Action Cam Mounting, hardwiring, auto record etc – Atom 4 specific, but transferable to most

[mynamesnotbob]

So heres another potentially sleep inducing guide to something that is either so unbelievably dull or useful – Go Pro/Action cam mounting and powering!

I pulled this together as I’ve had quite a few questions about it being passed to me about what I’ve done with power and mounting. If this is replicated elsewhere, please let me know and I’ll place it into there. Or pile in and share mounting points, camera tips, whatever – happy to learn some new tips and tricks along the way

So its always good to capture drives etc, mainly track days when I get round to them, but I also wanted to help me work out what I am doing wrong when driving – so I wanted a multi camera setup that was easy fire on and off, giving me more things to look at to work out why I’m slower than a pensioner in a metro, and also makes a video look a bit more interesting…

Camera selection
I’m sure we’ve all done the pros and cons of cameras but here was my run through (please add to the list to help others)

Insta 360 Variation – pretty good but limited to 360 in reality for the X2 and the one RS seemed overkill to have it stuck in afront only position. Still want to add a 360 camera, but was holding out for the One RS that has just been released – more useful for mountain bikes and falling off cliffs etc

• Go Pro 10 – Great action camera, great still extraction on higher res recordings – in reality I didn’t need the above 4k recording option so not worth investing. Need to use RaceRender or RS3 to overlay engine data, this is true for all action cams though

• Go Pro 9 – Most of the bang of a 10, slight drop in quality, but other features lacking like better hypersmooth etc weren’t needed as I turn these off. Plus I had two so would use these front and rear cameras

• Go Pro 8 – Pretty good capture for video, but still extraction not amazing, just good, but still great 4k capture. Lack of narrow view lens not great, stabilisation also not up with the best these days but irrelevant as I switch it off. This lacks the removable lens that was in returned to the 9, so you can’t put the max lens mod – not a deal breaker but limits the options for other sports
  Again I had one so I was going to make use of it

• Go Pro 7 - 4 – all OK but as you got older features became lacking – if you have one though its great to use

• Olfi – One-five – A great camera, will only do 1080p, but its dinky and easily to configure. Yet again I had one so will make use of it

• Aim SmartyCam – real time rendering of data from the AiM MXSL dash and Strada logger – you get your throttle, brake and other key metrics embedded in the video. For the Atom 4 it’s the simplest plug and play option, you wire it in and it just works. I’ve used the GP version before and its great. This is the factory option. If I needed it purely for track driving education this is the one, but I don’t and the limitation of 1080p wasn’t great. BUT if you want to extract all your data from the dash with zero post prod – this is the one. Its also great as you can set it to trigger from movement, engine on, certain speed whatever and you just never have to think about it
  I was also reluctant to use it as I recently sold all my AiM kit including a mint smartycam HD GP – so frankly after selling it at a cutdown price I didn’t want to drop a grand on another.

So end result was I had this little lot being brought together:


• Go Pro 9 x 2 - for front and rear views
• Go Pro 8 - to be moved around the car for interesting shot, passengers, suspension etc
• Olfi One-five - for my pedal cam. I’ve found watching your feet back later massively useful to see how hesitant you are on brakes etc
• A load of mounts


So with all of this lot together I wanted to get the following achieved:
• All properly mounted, no suction cups etc
• Wanted as close to drivers eye view as possible
• Powers via USB – don’t want to worry about batteries
• Able to turn on and off from my seat – can’t be bothered to run about the car checking everything

Next mounting options..

[mynamesnotbob]

Mounts:

I intended to use the frame to mount stuff so went for the proper Go Pro Large Tube mounts, they fit to roll cages so seemed OK for all the frame, fine for rear cam and mounting around cabin

But I needed a decent mount from the front facing cam – most seem to stick to the black plastic piece behind the driver or use a suction cup. I wanted to avoid suction cup and it appears that the engine cover bit wobbles at speed – so a new solution was needed. I described my solution before but here it is again

Right angle steel section cut out:


Bent into shape and welded


Carbon sheet cured then cut to shape, you can see the bolt it mounts to underneath


Mount Done


In Place:


With cam:


This puts it in roughly the same position as the SmartyCam bullet cam the factory fit – I also experimented with a normal mount on an inverted go pro under the airbox. If I am honest it achieved the same for a lot less effort, but has less man in a shed bragging rights!


Next up was the pedal mount – it had to sit between my legs firing at my feet. I went for the Olfi inverted and mounted just under the steering column. Obviously mounting to this wouldn’t have worked so another carbon plate was created. This bolts beneath the carbon dash using the lower bolts (extended due to being 4mm deeper) creating a nice flat mounting surface

So sheet made up


Fixed under dash binnacle as solid as a solid thing, with a go pro mount in place that is bolted to the carbon sheet. Olfi was then slotted in, set to invert, power on USB, record on power on – job jobbed (ignore the AiM hub dangling there, I was doing something else at the time)


Combining these two positions and you can overlay this sort of view with feet in the corner, obviously you feel like a proper driving god, but its genuinely useful to see your pedal actions


I then placed a tube mount on the rear for a decent view, useful on group runs to get a better feel and create some nice cutaways in the vid


And another around the car like this capturing the suspension in action, but I’ll just move this about


So that’s the mounts done

[mynamesnotbob]

Power:
As said I wanted all the cameras to be powered, so needed 4 x USB ports. As already mentioned in this thread (HERE) I used a button on my wheel as a relay to switch things on and off. The end result of all o f below is I press the yellow button


I was planning on using a low power Aux 12v feed in battery tray (presume this is the Aux power option) – giving me an ignition switched feed. Route to the dash area, pass to relay with a feed into the freewheel to switch the relay and from there power 2 x Double USB sockets the same as Ariel use. Also adding an LED indicator

Rough sketch of wiring was (not correct symbols but you get the idea):


These are the USB adaptors used, IP68 rated so good for an opencar or a bike as per their original design


I had the nose off so routed via the factory loom route to get the power and placed the relay and USB Adaptors around the frame.

