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Night Vision Iray Rico 1280
- Thread starter foxkilr89
- Start date
Sounds like something that will set you back a liver and half a kidney - provided that these are in decent condition!
Throw the Night Vision label on here and you might get more people looking at it...
It's about dang time we have an option for HD core. Of course I wish it was from a country that doesn't hate us...
It's about dang time we have an option for HD core. Of course I wish it was from a country that doesn't hate us...
A little more than half what the 1280 camera was listed for back in 2020. Same resolution in a weapon sight seems reasonable. Now it probably costs them way less than $18k to make haha.
This unit will have an insane amount of pixels and if they built this right, the versatility will be off the charts. Think of it as a 640 core unit with (a) double the FOV or (b) twice the resolution under any magnification
Wasn’t that core pretty power hungry?
Gonna be neat to drag a diesel generator along for the hunt…
Gonna be neat to drag a diesel generator along for the hunt…
Everyone sounds less than thrilled about the highest resolution core available to civilians (in a 12um sensor). Or maybe it’s just frustration it will be too expensive?
Either way, this is only good for us. A US version will eventually come out (they almost have to if they want to be a premium manufacturer. If you're unhappy with the introduction of 1280 cores and their expense, power consumption and size, then you're free o ditch your 640s for the same reason and buy 320 / 384 units
Personally, this is exciting to me even though I probably won't own one right away. Technology advancements are exciting and while this may not be the final product, it will show what the next step will look like.
ETA: pixel size fixed
Either way, this is only good for us. A US version will eventually come out (they almost have to if they want to be a premium manufacturer. If you're unhappy with the introduction of 1280 cores and their expense, power consumption and size, then you're free o ditch your 640s for the same reason and buy 320 / 384 units
Personally, this is exciting to me even though I probably won't own one right away. Technology advancements are exciting and while this may not be the final product, it will show what the next step will look like.
ETA: pixel size fixed
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People talk about price, but there are still people buying GPNVG for $40k. Sure, they won’t sell bulk but still less than half the price of a set of quads.
Dang! If that is true, and it is a clip-on, it better come ready to play against the Voodoo-S... I feel like that is really high for a Chinese-made system.
If it is a dedicated weapon sight, it needs to also cook me breakfast. Would be cool to have breakfast tacos as the sun comes up!
In all seriousness though, I do like to see things advancing (whatever the actual "advancing" actually entails). Competition is good.
A really cool thing is that there are already great 320 cores that are affordable for people to get into the game. This will drive 640 prices down, and in 5 years, more people will be running thermal on helmets! It will be really neat. So many opportunities for hunters to get into the electro-optics game with actually decent gear.
Jay
PEW Science
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Iray had some coaching on US price point of systems from some other US manufacturers. If they hadn't we would be getting cheaper units! You can dig through some of the other Iray posts to gleam that knowledge.
Pretty nice HD footage up on their channel today (along with the official name, RICO HD 1280 RS75)
2560x2560 display is sweet. The size of the scope from pics I’ve seen makes me think a legit clip on wouldn’t be out of the question.
An 8-9 deg FOV unit would be insane with this core. Very good FOV and should support 18-20x mag.
Or a slightly scaled up RH25 that is 15-18 deg FOV and handle 12-15x.
Or NVision could beat them to it
An 8-9 deg FOV unit would be insane with this core. Very good FOV and should support 18-20x mag.
Or a slightly scaled up RH25 that is 15-18 deg FOV and handle 12-15x.
Or NVision could beat them to it
Gonna be interesting to see these tested by people not paid by Iray.
It seems that this will be a serious game changer, which is fantastic, since it will further push the evolution of thermals, and lower prices for existing solutions.
It seems that this will be a serious game changer, which is fantastic, since it will further push the evolution of thermals, and lower prices for existing solutions.
30Hz
Super power hungry
45-ounces
$18K
Chinesium
Dedicated scope only. NO clipon capability.
Will never be more expensive than it is today.
Kinda crappy timing. Far fewer people willing to dump $18K on a Chinese thermal today than 1-2 years ago.
Super power hungry
45-ounces
$18K
Chinesium
Dedicated scope only. NO clipon capability.
Will never be more expensive than it is today.
Kinda crappy timing. Far fewer people willing to dump $18K on a Chinese thermal today than 1-2 years ago.
