DNT Hydra Thermal

[I Dont Care About You]

Anyone get one of these units yet? RDSC has / had them in stock recently and I picked up the 384 model.

I had to order some decent 18650 batteries for it. I did some reading and apparently a lot of the eBay and Amazon 18650 batteries are suspect quality and potentially dangerous. I ended up ordering from the states at the 18650 Battery Store. Got 4 batteries and a charger shipped for around $80. Not cheap but I'd rather not have a battery explode and take a $2500 thermal unit with it.

Playing with the new unit in the house, the things you can see are crazy. The studs in the walls are visible as are your footprints on the carpet and everything you touched recently. Looking forward to trying it out on a few different rifles.

 

[Can-down]

They look pretty nice for sure, I wonder if they will offer Hydra's with integral laser rangefinder and ballitsic calculators down the road?

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[I Dont Care About You]

They look pretty nice for sure, I wonder if they will offer Hydra's with integral laser rangefinder and ballitsic calculators down the road?

Those sorts of features seem to drastically increase the price of a product that is already fairly spendy.

 

[Can-down]

Those sorts of features seem to drastically increase the price of a product that is already fairly spendy.

Correct, however it wasn't that long ago that a thermal of this quality was probably around 10 grand..... the trend I've noticed with tech is for the prices to come down and the performance to go up. I have a feeling more and more scopes will have integral laser rangefinders going forward and that prices will drop.... the thermnight offers it, along with both thermal and IR and the price difference is pretty small!

Biggest difference is the size and format, I like that the hydra is sleek and can be hand held or mounted.

Let us know how you like yours going forward, I'm curious about it's uses for building envelope assesements and other construction uses as well!

 

[ADK]

Correct, however it wasn't that long ago that a thermal of this quality was probably around 10 grand..... the trend I've noticed with tech is for the prices to come down and the performance to go up. I have a feeling more and more scopes will have integral laser rangefinders going forward and that prices will drop.... the thermnight offers it, along with both thermal and IR and the price difference is pretty small!

Biggest difference is the size and format, I like that the hydra is sleek and can be hand held or mounted.

Let us know how you like yours going forward, I'm curious about it's uses for building envelope assesements and other construction uses as well!

Exactly. A thermal unit under $3000 is absolutely not expensive, by any stretch.

 

[geologist]

Aren't they around $900 US in the states?

 

[Can-down]

Aren't they around $900 US in the states?

Depends which model, in general the Americans are paying close to $500 less and getting a Battery and charger included which is another $75-100 value.

 

[I Dont Care About You]

I like that the hydra is sleek and can be hand held or mounted.

Thats why I chose this model. It can be utilized in three different manners. I was looking at the AGM Rattler V2, which is pretty similar but none of them are coming into the country legally. At least w the DNT there is the possibility of warranty coverage if needed.

 

[I Dont Care About You]

Aren't they around $900 US in the states?

I think that's the lowest performance model and that runs ca. $1700 in Canada.

You can thank Blackface for the terrible performance of our dollar.