DIY Night Vision Goggles by GreatScott!
The YouTuber converted a security camera into his own night vision system with a small screen and custom PCB.
Night vision goggles are often seen as the purview of military operatives, and would seem to cost more money than you’d want to spend for the occasional sneaking around or experimentation. On the other hand, many security systems are able to see without visible light, thanks to infrared LED illumination that’s undetectable to humans. To make his own night vision goggles, YouTuber GreatScott! decided to simply hook up such a camera and small display to a custom headset and lighting setup.
It’s a rather clever hack, which he pulls off nicely in the video below. His device includes a 555-based PWM system to dim the IR LEDs as needed, along with a rather large PCB on which everything is arranged. This includes the camera itself, which extends through a hole in the middle.
The PCB screws onto a custom 3D-printed headpiece, heavily influenced by commercial VR headset designs. Foam tape and an elastic head strap are used to keep things in position while GreatScott! is wandering around in the darkness.
More details can be found in his project post if you’d like to duplicate this build yourself. Then again, the concept of rigging up such a camera/display could have a wide variety of other uses, so perhaps it’s time to finally dig out that unused camera for hacking!