SparkFun Forums

[Mighty]

I saw a tutorial on batteries that has a little charger board that looks similar to what I've just run across. That's what brought me here. If this is the wrong site, then I hope someone can point me somewhere more appropriate.

What I'm looking for help on is whether I can safely swap out the lithium battery on a small camera.

I have an oddball application. I like to wear a helmetcam in my hockey games, but I've been doing it on the cheap. Well, medium price I won't go into all the variations I've tried, so far. Just to say that, with all of the recent cameras, battery life has been an issue. My hockey games are routinely about 80 mins elapsed time from when I start the camera in the locker room until the end of the game. Sometimes a bit more, if there's overtime and a shootout. All of the recent cameras top out at around 70 minutes, on a good day.

With one of my earlier setups, I was able to just snip out the little lithium battery and I wired in a holder for a 16550-sized replacement. That battery fits into a gap in the padding inside my helmet.

With the most recent cameras, they allow charging from an external USB power source while recording. I thought that would work, and I do have some games where I've done that. The problem is, with these cheap Chinese cameras, the slop in the USB connector is pretty bad. And, they tend to shut themselves off if their power source flips off for just a fraction of a second when the cable gets jostled. There's enough interference between the cable and my face cage that I lose the recording in at least a quarter of my games.

So, I was going to go ahead and crack it open and wire in a battery, again. But, when I opened this one up, it's a little different than my previous hack.

With my previous camera, apparently the circuitry to protect the battery was contained on the motherboard of the camera. So, it was just the wires running to the battery itself. This one, the QQ7 on Amazon, has two 650 mAh batteries in parallel soldered to a teeny board between the batteries and the camera board. At least, that's what I'm guessing that board does. It looks pretty similar to the one in the tutorial page I mentioned earlier.

I've uploaded a few pictures of the helmet. Here are a couple of closeups of the board, where you can read what's written on a few of the components.





So, my question is, do you think it's necessary and safe to wire that little board between my battery and the camera motherboard? Should I still be able to charge my battery from the camera when it's plugged into the computer? That seemed to work fine with my previous camera.

Thanks,

Drake Christensen

[Mighty]

Bump.

Did I choose the wrong place to post this message? Does anyone know of a more appropriate forum?

Thanks,
Drake

[brianuno]

Your videos make me dizzy. Have you considered a better camera? I have used the cheap imported knock-offs before and had the same problem. At the moment I am using a Polaroid Cube. It may not fit your rig but it is reliable. It's got a powerful magnet which will hold onto the roof of a car.

[Mighty]

As each camera dies, usually due to sweat, even though I tape them up, I take the opportunity to search for something new. This one was Version 5.1 of the cameras I've tried. These cheap Chinese cameras are the only ones, so far, that will fit the physical constraints I have.

I'm not sure a more expensive camera would make much difference. I use Cyberlink PowerDirector to stitch the clips together, and it has a stabilization feature. I tested it out, briefly. That technique necessarily costs a lot of clarity. I found that I prefer a jumpy clear picture over a stable fuzzy picture. It's one of those personal preference things, and I wouldn't be surprised to learn that half the people agree with me and the other half want it the other way.

I went ahead and soldered in the bigger battery. It seemed to work, sort of. Meaning, I did get it to turn on a few times. But, it's a little inconsistent in its behavior if the power gets cut by accident. I have a 2.5x5.5mm connector between the camera and the battery holder. While I'm messing with it in the locker room, it's not all that uncommon for me to accidentally yank the cord.

Anyway, right after ordering this camera, a guy on my team pointed me at the UHWK helmet camera. Judging by the text file used to configure it, it's using essentially the same cheap Chinese hardware. It's a little pricey. And, I question its battery life. Over time, I've found the cheap batteries they use tail off. But, I went ahead and splurged and ordered one. Since it's specifically designed for this task, if it fails I can send it back for a replacement.

Drake

[brianuno]

I thought about this after posting my last reply. I was into sports as a kid. At that time, amateur video was just getting off the ground. My coach used to tape performers from the sidelines. Don't you think a video of your play from off the rink would help your game even more? I have video'd amateur hockey from the stands. The videos are fun to watch.

[Mighty]

I agree, recording from the stands makes for a much better training video. These helmetcams are just geeky fun.

The hard part is getting someone to run the camera. We had one scorekeeper who would entertain himself by making calls like it's a real NHL game. When he called attendance, it was typically, "Tonight's attendance: 8!" The people who show up to the games are usually the spouses/significant others of the players, and they're usually too busy with their own conversations to want to have to concentrate on pointing a camera

I recorded my first game with the UHWK. The camera itself worked well. I need to adjust the shim, because it was pointed too low. So far, it looks good.

I know this is off-topic, but does anyone know of a relatively inexpensive (sub-$200) video editing package that gracefully handles multiple camera angles? I'm currently using Cyberlink PowerDirector. It's okay for splicing clips together, and a few other simple edits that I make. But, it does not do multiple angles very well. It's difficult to sync the tracks, and it does not provide multiple resizable synced windows to let me decide which angle I want to bring to the front. Muting out the music is also a bit cumbersome (YouTube copyright detection.)

Drake