Works fine, mostly, though not as advertised - Armasight Gen 1+ 1x Vega-Mini Night Vision Monocular

After waiting two weeks for this unit to arrive (which I found odd, since the last time I ordered something from OpticsPlanet it took four business days--which is typical for me at my location in Montana), first thing I noticed when I opened the box was a big orange info card stating that the model I received was a "newer generation" that does not take CR123 batteries but rather an obscure 3.7v rechargeable 16340 battery.

While technically the same size as a CR123, the CR123 3v lithium batteries will not power on the unit, whereas the 16340 battery will.

I'm a little taken aback by this, as I ordered a unit that says both here on OpticsPlanet.com and inside the Armasight Vega-Mini manual that it takes CR123(A) batteries. The card, however, seems like this was a recent change in the design, and while cool to be able to take rechargeable batteries, I'm a little miffed that a standard CR123 will not power it on (because I've already invested heavily in that battery size for various other electronics).

The unit did, however, come with 2 of the rechargeable 16340 batteries and a wall charger. OpticsPlanet should look inside one of these to confirm the change in battery format, and alter their sales page accordingly.

Also, the battery cap, after installing a battery for the first time, "clicked" upon seating the cap. I did not even have a chance to snug it down. To my horror, the cap would not unthread. I used the included tool to try to open the cap, and it was seized. After trying to slowly work it open, the tool was bent beyond usage and switching to a nickle and a pair of pliers (on the nickle) and spraying some light sewing machine lubricant in the gap of the cap, was able to brute force it open, with much crunching and grinding.

After getting the cap off, I noticed the threads of the cap 2/3rds the way up from the inside bottom were shredded and galled. I presume, this was from a piece of thread which broke off while seating it with a battery in it for the first time.

After cleaning the threads up as much as I could, and cleaning the battery compartment threads, it will now thread in about 3/4 the way before it stops from the previous bottom-out point. The unit still powers on and works, but I'm pretty nonplussed with that now I have a buggered battery cap and not even 20 minutes with testing this unit out.

I will contact Armasight and try to get a replacement cap but I'm not crossing my fingers...as the current one still works fine, just not as designed.

Overall, when it's on and testing in the dark, it works better than I expected for the price. Does not have as bad of a fisheye rim effect as on the Armasight Spark CORE IIT (though the CORE has better light amplification and resolution).

Granted, it's not an expensive unit, but some of the basic established designs for things like a battery compartment/cap should have been applied. So, I feel a couple of suggestions are in order for Armasight, who at this point should know better:

1) Include a properly-sized o-ring to act as a gasket between the battery cap and the compartment threads.
2) Make the battery cap out of the same grade of Aluminum alloy as the compartment (if the compartment is 7000 series, make the cap 7000 series; 6000 and 6000, etc. Don't mix and match as that's a recipe for galling.
3) Make it so the unit can still work with 3v CR123(A) batteries as well as the included 3.7v rechargeable 16340 batteries.

Overall it works pretty well, aside from the incorrect product information on the order page about the batteries it takes and the battery cap being made out of what seems like hardened peanut butter.