AN/PVS-14
The AN/PVS-14 is the JETDS designation for the F6015 monocular night vision housing for MX-11769 image intensifiers developed by Elbit. This popular and successful design has been produced by other companies such as L3Harris as well as being both copied and improved upon by yet more actors on the market.
Features
- Single AA battery compartment
- Manual gain control
- IR illuminator
- Bright source protection
- Shutoff contacts at the mounting point (used by J-Arm combined with Rhino helmet mounts)
History
The AN/PVS-14 was designed in 2000 and entered into US Military service that very same year and remains (as of August 2022) in use with the US Armed Forces as well as a number of NATO-member countries.
Designed to use a thin-film 3rd generation IIT and is operated by a single 1.5V AA battery.
Manufacturers
Original device
While developed by Elbit Systems it has been also produced by L3Harris.
Due to the complicated acquisition and merger history of the two companies AN/PVS-14 units have been produced in the past under the following additional company names[Note 1]:
- L3
- Harris Night Vision
- Exelis
- ITT
Other manufacturers
There are three manufacturers who sell high-quality clones of the AN/PVS-14 that all share the same slight difference from the original.
While Optronics Engineering and ACTinBlack both simply call theirs PVS-14, Troya calls their clone Tyto.
The clones can be identified due to the single glass window protecting both the IR illuminator and the automatic shutoff sensor, whereas the original device features two separate round windows.
Due to this circumstance it is possible that two of the companies rebrand or produce under license from the third.
Note that these devices are often sold with commercial-grade lenses that have less visual clarity and more distortion than the mil-spec counterparts. A commercial-grade objective lens can be identified due to the lack of blue coating present in mil-spec lenses.
ACTinBlack has since stopped selling the PVS-14, and has instead further developed the original form to create the ACT THE-14, which is compatible with most - if not all - accessories for the AN/PVS-14, whilst remaining a distinctly different device.
Other clones (with potentially lower quality and no guarantee to meet the original specs) include:
Notes
- ↑ For an overview, refer to the pages for Elbit Systems of America and L3Harris.
References
- ↑ https://www.optronics.co.il/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/OE-14-Night-Vision-Monocular-2018-no-gain.pdf
- ↑ https://www.troya-tech.com/Products/tyto/Tyto-Night-Vision-Monocular
- ↑ https://www.andres-industries-shop.de/PVS-14/en
- ↑ https://www.atncorp.com/night-vision-monocular-atn-pvs14-3
- ↑ https://www.gsci1.com/pvs-14c.html
