External Battery for GoPro Mounted??

[ericjkelly]

Hey friends!

I will continue to use my GoPro Hero on the roof of my Subaru for this chase season. I love it, but I hate swapping out batteries mid chase. With the batterypac included I can get about 3.5 hours on my gopro.

I would love to maybe mount a external battery pack to the roof and run it to the gopro (knowing I need to drill a tiny hole in the casing to allow the line in.

Has anyone done this? Any ideas how to mount the battery short of just duct taping it


Thanks!

Eric

 

[Hannah.Taylor]

Eric,

I run a gopro as a dashcam in my commercial truck, and rather than doing what you're doing, here's what I do.

12V USB adapter

10' mini-usb to usb cable (from amazon.com they're like $3)

I have gopro 3 white edition. And I use a 64 gb sdhc class 10 card.

It gives me the following recording times
13 hours 10 minutes in 720p
11 hours 15 minutes in 960p
9 hours 5 minutes in 1080p

you have to put one battery in your gopro, but this setup, will allow you run your gopro continuously all day long without having to stop and change batteries.

 

[Jason_Dasho]

Hannah, I can never keep my suction cup mount to stay more then 15 min before it pops off. Any tips?

 

[ericjkelly]

thanks for the help! I do like having the gopro on the roof though. It just gives a better shot than my dashcam

 

[Hannah.Taylor]

Hannah, I can never keep my suction cup mount to stay more then 15 min before it pops off. Any tips?

do you have a cheap suction cup or do you have the gopro brand name suction cup?

I spit on the cup, smear it around with my finger, then I push down on the big black button, and push the lever down. Never had mine fall down.

thanks for the help! I do like having the gopro on the roof though. It just gives a better shot than my dashcam

ok, so run it on the roof, and run the cable through the door jamb on the passenger side, under the weatherstripping, under the trim to the 12v outlet. plug it in. problem solved.

 

[Jason_Dasho]

do you have a cheap suction cup or do you have the gopro brand name suction cup?

I spit on the cup, smear it around with my finger, then I push down on the big black button, and push the lever down. Never had mine fall down.
.

@Hannah.Taylor I will try the spit technique. I have just never have had good luck with any suction cup in my life. thanks

 

[Michael Gavan]

FWIW....I use the gopro Surfboard kit on my truck. I mounted it just ahead of the sunroof. (which is convenient up until the moment 3" hail starts falling.) It comes with an adhesive mount and a tether in case it fails for whatever reason. As far as battery life is concerned, the 3-4 hours I get with the battery pack is usually enough for a typical chase. But I'd like to be able to record cumulus congestus or just drive time timelapses to setups too. For those two things I use a different gopro on the dash connected full time via usb. I don't mind the lower quality through-the-windsheild so long as there is nothing truly significant to record.

 

[ericjkelly]

Thanks all! I just bought a 20ft mini usb and will hard wire the gopro. I wish gopro had a slightly larger case so I could get the mini hdmi into the gopro

 

[Brandon Clement]

Instead of spitting on the suction cups, I ordered a bottle of ultrasound gel off amazon for like $5 and it lasts much longer than spit.

 

[Hannah.Taylor]

Thanks all! I just bought a 20ft mini usb and will hard wire the gopro. I wish gopro had a slightly larger case so I could get the mini hdmi into the gopro

Eric,

can you take a bevel and make a slightly bigger opening to insert the mini-hdmi cable?

 

[Hannah.Taylor]

I also used these adhesive backed wire management clips on the dash to control my wires. I picked mine up at Radio Shack for $6.99 for a package of 10.

but Radio Shack is going out of business, so you can find them on Amazon.com in various colors and sizes.

http://www.amazon.com/Adhesive-Back...938686&sr=8-24&keywords=Adhesive-Backed+Clips

if you ever need to take them off, just pull em off, then spray a little windex and use a wash cloth and the adhesive comes right off without damaging your dash or vinyl.

 

[ericjkelly]

Hannah,

its what I am hoping to do with the mini usb. not sure about the HDMI its significantly larger

 

[Bryan_Knitter]

By far, the best battery I've found for my gopro is the wasabi extended battery. It's the same physical size as the battery bac pac, so it works with the same back covers and doesn't compromise waterproof-ness, but gives much much more runtime. I've clocked almost 7.5 hours @ 1080p30 with my hero3+ silver.

Check it out:
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00MFWO8YA...1427375120&sr=1&keywords=wasabi+gopro+battery

 

[ericjkelly]

Just for fun I thought I would update you all on the progress. The gopro is now hardwired.

I ran both Mini HDMI and Mini USB through the firewall and up to the roof. Attached to the camera another set of cables but with female ends. This way I can remove the gopro when not in use. The connections will be made in a waterproof outlet box on the roof!

Cant wait to try it!

 

[Hannah.Taylor]

how is the setup working Eric?