I'm fairly experienced with IR sources and their effects. I have the built-in on the N550, a 5 LED modified flashlight, a laser, a modified cree flashlight, and a surefire that I've modified with 20 5 degree beam LEDs. As you mention, close trees limit your long distance view. But I used the ATN factory IR on my N550, and it did a real nice job of lightning up my field even with a few close trees in the peripheral vision. The N550 has manual brightness adjust, but also auto dims slightly. Either the ATN is just too conservatively programmed or it's not sensitive enough.

I might not get to return it today, so I'm game to try anything. But not willing to wait on the possibility that ATN may fix it sometime in the future.

To be clear, I'd love to keep this thing. I'm just worried that folks who think it's ok, haven't seen through something like a digisight. If you folks have current video of it working at night, and can tell me how to duplicate it, I'm all ears.

Thanks,
Gene

Do you have it in night mode? It is not an automatic switch. In day mode with the IR all you'll get is about 5 yrds of a very fuzzy, very small view at night.

Yep. It did take me a while to figure that out, but I did enable it before I went outside.

Playing around in a dark room. I think what's happening is when you turn on High intensity, it overheats and kicks it to low or possibly lower than that. That's why when the scope is cold, you can get a nice view with High for a few seconds until it heats up. Makes me wonder if they had a few beta units go bad, so they set the heat threshold lower.

Looking at a fan across the room, with only a bit of light coming in from the doorway, I can ever so slightly make out that there is a fan there with the scope set at medium. With my N550 set at it's absolute lowest( it's fully variable), I can see the fan quite clearly and most all details. At full brightness on the N550, it gets kinda grainy, but is bright. It's like high ISO on your camera. All of this is with no IR.

With IR, the ATN may be a little more crisp. It's a little more zoom, so that could be some of it. The ATN puts out way way way more IR than the N550. The N550 can't handle that much IR on close items.

I'll try the ATN set on Medium tonight. I thought I had tried that before, but I'll double-check. If I can't see the back side of my field with this much IR, it's going back in the box. I'll spend the 700 on accessories for the N550. Maybe a doubler.

I have a doubler kit I don't use if you are interested.

Sounds like a well-reasoned approach, rcrdps. Let us know what you discover tonight.

My X-Sight is all I have in my inventory of "night sights," so I have nothing to compare it to. For me, being able to see a target at 100 yards+, at night, is a rush. Most of the other NV offerings out there are out of my pay grade by a very large amount! For me, it's a case of "if you can't be with the one you love, love the one you're with!" While I'm still way short of "loving" the current rendition of the X-Sight, it does seem, at glacial speed, to be getting a little bit better with each firmware release. As I've said before, hope springs eternal. . .

Sigh,.... it's back in the box. Such a sexy scope with cool options. Wish it could have performed on par with my digisight. I had thought my N550 was getting old and the new stuff would outperform it even though cheaper, since that is how electronics tend to go.

Observations/Tests:
Set to High. You CAN get it to see out past nearby foliage for a little bit if you set it to high. I no longer think it's a heat thing. I think the auto dim must just be set for Medium. Maybe they forgot to make separate calibrations for auto dim. The High setting needs to allow for more exposure.

But the sensor is still not anywhere near as sensitive as the digisight. Pulsar lists theirs as .0001 lux. Wonder what the ATN is. The ATN is blank screen until the IR comes on. The N550 can actually be somewhat useful without IR. If you turn off IR, you can see deeper into the woods since up close objects aren't brighter than far objects. And if I use the ATN IR on the N550,...gosh,... I need to buy one of these torches. But they are way visible,.....don't like that.

So with that much IR, ya'll will have a pretty nice scope once ATN gets the auto dim right. But after side to side comparison, I don't feel quite ready to ditch the N550 for this one. This is really hard though, cause I'm definitely an electronic features junky.

cyberpyrot: PM me with details. Just the adapter, or with a lens? I had considered making my own adapter on the lathe, but if the price is right,...

Gene

Is this a real time scope? I just got the 5 by 18 and there seem to be a lag or delay in the scope,

I have access to three X sights now(2-5X's and 1- 3X) and none have any issues as has been described with the .288 or .296 firmware versions installed.
I hope it isn't the case, but I'm thinking some of the dealers are sending out returned units.
I only use my x sights for hunting outdoors.
I always use an IR illuminator and have no issues seeing out to 300 yards.
The factory IR I have is only useable to 75 yards and it eats batteries, so it sits on a shelf.
I have used most of the digital scopes out there and the 550 is a good scope.
If you buy a doubler kit, It will need to be epoxied into place , or you'll have POI issues.

