Powering an external Gopro

[Dan Robinson]

A side-effect of using hail guards is that they interfere with 50% of sky view of my primary front-facing dashcam mounted on the windshield. This is forcing me to either build a mount, housing & power line to move the dashcam to the outside during chases, or just use my Gopro as the forward-facing cam during chases when I have the hail guards installed. I have the waterproof housing for the Gopro, so mounting it outside on the hail guards is trivial.

What's the best method to provide external power to the Gopro? Mine only lasts about 90 minutes on its stock battery. I know I'll also have to drill a hole in the waterproof housing for this, which I have no problem with doing.

 

[Marc R. O'Leary]

@Dan Robinson You should check out this thread. Some good ideas in here for remote mounted go-pro's in golight housings.

Granted not as simple as just running power to a fixed mount, but the theory, and example by @Michael Gavan shows some functional and useful options for way less dough than a dome setup.

Alternatively, I suppose you could modify the housing, like you said, and run an extended USB style charger into an inverter or laptop inside.

Or how about this: http://www.adorama.com/SXDVGP4USBC....YWZtjFsV-iuttkxho2TPdqmMMbdRAL4OGYaAqtX8P8HAQ

 

[ericjkelly]

Dan,

I have done exactly what you want to do.

I ran a mini usb through the firewall and along the windshield up to my roof rack.

I drilled a small enough hole to get the mini usb through the housing. I then used caulk to seal the hole.

It works good. I control the gopro via the iphone app wirelessly.

One challenge.....getting the memory card out of the gopro once you have sealed the connection.

Hope that helps!