cyberknight
As long as I breathe, I attack.
- Location
- Land of confusion
That was on the original battery, i think i had some dud ones according to some posters here.
mini dv md80 camera...
- Thread starter stevo
- Start date
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chillyuk
Guest
I have done a quick lash-up with the external battery, and all seems to be working well. It looks a bit messy at the moment but it is only a prototype.
First impressions are the LED's seem brighter than before with the old battery, and on charge it is the first time the blue light has flashed to indicate charging. It was on charge when I photographed it, hence the USB cable in the bottom of it.
It is an 850mAh battery so should give me a lot longer recording than the original internal battery.
http://s950.photobucket.com/albums/ad346/briarman/?action=view¤t=DSCN0133.jpg&
http://s950.photobucket.com/albums/ad346/briarman/?action=view¤t=DSCN0133.jpg&#!oZZ1QQcurrentZZhttp%3A%2F%2Fs950.photobucket.com%2Falbums%2Fad346%2Fbriarman%2F%3Faction%3Dview%26current%3DDSCN0136.jpg%26
First impressions are the LED's seem brighter than before with the old battery, and on charge it is the first time the blue light has flashed to indicate charging. It was on charge when I photographed it, hence the USB cable in the bottom of it.
It is an 850mAh battery so should give me a lot longer recording than the original internal battery.
http://s950.photobucket.com/albums/ad346/briarman/?action=view¤t=DSCN0133.jpg&
http://s950.photobucket.com/albums/ad346/briarman/?action=view¤t=DSCN0133.jpg&#!oZZ1QQcurrentZZhttp%3A%2F%2Fs950.photobucket.com%2Falbums%2Fad346%2Fbriarman%2F%3Faction%3Dview%26current%3DDSCN0136.jpg%26
cyberknight
As long as I breathe, I attack.
- Location
- Land of confusion
Looks sweet , did you have to solder the battery to the original connectors? and where are you mounting the battery on your helmet?
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chillyuk
Guest
For now I have used a jack plug and socket to connect the battery to the camera. I had to extend the camera wires as when I cut out the internal battery the wires were only about inch and a half outside the camera. I drilled the hole to feed the wires out before thinking about the camera mounting bracket, but fortunately the wires cleared OK. I will pop down to Maplin's tomorrow and get some very thin wire and some heatshrink tubing so I can do a much neater job, and connect the longer wires to the camera inside the camera.
If you follow the red and black wires visible on both photos down towards the camera the battery is the silver thingy with the yellow top. I mounted it beneath the camera mount and it is fastened to the helmet partly by the camera mount itself and partly by a nice dollop of blue tack beneath it! It seems firm enough to go for a ride tomorrow and see how it goes. For the future perhaps self adhesive velcro might be better than blue tack. The wires from the battery were ready fixed on the battery so I just had to solder them to the jack socket.
If you follow the red and black wires visible on both photos down towards the camera the battery is the silver thingy with the yellow top. I mounted it beneath the camera mount and it is fastened to the helmet partly by the camera mount itself and partly by a nice dollop of blue tack beneath it! It seems firm enough to go for a ride tomorrow and see how it goes. For the future perhaps self adhesive velcro might be better than blue tack. The wires from the battery were ready fixed on the battery so I just had to solder them to the jack socket.
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chillyuk
Guest
Update
I have a 8gb class 6 card in the camera. The camera will only record in about 4gb blocks. At 3.9gb it shut down. Press the power button and it starts again for another 3.8gb then it shuts down again. There is plenty of juice in the battery as I have filled up an 8gb card, twice, a 4gb card and a 2gb card. I have had the camera working for several hours and the external battery is fine. I must admit to feeling disappointed though as I had hoped to just be able to start it recording and leave it to fill up 8gb which should cover most of my rides. If things don't work properly, and I can't fix it, I cannot be bothered with them so will probably end up removing it all from my helmet and not bothering until I can find an affordable camera that can record a decent chunk of video.