Are you getting the lag day and night? If night only check there is a setting....(can't remember what it's called) that when set to high will cause this.

It is called Light Amplification. The default setting is medium. Switch it to low and try it.

Thanks Beaubien...crs sucks...mine was fine in medium but high made it lag bad.

Ignore the date and time I never reset it this was the other night about 10:30 pm looks like its working great.
Video Here
http://vid1228.photobucket.com/albums/ee441/mgp11/7-21-15%20Bucks_zpsyj3fxdnv.mp4

MGP, what was the range on those deer?

Not going to lie, I got my x-sight a while ago, and it has been sitting in my safe waiting for the right update...I finally got it out and tried out .296, and took it to the lease this past Friday. I experienced very similar results to what MGP posting in his video (I didn't video at all, sorry) and I got a clean picture well out past 100 yards u too the trees were too thick to see anything past. Could have easily taken a shot at an animal at that range and the picture was without flicker or lag. This was with a TNV IR20 mounted in the scope's rail. This was by no means an exhaustive test, but from what I saw I was happy.

Now I just have to sight it in, and hunt it with it. Gotta see animals to shoot them though, and that was our problem this trip, saw nothing at all, not even a rabbit or skunk. It is hot out there!

It's good to hear and see that the newest firmware is working for other X sight owners. I took my 5x, thermals and day optics to the range today to do some removal and remounting POI testing. No problems with any of my optics used. Took the x sight out to 200 yards and am confident that my prey will have no place to hide. Other shooters were impressed with the X sight, especially when I showed them that you could take video or still's with it and it was also a night scope. It was too much for some of the older shooters to deal with, but their kids were actually interested in it and some even put down their cell phones to take a look at it. I never used the wifi feature and don't know if it works on the .296 version, but they were stoked(That's Excited to you old coots) about it. Since I don't give a rats [censored] about wifi, I couldn't answer the questions they were asking me. All I need to do is wait for October to roll around and then I can put all this kit to use. I'm counting the days.

That was only 30 yards but I can see perfect out to 186 yards that's the longest I have tested it and holds its poi at all zoom levels.I have found the IR works best were I have it mounted. Finally it works good enough for what I want it for!!!! LOL

Ok got around to boresighting my scope last night, and initially I was around -296,128. This gave a reticle off the left and down, which centered fine when zoomed, but was off center at 5x. I looked through the forum to find where I could switch from reticle centered to optical centered and it seems the .296 doesn't have this feature. I was able To shim the scope so it is minimally off center at 5x so it shouldn't be a big deal,

But has anyone else with .296 noticed the lack of the two centering options that were present in previous firmware updates?

Yes there is only the one option. Seems nobody wanted to read the pdf on what each one did and complained that the reticle moved off screen while zooming in. So the best for everyone was to not have an option. My 3x12 works fine with the new firmware.

Man.I'm having trouble doing the update. I've done 2 other times before with
266 and older. Everytime I follow directions exactly as prescribed. The firmware still shows
266 after it goes through it's thing and I do the reboot. Dang it !! I completely erased the SD card and formatted,
Then downloaded 296 and copied to Sd card. What is the deal !!!

You definitely changed file name to xsight.bin, wont work otherwise. Probably stupid question but when in a rush sometimes forget to do the obvious.

My firstvzero was x minus ridiculous (well over -300) and y around 162. Took the whole mount off resquared using an old square tool for joinery and now is almost zero on x but still around 160 on y. Mount doesnt have to be far off square to have ridic x co-ordinate which on mine is just down to minor oversize slack on the main screw holes in the mount meaning you can move it fractionally off square while screws are being tightened. Just bad qc on the mounts.

I hope everyone is having good luck with this 296 update not much talk going here about it so hopefully that means everyone is out in the field using there X-Sight with good results.

I have been waiting about 1.5 months to get my scope back from ATN. I sent it back to get the updated threaded Objective through Sachal.

Any one else do an exchange recently?

I have the .296 update loaded now. I have sound on the video !!! woooo hooo !
Works like a charm now. The only gripe I have with this scope is the crosshair
being left and low on the 5X power. Maybe they can fix that later and this will
be an A1 NV scope. I still use my thermal most of the time but sometimes I have
friends or kids that want to hunt too. This is now a great tool to add to your
night hunting collection. Piggies beware !!