Thread: Advice - Thermal gear

Been playing with my new Pulsar Axion Key XM22 which arrived last week. This is the newest and most budget of the Pulsars, cost $1999. Overall I guess it’s at the lower end of the mid-range thermal imagers.

There were warnings about performance / reliability of earlier Axion Keys but I took a chance that the new ones have sorted out the issues. So far so good, no apparent faults. Build quality feels superb.

Still playing with the different modes etc. With practice you definitely get better at using it and interpreting the images.
Range seems at least as good as advertised. So far, I can report it easily detects cattle-beasts on a warm day at 1000+ m , they show up as decent sized blobs. You can generally tell they are some sort of large animal with a body legs and head, but not specifically as cattle. At this distance woolly sheep, with their insulation and smaller size, show up as dots. At this range on a warm day you really need binos to tell whether you are looking at small animals or other warm objects. Cool nights and mornings give much better contrast of warm blooded animals. Last night I easily located a possum in a tree but it was only about 25 m away, could easily do much further.

The LCOS screen image is not actually brilliant; it’s small and a bit grainy and not super sharp. But still fine for detecting animals. So far I’ve been leaving it to auto-calibrate, maybe can improve image by calibrating manually. I can’t post pix because the Key models don’t have recording or streaming functionality. The next Pulsar model up, the Axion Key XM30, has slightly longer range and higher magnification, but I like that the XM22 magnification starts at 2x; this is useful for rapid scanning and will be good for hunting especially close up in bush etc. XM22 zooms up to 8x, but this is digital not optical zoom so not great resolution. XM22 also has fixed lens focus so no need to fiddle with that.

It has a stadiametric rangefinder like some scopes/binos, where if you know the approximate size of the animal it gives an indication of its distance. Need to play with this feature to see how useful/accurate it is.

Regarding sunlight damage, it’s fine to use on a sunny day but the manual does state: ATTENTION! The lens of the device must not be pointed at any sources of intense energy, such as laser-emitting devices or the sun. This may damage the electronic components in the device.

It’s new technology for me and gives a different view of the world. I’m finding it takes practice to understand and get the best out of it, still a lot to learn. But very promising.

Overall, impressive performance, features, and quality - seems like outstanding value.