the know can fill me in on "cheap" thermal options ($3k and less). Have had my eye on the Pulsar Core RXQ30V Thermal but wondering if this new Sig would be something I'd enjoy more.

    Purpose - put on my AR's for daytime and nighttime use for pest control.
     
    One of the advantages that the marketing for the Sig ECHO3 is that it works as a reflex sight offering more flexibility, situational awareness, etc. over the tradition scope design where you have to be within certain eye relief for effective use. For those of you with experience on the current Thermal scopes with traditional eye relief, have you found this to be an issue? If so would you say it's more an issue during daytime or nighttime?
     
    One of the advantages that the marketing for the Sig ECHO3 is that it works as a reflex sight offering more flexibility, situational awareness, etc. over the tradition scope design where you have to be within certain eye relief for effective use. For those of you with experience on the current Thermal scopes with traditional eye relief, have you found this to be an issue? If so would you say it's more an issue during daytime or nighttime?

    Traditional eye relief is different with a thermal...you're looking at a T.V. screen. Where eye relief comes into play is that you can be far enough away that the housing may obscure the outside edges of the screen.
     
    Looks pretty similar to the previous sig version of the same product which, imo, was pretty shitty for any real hunting use because of the refresh rate or whatever specs allow the image to keep up with movement, i'm not a tech guy lol plus the previous version had a fucking awful field of view
    One would assume that the 3 in ECHO3 identifies a 3rd generation model (though it went from ECHO1 to ECHO3 so not sure what happened to ECHO2?) and that they are improving the specs from ECHO1, but since these aren't even in the wild (many websites say overdue so I'm guessing the Chinese Virus has hindered parts and delivery schedules) it's hard to say how good (or bad) it actually is.

    Again, not knowing anything about Thermal, just doing a quick comparison of the ECHO3 to the Pulsar Core RXQ30V I get the following:
    1599078905034.png


    Not much is known yet on the Sig other than the little information Sig put in their press release and from their website. As I've tried to self educate on thermal's while the Pulsar has a larger core, the Sig has a smaller µm value - not sure if this is better or worse. Also, Sig lists refresh rate at 30hz while Pulsar is at 50hz and my understanding is that the higher the hz the better the display responds to motion so one would assume the Pulsar would perform better with objects in motion or if you are moving the scope around. Finally, I've read that having a lower resolution core can be made up with a higher resolution display, etc. but Sig does not list the resolution of the actual display so not sure how that will rate. Again, anyone with better understanding of how all this works - I am all ears.