Friday, June 12, 2009

Free Bike Tripod

It seems that our tool shed attached to the back of the garage seems to be more useful than I ever thought.  Before Stargate SG-1 came on today I went out there hoping to be able to make a homemade tripod for the bicycle handlebars and I wasn't quite able to make something that was acceptable.  There was a 50/50 chance that it could still fall off and break lol.

So I came in the house and watched SG-1 and while I was watching it I started thinking more about it.  I wondered if maybe there was a screw that would fit in the camera on the bottom.  So I patiently waited for it to end then ran out there lol.

I was right, there was one that was the perfect size and it was long enough, although it could've been longer but it ended up being the right fit.

I was going to use the technique that I found here and I tried, I had an old dollar light that the light had broken years ago and I kept the mount for it for this very purpose.  I got the nut out, drilled the hole in it no problem.  But, when I put the screw in and then tried to tighten it the plastic broke so that was no good.

So then I went back into the tool shed and I started thinking what to do next.  I have a new dollar light so I thought well, I guess I'm just going to have to use that and just buy another one.  However, as I was trying to take out the nut I glanced over at the cabinet in the indoor patio which has tools in it and saw the garden hose repair stuff.  A light bulb turned on above my head.  I looked at the light mount and told it that it was it's lucky day and that it has gotten a reprieve, for now.

 So I grabbed the green garden hose piece that has 2 screws, 1 on each side and it mounts on the outside of the hose then I took it out to the table in the back where my drill was already set up with the right size drill bit and I held the hose piece inside my finger while I drilled into 1 of the screw holes.  Perfect.

I put a little piece of rubber inside the top part of it then put it onto the handlebar and screwed in 1 side with the screw it came with then I put in my long screw that fits perfectly into the camera and I put a nut on and tightened it at the perfect angle.  Then I put another nut on the screw so when I put the camera onto the screw then I just tighten the 2nd nut to keep the camera in place.

Here is a picture:hpnx1204

So tomorrow when I go out on my bike ride I will have the camera inside the camera bag right inside the Townie Basket and then as soon as I get to the bike trail I will mount the camera and then start filming from there.  It's much safer to ride with the camera attached while on the bike trail.  I'm just too paranoid that I'm going to have an accident on the streets then have the camcorder fall and break into 10 million pieces.  Besides, I'd rather just focus the video on the bike trail and not the streets.

1 comment:

Bike Cam Video | Mike's Blog said...

[...] went back on the bike trail today with my camcorder hooked up to my mount that I made and when I came home I immediately hooked the camcorder up to the computer and it [...]