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Yeah little confused on the power demands. From the picture it looks like only one of their IBP-1 batteries will slide in the side at a time, but it lists 2x of them for 4hr on the spec sheet. So not sure if that's 2x that come in the box and you only use one at a time, and then whether 4hr is for each battery or both back-to-back. Hungry girl either way - can't imagine what it would have been at 60hz
Yeah I’m fine with no clip on ability. Gotta leave the door open for them to release a clip on for $8k!
@jwramp nice of them to include an LRF, will see how that works…
ETA: NETD at <25mk is sweet. 11.7 deg FOV is about perfect and should have similar long range performance as 6 deg FOV 640 units. I’d love this FOV as a do all clip on. HD screen is a nice feature too. 12um pixel is good to ensure it’s executed as well as it can. Future 10um or even 8um sensor would be very helpful in the sizing of the unit.
30hz is interesting but I’m sure future units will bump it up. Power usage could be a real issue in cold climates. It’s also a thicc unit
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Yeah, wuz wonderin’ about the <25mK. Might be interesting to see if that help with bullet trace.
It's 4 hours optic runtime each/per battery.
(That's a super-conservative number: runtime is around 5 to 6 hours per when the batts are new). Only one battery fits into the optic at a time. I suppose if you had the optic plugged into an external pack you could hot swap them. Not a big deal to take one out and put a fresh one in and quickly turn it on again. The batteries are around $169 separately: that optic comes with two of them.
As I said on another chat:
With most of the chinese thermals Ive played with I've found that they: have laggy software, are cheaply made, break easy, not waterproof, etc.
HOWEVER, the general price of these units justifies this piss poor quality control and "race down to the bottom" mentality the Chinese have when it comes to commercial thermal tech. They view it as consumable, and that's fine.
But......when you start slapping on a 17k price tag, you're competing with the big boys (POT, BAE, DRS, FLIR/TELEDYNE, THEON, etc.) and entering in the TRUE high end thermal market that deals with units currently being fielded to engage targets that shoot back. Ones you can trust your life with.
The positive about this unit though is that it pushes the American market to "keep up" and actually go back to the drawing board on their existing lines to bring something better to the consumer.
With most of the chinese thermals Ive played with I've found that they: have laggy software, are cheaply made, break easy, not waterproof, etc.
HOWEVER, the general price of these units justifies this piss poor quality control and "race down to the bottom" mentality the Chinese have when it comes to commercial thermal tech. They view it as consumable, and that's fine.
But......when you start slapping on a 17k price tag, you're competing with the big boys (POT, BAE, DRS, FLIR/TELEDYNE, THEON, etc.) and entering in the TRUE high end thermal market that deals with units currently being fielded to engage targets that shoot back. Ones you can trust your life with.
The positive about this unit though is that it pushes the American market to "keep up" and actually go back to the drawing board on their existing lines to bring something better to the consumer.
We should all be excited about this. I’m not going to buy one, there are too many issues with it like weight and framerate, but it’s great to finally see someone bringing a larger microbolometer to the civilian market, it means that we are going to start seeing American manufacturers feel pressure to keep pace.
RICO- Rugged Infrared Compact Optic.
They should've came out with another name for it, as there's nothing compact about it and the ruggedness is questionable.
30HZ ? That's on the low side for moving game.
I don't see any of the other manufacturers trying to keep up in the very limited $18,000 niche use market.
If this unit was in the $10,000- $12,000 range it would be at least thinkable for someone that was looking at the buying an XRF to consider it, like I was earlier this year.
The RS75 is at the beginning of the used cooled core battle tested thermal price range too.
Very cool scope and I look forward to seeing more reviews of it in field use.
For my use cases I think I’d rather have an HD uncooled system than a 10yo cooled 320 system. These will come down in price though. The sensor alone was $30k from iRay just two years ago.
Opens interesting topic for discussion ... how many "other" manufacturers are there really ? Especially for thermals we can buy ?
I think of 3 bands ...
1 - Low end - when I got my first thermal back in 2014, there was ATN (gen1 thermals, like ODIN and Thor) and Armasight, with Zeus and Apollo. There were mostly in the sub $6k market. Later the chinese came in with Pulsar and the others ... and even ATN switched to chinese.
WIth FLIRs sale of "armasight" and getting out of this market, the Chinese have won the low end market period.
