Camera Hole

Hey everyone! Let me start by saying I've been looking through a number of posts on mounting cameras, and haven't found the answer I'm looking for.

I'm doing my L3 with my Hyperloc 1600. Instead of using the keychain camera taped to the side, I was thinking of building a mount on the top of the electronics bay that will house a GoPro 3. I've been concerned about how to mount the camera inside with the dual deploy, and thought I can just build a small housing for it on top of the electronics bay. The camera would look out the side, but I'm planning on building a hood with a mirror to look back toward the back of the rocket. My question is how much it will reduce the strength of the tube. It is a heavy LOC bodytube, 5.5" diameter. Would I be significantly reducing the airframe integrity by cutting a hole just big enough for a GoPro lens? I was thinking of putting some fiberglass around the hole inside of the tube to reinforce it if needed.

Thoughts?

How about a Mobius or a 808 in an aerodynamic shroud by our own Landru on the forums he does beautiful work. No tape required and its simple.
https://www.etsy.com/shop/Landru13?section_id=14714306&ref=shopsection_leftnav_3

I have cut holes in the sides of a couple of 4" rockets as well as my 5.5" YouBee in order to mount cameras. The YouBee is constructed of 5.5" LOC tubing without fiberglass.

https://www.rocketryforum.com/showthread.php?10846-YouBee-Build/page2

I use cameras that are shaped such that I can insert them in the holes with the lens sticking out and looking down the side of the rocket. That way, no hood or mirror is required and I can easily access the camera even while the rocket is on the launch pad.

Anyway the holes I cut in the tubes are larger than you will probably need and I can't see any noticeable loss of strength in the tubes. I've flown the rockets on K and L motors with no problem.

-- Roger

rharshberger said:

How about a Mobius or a 808 in an aerodynamic shroud by our own Landru on the forums he does beautiful work. No tape required and its simple.
https://www.etsy.com/shop/Landru13?section_id=14714306&ref=shopsection_leftnav_3

Click to expand...

I have seriously considered this route. I've already got an 808 camera that I tape to my rockets. I was just wanting 1080 HD for the L3 flight, and thought my GoPro would be a good candidate for that.

Here are a few of my videos:

Loc Norad Pro Maxx L2 launch:
[video=youtube;U0PquUslBlc]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U0PquUslBlc[/video]

Estes Argent:
[video=youtube;Rd5AG3H1TC0]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rd5AG3H1TC0[/video]

Estes Partizone:
[video=youtube;Y1HLz14oOfg]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y1HLz14oOfg[/video]

I can definitely understand the desire for better resolution especially for videoing something that only happens once. I saw another post in the last week or so mentioning that you might want to use a special surface mirror for best results, I think it was called a First Surface Mirror where the reflective surface is on the face instead of the back, reducing distortions and ghosting.

I have flown GoPro cameras a number of times on a 4" rocket, just search for "Going Drogue" on YouTube. I have the camera in the avbay, one side of the sled has the altimeter, the other side has a layer of closed-cell foam that pushes the camera (in its waterproof case) against a rectangular opening in the coupler and airframe. The whole front of the camera is exposed and held inside the rocket by the buttons on top, mount on the bottom, etc. Assembling it all is a bit of a puzzle box, but doable.

You are never going to get a mirror/shroud that works with a GoPro, at least without losing most of that wonderful 140 degree field of view, which kind of defeats the purpose of using a GoPro in the first place. I bought a first surface mirror for this very reason, but quickly gave up after a little testing and seeing that 75% of the view was looking at the inside of the shroud. I gave up and just have my camera pointing at the horizon. In my next iteration, I'm going to have the avbay and nosecone come down on a separate parachute, the rest of the rocket spins and pulls on the recovery harness all the way down and makes for some bad video. I've even toyed with the idea of having the camera come down all by itself, probably pointing down. I'm just not sure that it would come down close enough to the rest of the rocket to find it with the tracker.

I'm thinking I may just go with a better 808 camera, or a Mobius and get one of Landru's shrouds.