How to Make a Shock Proof System for Your Gopro Hero Camera

Intro: How to Make a Shock Proof System for Your Gopro Hero Camera

this isn't the prettiest thing but i am just testing the concept and it seems to actually work...i dropped it off a 20 ft cliff while cliff diving and it hit the solid ground next to the water and it was perfectly fine.

STEP 1: Things You'll Need

not everything is in this picture
1. lots of rebar(i used conduit though)
2. something to bend your rebar with
3. either a welder or metal epoxy(i recommend the welder but i had to use epoxy cause my dad had the welder with him at work)
4. bungee or elastic of some sort
5. sheet metal
6. sheers to cut the sheet metal
7. electrical tape
8. a flat mount from your go pro
9. hammer and anvil to bent the sheet metal

STEP 2: Bend the Reabar(or Conduit) Into Squares of Size of Your Choice

make two squares size of your choice

STEP 3: Cut Four Pieces of Rebar/conduit

cut them to the same length as the sides of your squares

STEP 4: Mix the Epoxy(not Required If Using Welder)

epoxy usually comes in tubes separate so you need to mix equal amounts of epoxy and hardener (sometimes you can buy it in the shape of a seringe that are together like you see in the background of the picture)

STEP 5: Apply Epoxy

i applied it to the inside corner and placed one of the four pieces on the inside...the epoxy should set in about 10 to 20 minutes...do this to each side

STEP 6: Cut the Sheet Metal

cut your sheet metal into a strip about three inches wide and about 15 inches long

STEP 7: Fold the Sheet Metal

fold the sheet metal into a "U" shape like the picture

STEP 8: Cut the Sheet Metal(again)

cut your "U" some "wings" so you can hook the elastic to the "U" like in the picture...do this to both sides

STEP 9: Hook the Elastic On

i put electrical tape on the corners because they were sharpe...but hook the elastic to matching corners just like the picture shows

STEP 10: Finally Put the Gopro Flat Sticky Mount on the Inside of the "U"

this is pretty self explanatory 

STEP 11: Now Your Ready!

please leave comments on what you thought and send pics of your finished product thank you for viewing my instructable

Comments

[Fly4aWhiteGuy]

1/2" pvc pipe would work fine, and less likely to hurt someone if it hits them.

[Rose Workshop]

And due to the fact that pvc’s lighter, your GoPro would spend more time filming in the air, longer shots that are better for Stories!

Great Work! Gonna attempt it myself!

[Eeroz]

It might be easier to use duct tape instead of messing with epoxy.

And Im also interested in your usage of this device. Are you just clumsy or do you have some sort of extreme usage for your camera?

[roberto22223]

well i go cliff diving alot and when i jump from over 50 feet the sd card would come out for some reason and therefore i wouldnt get the footage so i came up with this to prevent that problem and its a good thing for handles as well....if you also cliff dive do anything that has to do with deep water please make sure you make a lanyard or just tie it to your wrist because IT WILL NOT FLOAT.

[RichardBronosky]

Yeah I kayaking and handed my camera to a friend to get a shot of me because I'm never in the shots since it is mounted to my boat. He wanted me to come downstream and get the camera from him and I told him to just throw it. He said, "I don't trust myself to throw your camera." I said, "It's fine just throw it." From 15 feet away in a seated position he throws it and I in a seated position catch it. Which is a shock because neither of us ever played sports. I say, "See. Nothing to worry about. And if you missed, it's waterproof." He says, "Yeah, but does it float?" That's when it hit me how close I came to LOSING MY BRAND NEW CAMERA ON ITS FIRST OUTING. We're both pretty pathetic at both catching and throwing. We could have tried that 100 more times end never pulled it off.

[Fly4aWhiteGuy]

They sell little floats made of foam, and also float handles & floating wrist straps.
Glad you didn't find out the hard way! I had to grin when I read your near miss encounter!

[Eeroz]

OK, cool! You could add some styrofoam etc. to make it float. Or better yet fill the tubes with styrofoam or just try to make them watertight. That might be enough.

Anyway great idea you got here.

[bjc4073]

Gopro's can freefall literally from thousands of feet in the air (look on youtube) and hit solid ground with no trouble. The camera is completely waterproof, and is undestructable, so I don't really understand why everyone is freaking out.

[NinjaBoy12]

this is only true if the waterproof housing is attached

[Ferriswheel]

Ive seen one fall out of the housing whilst skydiving and it was fine.

[NinjaBoy12]

They won't fall out of the housing unless you purposely open it

[Ferriswheel]

the hero 3 cases had a sliding latch to keep them closed. every other one (including the new hero 3+ case) could be opened by a decent force applied in the right direction. in the video i saw, his gopro hero 2 hit the roof of the plane in the right direction and the case opened, letting the gopro fall out.

[bjc4073]

look on youtube...

[Ferriswheel]

Although this is a brilliant design, and would be perfect for so many other ideas. Gopros are already designed to withstand serious impacts. They are designed to be lightweight so that their terminal velocity is drastically decreased, meaning they hit the ground at a speed that the camera has been designed to handle. The case is designed to withstand even more force- I have seen someones gopro fall off their helmet when they went skydiving, and it hit concrete and still worked (the case had a crack in it but was mainly fine- just not watertight). And cameras themselves are strong enough to fall off a plane and have no damage. I get that you are trying to protect your camera, and i think you designed a brilliant piece of gear here. But Gopros dont need it.

[MartijnD]

Looks a lot like the old Bosch powerbox construction site radio, the new one is a bit less cubic, however the new one, model 360 survives drops of 9meter on concrete while it weighs 11,5kg. Trick; corners from though PP, radio is supported in 5cm long rubbers which need to extend or compress with impact.

[roberto22223]

yes it is a simple concept i thought of when i was little when my school would do egg drop contests where you drop your system from 50 feet and see if the egg inside survived....i won every year with this system so i decided it would be a good i dea to make one for my gopro also :)

[heromorph]

Hi, my octocopter fell from about 100 meter height with gopro attached, when I went looking for it I was expecting to find just pieces of twisted metal, a total mess, surprisingly there were only two broken propellers, it fell upside down, and fell near a very big and deep puddle, fortunately just one motor was under water, but the camera mount broke and i didn't saw it around, so ... it had to be in the water, everything should be ok, because gopro was inside the waterproof case, but . . . I had to drill a hole to plug video cable, so I had not much hope, I jumped into the puddle and found it under water, I were in a hurry to quickly take it out of the case and remove battery, but then I realized that recording led was still blinking!!! I stopped the recording and took the battery off any way, surprisingly there wasn't a single water drop inside the case, the only explanation I have is that the hole must have been all the time in the downside, so it didn't catch any water, so, the big lesson here is . . . gopros are made to LAST!!!

[jf_blanco]

Any pics or videos from your gopro mounted on would be great ;-)

[licenseless]

I used the go pro and contour hd cameras for drifting. I never had an issue with shock and vibration messing up the footage. So i am kind of curious what you use your go pro for... And how well this works. So action footage would be a great improvement here.

[zzbb]

Kind of hard to get the proportions with the close-up use of the fish-eye lens. Great lens for some outdoor stuff though.