My understanding is there are really only two factories in Chinese making the cores. Might be others making the housings and doing final assembly. And in a few cases, the parts are made in China and shipped to other ganglands, like Lithuania or even USA for final assembly.
But China owns the low end market for us, that's for sure..
2 - Middle end - this now includes Trijicon Electro Optics (TEO) formerly known as IRD and N-Vision. And lives in the $5k to $10k price bracket. The USA commercial tier. The Chinese are moving into this sector with entries like the new "choodoo".
3 - High End - this is and has been the realm of the military units that we can buy. The OASYS thermals were intended for the military and Skeets and UTMs were definitely used. I think UTCs were at least tested. The Theon's were designed for military, but are being made available commercially at least in USA and AU.
And now we see China "leaping" into the High End market with the RS75. With the 2x2 zillion pixels on the back end and the 1280 FPA on the front end and the $18k MSRP price tag. We knew something like this was coming, but I'm surprised at the speed. There are a few other players in this market, but not really very many (Trijicon OASYS, PoT, Insight, DRS(?) etc).
==
So overall there are really just a handful of "manufacturers" in the USA commercial thermal market (including military units being sold commercially). Really only TEO and N-vision would be likely to "learn" from anything the Chinese are doing, so that's two manufacturers.
Military units tend to be "made to spec" ... meaning the procurement people on the military side must say "we need 1280" ... and if they say that, they will get it. Commercial market doesn't directly drive military market, though overall in the history of USA, like in guns and ammo, there has been significant influence from commercial to military. But less so in thermal, so far.
But it will be very interesting to see what happens in the next year, when we expect to see more new thermal clipons introduced into the commercial market, both military units and chinese units ... and who knows ... maybe even USA commercial manufactured units. But I would definitely expect to see a C75 from iray in the next 12 months ... though it will be a challenge to make a long distance thermal clipon with a 1280 ... and make it "man transportable"
Oh, and by the way, I too thought the $10k+ thermal market was "limited" but I continue to be surprised at how quickly our Theon's and other high end units sell out. There are more "high end" market buyers out there than you might think !!!
Lol
What excites me most about this is it gives the commercial guys in “Tier 2” a couple great things in their back pocket.Opens interesting topic for discussion ... how many "other" manufacturers are there really ? Especially for thermals we can buy ?
I think of 3 bands ...
1 - Low end - when I got my first thermal back in 2014, there was ATN (gen1 thermals, like ODIN and Thor) and Armasight, with Zeus and Apollo. There were mostly in the sub $6k market. Later the chinese came in with Pulsar and the others ... and even ATN switched to chinese.
WIth FLIRs sale of "armasight" and getting out of this market, the Chinese have won the low end market period.
My understanding is there are really only two factories in Chinese making the cores. Might be others making the housings and doing final assembly. And in a few cases, the parts are made in China and shipped to other ganglands, like Lithuania or even USA for final assembly.
But China owns the low end market for us, that's for sure..
2 - Middle end - this now includes Trijicon Electro Optics (TEO) formerly known as IRD and N-Vision. And lives in the $5k to $10k price bracket. The USA commercial tier. The Chinese are moving into this sector with entries like the new "choodoo".
3 - High End - this is and has been the realm of the military units that we can buy. The OASYS thermals were intended for the military and Skeets and UTMs were definitely used. I think UTCs were at least tested. The Theon's were designed for military, but are being made available commercially at least in USA and AU.
And now we see China "leaping" into the High End market with the RS75. With the 2x2 zillion pixels on the back end and the 1280 FPA on the front end and the $18k MSRP price tag. We knew something like this was coming, but I'm surprised at the speed. There are a few other players in this market, but not really very many (Trijicon OASYS, PoT, Insight, DRS(?) etc).
==
So overall there are really just a handful of "manufacturers" in the USA commercial thermal market (including military units being sold commercially). Really only TEO and N-vision would be likely to "learn" from anything the Chinese are doing, so that's two manufacturers.
Military units tend to be "made to spec" ... meaning the procurement people on the military side must say "we need 1280" ... and if they say that, they will get it. Commercial market doesn't directly drive military market, though overall in the history of USA, like in guns and ammo, there has been significant influence from commercial to military. But less so in thermal, so far.