I have a 8gb class 6 card in the camera. The camera will only record in about 4gb blocks. At 3.9gb it shut down. Press the power button and it starts again for another 3.8gb then it shuts down again. There is plenty of juice in the battery as I have filled up an 8gb card, twice, a 4gb card and a 2gb card. I have had the camera working for several hours and the external battery is fine. I must admit to feeling disappointed though as I had hoped to just be able to start it recording and leave it to fill up 8gb which should cover most of my rides. If things don't work properly, and I can't fix it, I cannot be bothered with them so will probably end up removing it all from my helmet and not bothering until I can find an affordable camera that can record a decent chunk of video.
ian turner
Guru
- Location
- Leicestershire
You can't fit a file in excess of 4gb on any memory card on most such devices. They all use FAT32 formatting with a max file size of 4gb and don't support anything capable of handlinding larger files. Think the sony playstation only handles that format so you can't attach external harddrives formatted in NTFS which would allow larger files as that is not supported.
Hence why I bought a 4GB card. Only buy larger if intending to switch the camera on and off at various points during your ride.
Problem I'm currently having is the LEDs aren't bright enough in day light and it's difficult to tell if it's started to record when the button is pressed.
Hence why I bought a 4GB card. Only buy larger if intending to switch the camera on and off at various points during your ride.
Problem I'm currently having is the LEDs aren't bright enough in day light and it's difficult to tell if it's started to record when the button is pressed.
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chillyuk
Guest
ian turner said:
thanks Ian, I didn't know that and it answers the question.
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chillyuk
Guest
Most come with a small selection of mounting brackets. However my first one came with only the crocodile type bracket, but the second camera came with the crocodile type, a magnetic one to stick to a fridge or something metal, a hinged one which allows you to set the camera angle (ideal for helmet mounting), and I am sure there was another one but I can't remember and I can't be bothered to go and look right now. You need to make absolutely sure what you are getting when you order. Some sellers from the far east are removing the mains charger to save postage weight, which is fair enough as long as they tell you they are doing so. Charging is then done by USB lead.
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chillyuk
Guest
kewb said:
I just looked at my brackets. The hinged bracket can be made out on the photo of my camera on my helmet. Disregard all the blue tack, that's just temporary. The other bracket was the magnetic one that has a ball joint mounted piece to allow the camera to fix on with it's crocodile clip.
You can always get the sports pack which has a wider selection of mounts, brackets and straps and costs about a tenner.
thanks chilly ,
cam arrived today btw heres what came in the pack
silicone sleeve
velcro strap 1" thick elasticated about 8" long
one ball joint clip
one aligator clip
one fixed clip (with slots for a headband which wasnt included )
a landyard
velvet style bag and neck strap
usb link
mains adapter (nifty looking usb lead plugs into bottom of it )
......
brackets dont look too strong but cam is very light ,
cam build looks vg and video quality is impressive ,
it came charged with 2gig card (no card was in description when i bought it so a possible freebie ? )
pleased so far , will post video as soon as i get it mounted etc .
total cost inc postage = £14 and loose change .
cam arrived today btw heres what came in the pack
silicone sleeve
velcro strap 1" thick elasticated about 8" long
one ball joint clip
one aligator clip
one fixed clip (with slots for a headband which wasnt included )
a landyard
velvet style bag and neck strap
usb link
mains adapter (nifty looking usb lead plugs into bottom of it )
......
brackets dont look too strong but cam is very light ,
cam build looks vg and video quality is impressive ,
it came charged with 2gig card (no card was in description when i bought it so a possible freebie ? )
pleased so far , will post video as soon as i get it mounted etc .
total cost inc postage = £14 and loose change .
got it set up on my helmet very secure thanks to mini cable ties set off for trial run and captured some cracking footage of the road beneath my wheels ,
the 2gig card it came with gives 22 minutes of video so an upgrade to 8 gig would be better imho , incidentally that means the 4gig cards give around 40 minutes the same amount of time some say the battery gives in at , maybe its not the battery but the memory ? 3 blue lights = memory full .
will get cam set up better but quality is vg apart from flimsy brackets (easily sorted with cable ties no big deal imho )
instructions are hillarious btw .
the 2gig card it came with gives 22 minutes of video so an upgrade to 8 gig would be better imho , incidentally that means the 4gig cards give around 40 minutes the same amount of time some say the battery gives in at , maybe its not the battery but the memory ? 3 blue lights = memory full .
will get cam set up better but quality is vg apart from flimsy brackets (easily sorted with cable ties no big deal imho )
instructions are hillarious btw .