The factory gives Aux power via Delphi MetriPack 150 series connectors, so its pretty simple to make up a patch cable:


The circle in this pic was the connector I used:


Then routed via the main loom via factory gromit through to dash, route is on the green line


Under the dash the rough routing was as below: Green circle is USB Adaptors, Orange main power, Blue is to LED indicator, Red is to Relay switching it on and off


Now power was in place, I ran power to the foot cam directly, and routed another cable for the spare cam and tied it up for later. Then place two 4m extensions along the routes in orange, leaving the USB ports roughly where the circles are but the port was behind the bulkhead. I followed the brake and clutch lines, all hidden so you can’t see them, behind the bulkhead they are all heatshielded:


From there I plug in USB cords to get to rear of the car, and the centre cam

Now I just press the button on my wheel and the USB ports send power to the cams

This LED pointed to in orange here tells me when its all powered, just a carbon sheet mounted to the brake bias knob – you could add an on off switch instead of switching from the wheel

[mynamesnotbob]

Auto Record

Now cameras are mounted and powered, I then configured the cameras to autorecord in USB power.

For the Olfi its all in settings so its easy

For the GoPros, stupidly by default you still can’t run auto record, or power in USB! But you can do it with GoPro Labs (https://gopro.com/en/gb/news/gopro-labs-launch)
First you need to flash the camera to GoPro Labs firmware, then you can programme them via a QR code.

You can programme things like:
Power on USB
Record on Power on
Resolution, lens width, FPS etc
Record on certain speed etc

So if you don’t want to switch like I have, you can leave the camera powered on, and say sset it to record above 5MPH. So everytime you get going it starts recording.

You simply set the parameters you want via this site https://community.gopro.com/s/article/G ... anguage=en

For instance this is the code for USB Power On, just scan it and you are good to go.


And that’s it – do all that and you can with a press of a button you have multiple camera recording away whenever you want. All cams following the same recordings to after a bit of syncing you can splice together all manner of stuff

Much of the time I will just run front and foot cam, and then add the others for track days and group runs I expect. Being honest editing 3x 4k and 1x 1080p streams can stretch some machines, so you may want to run less or run a lower res. I use Adobe Premier on Apple Silicon so its all fine, so its perfectly manageable, but some older machines will struggle

As far as camera settings I run:
Centre Cam: 4k 60FPS, Linear lens, all stabilisation off, centerweight average metering, auto focus
Rear Cam: 4k 60FPS, Narrow lens (due to aero on the 4), all stabilisation off, centerweight average metering, auto focus
Foot cam: 1080p, Narrow lens, no exposure adjust, stabilisation off
Fill Cam: 4k 60FPS, Linear lens, all stabilisation off, centerweight average metering, auto focus

Stabilisation I do post if needed rather than in camera as I hate the weird gimbal effect you get in cars when using the Hypersmooth etc they have – great for skiing and stuff, not for cars

[mynamesnotbob]

Oh and I didn't go into into how relays work, how to solder, crimp connectors, calculate wire gauge etc - if you aren't happy with this, probably best to get some practice first before pulling apart your car

[Billyb]

That's very informative, thanks! I've just installed GoPro Labs on my Hero8 as a result.

[anx10us]

Fantastic, now working on a QR code for Auto power on, start record at 5mph, stop record at 0mph for 10 seconds at 4k60 not stabilised ..

Could you please provide some information on the relays used ?

[mynamesnotbob]

Fantastic, now working on a QR code for Auto power on, start record at 5mph, stop record at 0mph for 10 seconds at 4k60 not stabilised ..

Could you please provide some information on the relays used ?

Relays were just simple 12v SPST (single pole single throw relay), nothing special. Something like this would suffice, nothing Gucci needed something like this:

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/174515829414

Or this

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/154225978216

For the QR codes, look up the QR control on the app so you can just hold your phone up to the camera and play around as you go.

[anx10us]

Thanks, I've got this far with the QR Code

GoPro should wake up on Power, sit and wait, then start recording at 10mph, then stop recording when at 0mph for 10 seconds, using no stabilisation, recorded at 2.7k 60 fps, camera will then sleep when USB power is off.

Code: Select all

!u1NK8H10!RmVfWr27p60E0!u10E!R

https://gopro.github.io/labs/control/

Code: Select all

!u1N = USB Power Trigger 1 seconds after Start

K8H = Speed Trigger Capture Start Speed = 8
10 = Speed Trigger Capture Hold Time = 10
!R = Repeat speed triggered capture
mV = Movie Mode
fW = FOV Wide
r27 = 2.7K 16x9
p60 = 60 fps
E0 = Hypersmooth stabilisation off

!u10E = end after 10 seconds USB Power is off
!R = Repeat for next USB Power Event