Background
NNVT, short for “North Night Vision Technologies”, is a Chinese Image Intensifier Tubes manufacturer, known for their affordable, yet modern and well performing, Generation 2+, and more recently Generation 3 IIT’s.
NNVT tubes, started becoming popular in the commercial night vision market in the late 2010’s, allowing enthusiasts to step into the hobby while keeping price in check; this became especially important in regions outside the USA, where the procurement of night vision devices and components can be especially hard, due to the fact that most where at the time manufactured in the US, thus rendering them very difficult to export, due to them being restricted under ITAR regulations.
NNVT tubes share many similarities with Photonis made tubes, as NNVT reportedly bought many assembly lines and patents from Photonis themselves in the late 2010’s and 2010’s, in order to close the performance gap in western tubes.
For this reason, even to this day, tubes of the NNVT line can appear very similar in performance to Photonis intensifiers such as XD4, XR-5 and 4G / Echo line.
NVT-4
The NVT-4 model is the most affordable of the whole NNVT lineup, featuring decent specs and good overall clarity, it comes with 1400+ FOM, available both in non-gated and auto-gated versions.
The non-gated version comes equipped with built in a Bright Source Protection mechanism, which protects the tube against light damage by lowering voltage to the photocathode, making this kind of tube very resistant against overexposure, at the expense of resolution which is drastically reduced when BSP is in effect.
Auto-Gated NVT-4’s will preserve resolution better than their non-gated counterpart when looking at bright lights, as BSP is now replaced by auto-gating, another type of protection mechanism which quickly turns the tube on and off at high frequency (similarly to alternated current powered lights), thus preserving high light resolution. More in-depth article about protection mechanisms.
With this in mind, it is important to know that these are the most basic option that NNVT offers, and will of course be outperformed by most other IIT’s; Some of the main shortcomings of this kind of intensifier are the lack of gain in very low light environments such as thick canopy forests and dark rooms, as well as the lack of high SNR.
With these characteristics into account, it is important not to jump to early conclusions, as they are definitely not a bad choice for most civilian applications, but actually, it can be the best bang for the money when it comes to airsoft, range activities and generally anything that doesn’t demand the highest performance that money can buy.
NVT-5
A step-up from NVT-4’s when it comes to specs, as these tubes will feature a minimum of 1600 FOM, and generally 25+ SNR. The NVT-5 comes in both AG (auto-gated) and NG (non-gated) versions just like the NVT-4, bringing the same advantages and disadvantages.
These tubes will generally provide the user with a cleaner, calmer image as opposed to NVT-4’s thanks to higher SNR. The downside of this model remains the lack of gain, due to both sharing very similar gain levels (averaging 10.000 cd-lx), although to a lesser degree thanks to the higher SNR.
While being a step up, the NVT-5 can be significantly more expensive, and for this reason we only offer it in the auto-gated version to provide more performance over an NVT-4.
NNVT Gen 3
Latest arrival in the NNVT lineup is their Gen 3 model, characterized by a Gallium Arsenide, Thin Film Photocathode, providing much higher Photocathode Sensitivity as opposed to Gen 2+ units and featuring a minimum of 1700 FOM, with SNR usually over 27 and most importantly gain levels above 15.000 cd-lx, and are only available in the White Phosphor, MX-10160 (autogain) or 3 wire manual gain, autogated version.
These bring higher performance than the previously mentioned models, as they provide much higher specs, especially in the gain department, making them more capable when navigating in very dark environments, filling the performance gap between low end NNVT tubes and high performance image intensifier such as NVT-7’s or Photonis Echo’s and their new High Gain lineup, while maintaining a very affordable price, making them one of the best options for airsoft, hiking, range activities and hunting.
NVT-7
The NVT-7 is the top of the line Intensifier offered by NNVT, sharing many elements found in the Photonis Echo / 4G tubes, such as a Light Diffraction Grating Coating applied to the input window, extending its usable spectrum from 940nm to roughly 1060nm (out of bounds capability)
While the NVT-7 tubes remain Gen 2+ tubes at heart, they bring a crystal clear and calm image, featuring either 1900+ or 2100+ FOM (depending on which line you choose), with SNR always breaking 30 on the latter option, and both of featuring auto-gating.
NVT-7 tubes provide very high performance making them a great pick for Law Enforcement or Military Personnel.