But it will be very interesting to see what happens in the next year, when we expect to see more new thermal clipons introduced into the commercial market, both military units and chinese units ... and who knows ... maybe even USA commercial manufactured units. But I would definitely expect to see a C75 from iray in the next 12 months ... though it will be a challenge to make a long distance thermal clipon with a 1280 ... and make it "man transportable"
Oh, and by the way, I too thought the $10k+ thermal market was "limited" but I continue to be surprised at how quickly our Theon's and other high end units sell out. There are more "high end" market buyers out there than you might think !!!
First, they now have a legit reason to “need” a 1280 core for their units. Heaven forbid the peasants get the latest in sensor tech but now that we have it, let’s run with it (looking at you, most of “Tier 1” manufactures).
Second, China will be the ones truly testing the market for what is feasible. I agree the $10k to $20k market is larger than most expect, but these guys also demand performance when it counts. maybe China sells a few at $20k but if they really want to distribute them the price will have to come down (and it will). Users benefit from this and as well as US manufacturers because they have one more data point to price off of.
BTW, the same thing will probably happen with cooled units as well at some point…
ETA: on the clip on side, it doesn’t seem like they’d have to change much to make a legit clip on. 11.7 deg FOV with the same long range performance as a 6 deg FOV 640 unit sounds just fine to me! Now squeezing that FOV down to 8 deg or less will be a challenge with 12um pixels.
And as far as man portable, I man portable a PVS30 all the time so I’m up for the challenge
Legit cooled units are so rare its kind of a "pay the asking price" situation. I have never seen someone with a cooled unit desperate to sell it.
I was more saying we get a China version of cooled since IRAY has cooled sensors listed on their website… I don’t doubt they will be expensive if / when they put them in a weapon mounted optic tho
Where are the Chynese getting their engineering. ?
We all know they only copy , never create
We all know they only copy , never create
Thermal sensors aren’t really that high-tech — whether cooled or uncooled. They’re just not high demand items if you don’t have defense contracts to sell to. The lack of demand makes them expensive to develop and manufacture.
Fabs ain’t cheap.
Fabs ain’t cheap.
Not expensive for china to develop, expensive for the companies that actually developed it before china stole it.
From a Foreign Policy 2019 article, "Chinese IP theft has cost the United States $225 billion to $600 billion a year. "
I saw their sniper rifle and read about its specs. Not really impressed. I sort of think they went the russian way of more quantity versus more quality.
I wouldn't mind one of these in a scanner similar to an nvision atlas and lrf.
Yes with AB and or Bluetooth to Strelok
Will it be a challenge? I'm not an optical engineer but I would've thought FOV depends more on your lens/es than it does on your chip. Kinda like how the sensor on a dSLR can see wide, narrow, short, far, etc depending on what lens you put in front of it. If that's true you could make a super telephoto germanium lens and have a 2 deg FOV 1280 clip-on and see through the hogs.ETA: on the clip on side, it doesn’t seem like they’d have to change much to make a legit clip on. 11.7 deg FOV with the same long range performance as a 6 deg FOV 640 unit sounds just fine to me! Now squeezing that FOV down to 8 deg or less will be a challenge with 12um pixels.
And as far as man portable, I man portable a PVS30 all the time so I’m up for the challenge
And people are buying up the Theons so clearly the high-end civilian market is OK with "high performance but at the cost of weight" units like this.
Correct. You'd just need a larger lens: longer focal length and larger diameter to maintain a good F/#.
ILya
It’s both the “chip” and the lens. Smaller “chips” need smaller lenses with less glass to accomplish the same FOV as a larger chip with larger glass. This is why compact cameras can have bonkers zoom ranges with tiny lenses, because the sensor is so small. You trade-off a myriad of other benefits, but gain convenience and significant cost reductions. This is why a 600/f4 lens is $12,000 and looks like a Javelin missle where a subcompact camera with a tiny sensor can have a 600/f4 lense that fits in your hand. It only needs to project an image circle the size of a pea.
So, a 12um sensor with 1280x1024 pixels is quadruple the size/area of a 12um sensor with 640x512 pixels. To have the same FOV while maintaining the same aperture requires a MUCH larger lens.
This is a very non-technical, but generally accurate description of how sensor size and pixel pitch interact with optics.
The deeper dive includes Circle of Confusion, DoF, MTF, etc.
