It is the last day of the work week so that means it is another installment of Friday Night Lights. Today we take a closer look at the Chimera-10, an articulating bridge for ANVIS-10 panoramic night vision goggles. Folding Panos!
Quad Tube Night Vision @ TFB:
Chimera-10, The Folding Anvis-10
We saw the Chimera announced just before SHOT Show 2023. We even got some sneak peeks of the Chimera at SHOT Show 2023. Well, Nocturn sent me their Chimera-10, a bridge for ANVIS-10 PNVGs (Panoramic Night Vision Goggles).
Regular ANVIS-10 uses a fixed bridge. In fact, all currently manufactured quad tubes night vision goggles have a fixed bridge like the QTNVG and GPNVG-18. Anvis-10 bridges have tilt adjustment while the rest, including ANVIS-10 have forward and aft translation. They all have translating pupillary distance that is adjusted by knobs on either end of the bridge. They either use a dovetail or a ball detent for use with the ANVIS mounts. Well, Nocturn is stepping up to the plate and knocking them out of the park with their Chimera bridges. They plan to make Chimera bridges for all the legacy quad tube night vision goggles like the QTNVG and GPNVG-18.
Normally when you flip your night vision mount up with your quad tubes installed, the goggle sticks out like a sore thumb. They look like antlers or the horn of a rhino beetle. The extended position increases pressure, due to leverage, on your forehead.
Traditional stowed position for ANVIS-10
This is what a ball detent ANVIS-10 looks like stowed up.
The Chimera-10 bridge unlocks a lot more potential with my ANVIS-10. I can flip up one pod and look through something else like a laser rangefinder or thermal monocular. The Chimera-10 bridge shares a lot of similarities with Nocturn’s UANVB bino. Just like the UANVB Katana, the Chimera-10 pods articulate up and away from the bridge.
You can still fold the NVG mount up against the helmet, in this case, a Wilcox G24.
Here is a different angle of the Chimera-10 with pods articulated up.
For better ergonomics, the Chimera-10 pods fit even when the NVG mount is folded up. This shifts the CG of your helmet more in line with your neck.
This is how far dovetail quad tube night vision goggles stick out if there is no articulation.
Ball detent mounts are a little bit lower profile. See the ANVIS-10 below and compare to above.
But with articulating panos, you can fold the pods back and it is a lot more compact.
Just like the UANVB Katana, the Chimera-10 bridge has the same feature set. It has the same magnetic switching so when you articulate the pods, power is shut off to the tubes.
Unlike the UANVB binos, the Chimera bridge has these flanges that act as stops to keep the arms parallel to the ground. The UANVB bino uses the articulation to achieve inter-pupillary distance (IPD) adjustment. While the Chimera-10 uses worm screw adjustment on each arm to laterally shift the pods into position similar to how other quad tube bridges work. This way IPD is maintained regardless of whether you fold the arms and more importantly the pods stay in line with each other when deployed.
Here you can see the IPD adjustment knob at the end of the Chimera-10 arm. I would prefer a screw that has more coarse threads so you do not have to spin the IPD adjustment knob so many times to move the pods laterally. The ANVIS-10 pod simply dovetails onto the lower part of the arm and is bolted in place with a small screw just like a normal ANVIS-10 bridge.
This particular bridge does not have onboard power. The battery compartment was neutered to shave some ounces. This Chimera-10 is 0.1 ounce lighter than a normal ANVIS-10. Which makes it 23.7 ounces vs 23.8 ounces for normal ANVIS-10. This Chimera-10 bridge has a LEMO pigtail that comes out the top of the bridge. This is so the cable can be routed through the U-shaped loop of the Wilcox NVG mount.
You can route the cable under the NVG mount but with it routed up through the mount it is slightly protected and it does not interfere with the folding mechanism. The cable does prevent the sled from sliding all the way back but you do not want the eyepieces that far back anyway. The pigtail is long enough to reach back and connect with any LEMO-compatible battery pack.
If you have an ANVIS-style battery pack then it will have a switch to turn the power on and off to the goggle. However, if you opt for another style battery pack like PVS-31A or GPNVG low profile battery packs, you will need a Fischer to Lemo adapter cable and neither of those battery packs have a switch to control power. So as soon as you plug the Chimera-10 power cable in, it will turn the tubes on. That is why the magnetic switching for the pods is critical. I thought it would be annoying to not have manual power control. But I have gotten used to this Chimera-10 bridge and find it nice to simply articulate the pods to shut power off to the tubes.
One concern someone brought up was how the Chimera-10 pods sit really close to the helmet. What if you have a SLAAP? It clears it just fine.
Even if the pods did touch the helmet, all that matters is that they articulate enough for the magnetic switch to shut power to the pods and they store more ergonomically for the user than non-articulating panos.
Final Thoughts On The Chimera-10
I love articulating panos. I was worried it would not work. I thought the eyepieces would be tucked under the lip of the helmet and would not clear when you articulate them but that is not the case. Nocturn figured it out and now that I see how they did it, I wonder why no one else thought of making articulating panos before?
Just like the UANVB bino, the Chimera will be offered in a variety of custom options. Once they have machined aluminum components the central body can be built out of aluminum or you could go with injection molded glass-filled polymer they plan on making both for the UANVB Katana and the Chimera shares the same core components. The articulating arms will more than likely still be made using additive manufacturing due to the low demand. Power supply options will be similar to the UANVB. You can get a pigtail remote power only option like the bridge you saw in this article or you can get one with an onboard battery compartment for a CR123. You could possibly even get a hybrid version that has both battery and LEMO port. I prefer onboard power for a sleeker option and not to have to deal with cables running across my helmet. But that is a personal preference.
There is one minor issue with the Chimera bridge and that is how tall it is. See how the arms hang low and the pods hang under them? The height from the center of the objective to the dove tail is taller than typical binos. There is not much Nocturn can do to fix that. Maybe if the dovetail was closer to the bridge but that is about it. You need the arms to sweep the way they do so they reach around the NVG mount when folded.
Another hidden gem about folding panos is that I can store the Chimera-10 in a TNVC NVG pouch if I fold the pods all the way and I can store that inside my helmet. I usually have to store my ANVIS-10 in a separate padded pouch made for quad tubes. Click here to see a video about that.
The Chimera bridge will be out soon. At SHOT Show 2023, they projected 120 days. They plan to sell them for an MSRP of $2500 per bridge. They will be coming out with three different bridges for the GPNVG-18, ANVIS-10 and QTNVG. Check out their website for more details.