An enterprising young hacker has found a way to replace the guts of an EOTech holographic weapon sight [knockoff] with something a little more powerful. The standard version comes with only one reticle, but this guy programmed his sight to offer multiple options and take care of the sight adjustment using software rather than via hardware (adjustment screws). The end result contains no moving parts, which is slick. Probably won’t last long, but it’s cool to see some do-it-yourself gun mods taken to such an extreme. Make the jump for the video description . . .
First version of a hacked EOTech’ish scope (based on a cheap knockoff that’s actually a reflex sight rather than holographic). There’s still loads of space left internally, so future versions could include features like ammo count, display of external sensor data like temperature, compass, GPS data/waypoints, etc. Geeky fun!
Did Nick read the description? It’s a reflex sight, not an EOTech holographic. Still interesting, though.
That is very cool indeed. Most likely will void the warranty
This was posted on TFB yesterday. Apparently he bought a used and broken Eotech for dirt cheap.
A compass? We Halo nao!!!
Kids will be kids.
It amazes me that people would put some made in china crap on their rifle that they might someday use to defend their lives.
John
This is a VERY early prototype, not a go-to-war optic. No one is seriously considering betting their life on this.
It’s a heck of a lot cheaper to do this kind of R&D with an $50 Chinese knock-off than it is to sacrifice a $500 battle-ready optic for an idea that might not pan out.
This is actually super old and was done for airsoft.
If that amazes you than you might be boring:)
I’d love to hear what you have that is more reliable than my Norinco 84s-1….EOTech equipped BTW…
How ’bout that Chinese made phone you always have handy? Or most of the parts on a Harley? Should I go on?
If he gets a good rugged prototype together with or without the temp and compass, he will be practically set for life. Just link to a kickstarter on the Call of Duty and/or Halo forums and bingo. Heck, I’d probably buy one.
It’d be awesome if you could do this with a real EoTech.
From my understanding, an EoTech or other holographic sight wouldn’t be able to do this. The “reticle” is actually a hologram – an actual “picture” that get’s illuminated by the laser to make it appear in 3D so to change the reticle, you need to change the hologram as it’s not “drawn” by the laser but a preexisting picture that is being illuminated by it. You’re actually looking through the hologram towards the target. A holographic sight is really a mostly mechanical device, at least more so than some other electronically enabled sights.
A reflex sight is more of a “projector” – it draws the picture using LEDs and the inside of the glass reflects it back to the user. Since the color of LEDs is very precise, the reflective coating on the glass is finely tuned to reflect only the colors very close to the LED color – think of it as a one-way mirror that only reflects one color. There is some loss of light coming through the glass but it’s limited to a relatively tight range of colors so it’s not very apparent when you are looking through it.
Since a reflex sight picture is drawn, basically driven by software, there is the possibility of changing it.
It’s a cool hack.
Thank you, that was some very interesting information!
I wouldn’t call it mechanical. It’s entirely optical. The idea is very interesting. It wouldn’t be impossible to do something like this with holography for very simple things, like a compass. The problem is all of the holographic images must be pre-recorded. A compass could work by moving a beamsplitter to direct the laser onto pre-recorded letters or other representations of directions, but that wouldn’t pass the ‘no moving parts’ test. The other option would be to turn on and off additional lasers, but that would start to get pricey/power hungry.
Very clever. Up with this sort of thing.
You cannot do that with a real Eotech– the target pattern is a hologram, in the glass. You’d have to replace the glass with your new “crosshair” pattern.
“There’s still loads of space left internally, so future versions could include features like ammo count, display of external sensor data like temperature, compass, GPS data/waypoints, etc. Geeky fun!”
Maybe display a Strike Count / Runs Hits Errors. Or texts from your girlfriend. Motivational messages like Keep Calm and Zombie Apocalypse On…
; P
Just kidding, I dig-it, plus, it keeps the big-guys a/k/a EOTech thinking we’re trying to replace them, and maybe they’ll lower their price a few Toyota’s.
Sounds like a recipe for disaster (adding crap to the reticle).
Don’t get me wrong; I’m sure the masses would throw money at this on kickstarter like potato salad; but if you want a compass, put it on your wrist. Having more crap in your reticle is just a recipe for task and information saturation.
I’ve actually designed displays for submarine and wet sub drivers; and what I thought was simple – to them was still too noisy often. And we’re talking far less stressed environments with much bigger displays.
I’ll applaud the hack and geekery, but I don’t see it being useful in an SHTF scenario.
The novel Snow Crash sums up information saturation when in a firefight.
” He turns off all of the techno-s–t in his goggles. All it does is
confuse him; he stands there reading statistics about his own death even as
it’s happening to him. Very post-modern. Time to get immersed in Reality,
like all the people around him.”
Basically the main character has a wearable system with radar, IR, sonics, millimeter wave, etc, and it really doesn’t help him too much.
I have idea for the next generation of EOTech style sights. Put a micro USB port on it and allow me to program my own reticle on my computer and download it to the sight. I could make my own ballistic drop points with my loads, at the ranges that I want. I could make reticles look like the targeting HUD from a Star Wars TIE fighter if I felt like it. Would be rather simple to do.
I’d like to have a red dot sight to load my own reticles in, like call of duty with a skull and crossbones or a radioactive label. It’d be gimmicky, but I’d buy it, and I’d bet a lot of y’all would too.
I’d like to be able to switch ammunition in the middle of a range day or fight and have the sight update the reticle on demand to accommodate the ballistics of the new ammunition.
We all know that XM193 is a great round close in. But we also all know that it has shortcomings beyond about 300m.
Some of us also shoot SMK262 69 or 77 gr. ballistic tip for better accuracy at longer ranges. At these longer ranges the ballistics of the SMK rounds differ substantially from the XM193. So, using the same dope is ill-advised and having two dope cards to juggle is inefficient.
So, why not just push a button on a wrist-borne smartwatch that is BlueToothed to the sight to switch the reticle between the two ballistic profiles and blast away?
LF
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