Mobius External Battery for CapCam Clip

Mobius External Battery for CapCam Clip

Record you entire day at the field with a battery that powers the Mobius for hours.

This article demonstrates the evolution my contraptions to film my model's flight. First, I built a sunshade for HandyCam, then I made a CapCam mount from Readi-Board. Following its destruction, I creating a more durable CapCam Clip made from vinyl siding and finally, I added an external battery to power a Mobius for hours of recording. A shout-out to apnewton for influencing the design of the Cap Clip in the article Heat bent PVC parts.

HandyCam Sunshade

Recording your own flights is all the rage. At first I had my daughter use the camcorder, but the plane was hard to see and the screen seemed to always be washed out from the sun light.

I made a sunshade for the camcorder out of black foam core. It was great for reducing sun glare, but it didn’t help keep the camera on the subject (or in focus). Dave Powers built a pipe rig that holds the camcorder and has a “scope” made from a pipes. Essentially it is a PVC chest plate that has a platform for the camcorder and a tube to look through so that you can aim the camera. 

Trent from mygeekshow.com made a dorkcam by putting his iPhone on his cap. I’ve seen lots of really cool solutions on line, so I thought I would share mine.

My first CapCam holder was made from nothing else but Readi-Board. It worked great! As a matter of fact, all the videos I’ve taken until August of 2015 used the foam CapCam mount. However, as always, the Readi-Board doesn’t last forever. After getting smashed in my field box several times, the camera holder started to look a bit shabby. Time for a new one!

Great design of camara clip

Apnewton published an great article on making stuff out of PVC with warming it and bending it to shape (Heat bent PVC parts. Really great ideas, so I took the idea and developed my own clip. One tiny difference, I don’t have PVC pipes sitting around, but I do have a bunch of vinyl siding, so I used it instead.

Siding is easy to cut with a utility knife - just score it a couple of times, bend it back and forth and then pull. Zip!

Warm it up and hold it to shape. I don’t own a heat gun, so I used a regular old hair drier.

When the vinyl warms up, it bends really easily. Just hold it to the shape you want.

Presto! - new CapCam Clip.

Add velcro, or whatever you’re going to use to mount the camera. I use Dual Lock because it is very secure and the camera sits flat and doesn’t rock around like velcro.

Here is the new CapCam I came up with. The “S” curve clips to the bill, a circular piece of velcro helps hold it in place - actually, it isn’t needed, but it was left over from the first version and just ensures the clip won’t slide around.

Thanks apnewton for the awesome design -works great. I use dual lock to attach the camera to the CapCam mount. Dual Lock is super stable and doesn’t form a high spot in the middle of the camera and rock like velcro.

External Battery for Mobius

One addition. The battery on my Mobius needs to be replaced - it doesn’t last like it used to. I haven’t gotten around to getting a new battery, but typically I’m at the field for longer than 2 hours and I keep forgetting to turn the camera off. A camera with a dead battery doesn’t record much.

My solution is to supply the camera with a HUGE external battery. I had a 3S 1600 mAh battery loose one cell, so I removed the bad cell and made a 2S pack. External voltage supply to the Mobius should be 1 Amp be between 5 V and 5.5 V DC as specified here.

The problem arises that the voltage of a 2S LiPo needs to be reduced to below 5.5 V. For just a couple of bucks I got a Mini 3A DC-DC Adjustable Converter Step down Power Supply Module replace LM2596 from ebay or from ReadyToFlyQuads. This is an awesome little DC voltage regulator. I soldered a battery lead to the “in” side and a USB plug to the “out” side. Presto Whamo! Boku power. I have never run out of power at the field. With the battery velcroed to the top of the cap, I have a bigger dork cam than most. If dorkiness is the goal - I win!

Here is video taken with this puppy!

In the end, I have a very stable camara mount that can clip to any of my baseball caps with an external battery that lasts for hours. There are always pros and cons to using a Mobius vs. HandyCam. A pro is the Mobius is a single focus length camera so it doesn't try and find the "right" focus. However, the Mobius doesn't zoom, so if you fly too far away, the subject of the video gets really tiny. The CapCam is more stable than the hand-held HandyCam and if you keep looking foward, the subject is always in the view. One of the best features is that my daughter can fly with me rather then film my flights!