Talisman TIC with Russian pyrovidicon LI513 - Page 1
Forum section: electronics / general

author: Niall135
author_rank: Contributor
timestamp: May 26, 2025, 07:52:49 pm
content: Bought a for repr Talisman fire tic and upon opening it i was faced with a russian tube not the EEV tube i was expecting.Having removed the CRT view finder i spotted a loose cable (pictured)Has anyone got any experiance with these Russian tubes.Ta. N

author: Fraser
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 27, 2025, 11:38:20 am
content: Sadly I cannot help with information on this use of a Russian imaging tube in a Talisman. You have documented an interesting point in history though. Clearly the Russians were making their own Pyro-electric vidicon tubes for thermal imaging so I wonder if they reverse engineered the tubes available from EEV and Thomson or did they develop their own adaption of a Vidicon tube ? The Russians have always been capable manufacturers of thermionic valves and similar thermionic vacuum tube technology, so it is no surprise that they could build their own version of the Pevicon.As to why an ISG Talisman camera had a Russian Pevicon tube installed, I can only assume that there was either a lack of EEV brand Pevicon tubes at the time of production, or the Russians offered a competitive price for them compared to EEV. The fact that Russia was allowing sales of their Pyro-electric vidicon tubes to the West is also an interesting.Thank you for posting this

author: Niall135
author_rank: Contributor
timestamp: May 27, 2025, 05:38:23 pm
content: I found a document on the web dated 1996 only a bit in English.

author: valcher
author_rank: Contributor
timestamp: May 27, 2025, 06:58:25 pm
content: @Niall135Here's another one -https://old.electron.spb.ru/data_eng/LI479.pdfEdit: +https://www.niielectron.ru/

author: Bill W
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 28, 2025, 09:49:00 am
content: The basics are very similar. At EEV I did get a Russian tube (maybe from before ISG set up ?) and it just went in and worked (not very well). 'Vidicon' was a pretty standard interchangeable item due to the spares / consumables visual imaging side of the business in TV sdutio equipment.Yes ISG would have been getting tubes from Russia, as EEV were not going to sell our tubes cheap - we'd try to get back the 'lost' EEV profit from the camera sales made by ISG by marking up their tubes to full retail. Alistair at ISG did have several contacts in Russia for tubes and also optics (ie ultimately Bulgaria which did most eastern-bloc optics).The slight surprise to me is the Russian coil assembly as well - I thought ISG were in-house. Maybe they had the Russians make them up as sets ?Bill

author: Niall135
author_rank: Contributor
timestamp: June 02, 2025, 11:37:46 pm
content: Some more photos.

author: Niall135
author_rank: Contributor
timestamp: June 02, 2025, 11:39:14 pm
content: One more

author: Niall135
author_rank: Contributor
timestamp: June 02, 2025, 11:56:45 pm
content: The picture quality was very poor, it appeared pixilated. I checked that all cables were now attached and when i touched a small white wire running from a 072c opamp to a mastic covered blob all hell broke loose. I turmed off the camera nd investigated the blob. I cut away the silicon with a scalpal but the components inside the blob just came away with the silicon as if the were never soldered. The blob contained 2x 1M ohm (105) resisters. A 10nf 10v tantalum cap. And what i believe to be a sot23 pnp transistor. Can anyone suggest the purpose/configuratio of the blob. I took pictures showing most of it but the transistor came off befor i documented its configuration.

author: Niall135
author_rank: Contributor
timestamp: June 03, 2025, 12:15:46 am
content: Location of blob on camera.Both of the pins on read 222v to ground and the wire to the opamp reads 2.54v.The transistor is marked 4E in a sot23 package.Any help/suggestions welcome

author: dalittle
author_rank: Contributor
timestamp: June 03, 2025, 03:28:59 am
content: Tagging on to the comments already made herein…In the very early days of ISG, before my time, the story is that ISG used EEV PEV tubes in the very early Talisman cameras. At some point, EEV decided to stop selling tubes to ISG. I think around the time when EEV figured out that ISG were manufacturing fire cameras as a direct competitor. As a result, ISG sourced tubes from Thompson in France. The Thompson tubes were good but were relatively expensive. Talisman cameras fitted with Thompson tubes were sold to UK fire brigades (primarily), and into Europe.To enter the Asian and Eastern European markets, Alistair somehow found and sourced tubes from a Russian bird named Tatiana in St. Petersburg. I think her company was named Electron. The performance of the Russian tubes were not that great. But they were cheap. I think NEdT was somewhere in the area of a degree C or worse, easily, even when new. BUT the tube targets (TGS) were thick and as such, it was much harder to get them to depole. The Talisman units fitted with Russian tubes are very early variants, before 1996 or 1997. There are not many of them. Even fewer than that were Talismans fitted with EEV tubes. Only a handful of those.With Alistair, there wasn’t really a lot of proper strategy. He just sort of winged it. This episode is a chapter in Alistair’s book.Some old timers may remember a prototype helmet mounted ISG camera (the K-100) displayed at a few trade shows in the early days (not the GB Solo one). That was another chapter in The Book of Alistair. ISG never produced it. It would have been a total waste of time.There were many chapters and many characters in Alistair’s book, some included known names such as Bob Lowrey. Alistair quit writing around 2010 or so.Fraser – on your comments – I don’t know if the Russians copied EEV or Thompson designs, but from my (weak) recollection, they were electrically similar, but pulled a lot more power.Bill – I think the yokes were sourced with the tubes. I don’t know why Charles chose to do it that way.Cheers,David

author: Fraser
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 03, 2025, 09:53:49 am
content: David,I cannot remember whether you previously shared details of Alistairs book. Is it available to buy ?Best WishesFraser

author: Niall135
author_rank: Contributor
timestamp: June 06, 2025, 04:37:50 pm
content: Well with a lot of guessing and a lot of head scratching i managed to get a stable image, very noisy but stable.I just ignored trying to figure out what the blob did but presume it smoothed out the noise im getting.I'll take it that these russian tubes dont give a great image and leave it at that.Back on the shelf for a while before i give it another look.

author: Bill W
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 07, 2025, 05:48:27 pm
content: That is really not that bad for a tube camera.The pixelisation is because the analogue image is digitised and combined (invert-subtract) with that from the previous field at a fairly low resolution. The digital 'circle' may make it look worse to the eye-brainBill

author: Niall135
author_rank: Contributor
timestamp: June 13, 2025, 10:37:01 pm
content: Thanks Bill. The image is far more pleasing through the viewfinder. Only problem is i didn't check the video overlay, which causes the thermal image to collapse after 10-12 seconds. Job for another day along with sorting out an external power connector.